How To calculate for Bulk CAT6 purchase.

[maalox]

Hello All,

 

We are adding to our infrastructure this summer and I need to purchase bulk CAT6.

Has anyone found or used some type of data run calculator / formula to get an estimate of how much cable should be purchased.

 

I will be measuring the outside parameters of the building and thought I would be able to calculate my runs from there.

 

Any advice or direction would be greatly appreciated.

[featured_spectre]

length of distance between each room required +5m slack, per run.

 

Anything over 100m I recommend running fibre to another comms cab in the area you are trying to run too.

 

10x 30m runs (with additional 5m per run) comes in at 350m. You'd need 4 boxes of 305ft cable to be able to do the runs.

Edited June 3, 2013 by featured_spectre

[maalox]

length of distance between each room required +5m slack, per run.

 

Anything over 100m I recommend running fibre to another comms cab in the area you are trying to run too.

 

10x 30m runs (with additional 5m per run) comes in at 350m. You'd need 4 boxes of 305ft cable to be able to do the runs.

 

 

I will give that a shot. Thank you for your help.

[plexer]

You're doing this yourself?

 

Ben

[maalox]

You're doing this yourself?

 

Ben

 

We will have a few student helpers over the summer probably 4

[featured_spectre]

add 10m per run to factor in mistakes made on terminating the cables along with runs not being as short as you thought.

[Kingstech]

I've got 2new it suites that I've got to wire up over the summer. Most of it will be done by me with very little help.

[mjs_mjs]

buy boxes in pairs - if you need 5 boxes - buy 6, running two cables from 2 boxes at the same time is easier and quicker than 2 from one box. Also if the cable doesn't have the meter markers on the side (showing what's left usually) write on the box how much you used so far.

[john]

Agree on the two box trick much easier to do that even if you only (for some strange reason) need a single point you can pull a bit more on the other to the next one

 

As for sizing quick room measure and then work backwards I only ever work in full meters always rounding up usually taking 1M off each set of points the closer it gets to the cab / add 1 on for the further away when working within the room as I have usually established a distance for the cab to room entry point Never been too far out either or had a disaster

[chazzy2501]

I saw my installers (I don't recommend doing yourself) use 6 boxes at once.. cool. They also left the spare boxes behind.

[john]

I saw my installers (I don't recommend doing yourself) use 6 boxes at once.. cool. They also left the spare boxes behind.

 

Can beat that 24 was run by a firm I know the other year was impressive to watch they pulled 24 through this corridor and then split it into chunk inside the area they were doing was great

[strawberry]

If your running to an IT room it might be easier to run less cables and use a switch and patch panel in the room.

[mjs_mjs]

Can beat that 24 was run by a firm I know the other year was impressive to watch they pulled 24 through this corridor and then split it into chunk inside the area they were doing was great

 

that's crazy - 4 seemed a sensible amount last time I was doing a large cable install. (pulling 2 further to allow for socket spacing)

 

May sound really silly but label as you go so you know which cable goes where. - nothing more annoying than a wall plate with 7 and 19 on it because you got the cables mixed up in the bundle.

[Boredguy]

I saw my installers (I don't recommend doing yourself) use 6 boxes at once.. cool. They also left the spare boxes behind.

We used 6 boxes per pull back in the Feb half term when we were adding extra points into our 2 main IT suites.

Used electrical tape to join 2 cables for the point, then taped all 6 together. Made it so much easier to pull them though the roof void and then down the new ductwork onto the bench (and meant I had to make less trips over the rafters to pull all 18 outlets )

[sparky2488]

We used 6 boxes per pull back in the Feb half term when we were adding extra points into our 2 main IT suites.

Used electrical tape to join 2 cables for the point, then taped all 6 together. Made it so much easier to pull them though the roof void and then down the new ductwork onto the bench (and meant I had to make less trips over the rafters to pull all 18 outlets )

 

Couldn't agree more, single cables (even twin for that matter) have a tendency to snag in voids, six upwards is a good number as long as you number them to the box they come from. I would also keep tape to a minimum when creating the bundles as if anything goes wrong either at installation of at a later date, being able to pull a single cable within the bundle as a draw cable to replace a damaged one is a lot easier. Also avoid the cable having tight kinks when pulling, this can damage a core and result in one of the cables failing. I've done loads of installs in Cinema's pulling upwards of 200 cables to IT and AV kit..... kroning them to the patch panel is mind numbing :-(

[MatthewL]

Often had my cable contractors when I was at last place pulling 6 or so through at once.

[Kingstech]

I've pulled 16 at once before. The run was about 50m. It was easy to pull them in the roof space. I was running 2cables to each point.