Patch Leads - pricing

[timbo343]

I am going to try and organise our patch cabinets over the next 6 months so that the cables refer to a colour which refers to the type of device, im sick of seeing all grey or all blue and trying to guess what is what.

 

I have seen CAT6 0.5m cables for £0.62 each in Yellow, Red, Black, Blue, Grey and Green. I prefer Cat6 over Cat5e but the colour selection for Cat5e is better with Black, Blue, Green, Grey, Orange, Pink, Purple, Red, White and Yellow.

 

I was wondering if anyone knows any suppliers who can give a price of £0.62 per 0.5m but offer a better range of colours of patch cables.

 

Thanks

[Jamo]

I am going to try and organise our patch cabinets over the next 6 months so that the cables refer to a colour which refers to the type of device, im sick of seeing all grey or all blue and trying to guess what is what.

 

I have seen CAT6 0.5m cables for £0.62 each in Yellow, Red, Black, Blue, Grey and Green. I prefer Cat6 over Cat5e but the colour selection for Cat5e is better with Black, Blue, Green, Grey, Orange, Pink, Purple, Red, White and Yellow.

 

I was wondering if anyone knows any suppliers who can give a price of £0.62 per 0.5m but offer a better range of colours of patch cables.

 

Thanks

 

 

Only thing I would add -

 

0.5m for a patch cabinet is really short, you will end up crossing over the front of cabs which looks rubbish. Get longer 1 or 2m cables (unless the cab is teeny) you can always post some of the cable round the back to make it neat.

[MatthewL]

Is the rest of your cabling CAT6, if not don't bother with CAT6.

 

We used to do 3 patch panels and switch, 3 panels and switch and 0.5m is perfect for this and nice and tidy.

 

I used to use Comms Express for my cables.

[CyberNerd]

Only thing I would add -

 

0.5m for a patch cabinet is really short, you will end up crossing over the front of cabs which looks rubbish. Get longer 1 or 2m cables (unless the cab is teeny) you can always post some of the cable round the back to make it neat.

 

I would absolutely agree with this. I learned the hard way.

0.5M patch cables suck if you want things to be tidy and manageable. Longer cables and some cable management system is the way forward.

[m25man]

There are plenty of other options such as adding coloured tapes, sleeve Dymo onto fewer colours.

If you have paid good money to get your data over CAT 6 or better to your cabinet using cheapo Cat5 patch cables seems a bit lame to me.

[timbo343]

I use CAT6 all the time even for patch leads, the only thing is existing patch leads (before my time) are still in place (cat5e) i think some are even cat5 but those that are cat5 aren't connected to a gigabit switch but would still like to bring it all up to the same standard. The main structured cabling to machines and uplinks are all at least 5e with 5e being phased out.

[elsiegee40]

I use CAT6 all the time even for patch leads, the only thing is existing patch leads (before my time) are still in place (cat5e) i think some are even cat5 but those that are cat5 aren't connected to a gigabit switch but would still like to bring it all up to the same standard. The main structured cabling to machines and uplinks are all at least 5e with 5e being phased out.

 

We use Cat6 for all new cabling too. It's an upgrade by stealth. I am not even sure you can get 5e easily now.

[mdench]

I would absolutely agree with this. I learned the hard way.

0.5M patch cables suck if you want things to be tidy and manageable. Longer cables and some cable management system is the way forward.

 

Depends on how you arrange your patch bays and switches. We did our main patch area with 0.25m cables with a layout following

 

 

Patch

Switch

Patch

Patch

Switch

Patch

 

Then any odd ports are done with longs using velcro ties holding to the side of the cab.

[ConradJones]

making cables to length is the only real option for 100% neatness. its worth it in the long run. especially if you do it during the holidays, it saves so much tme during term time when you need to be "in and out" as quickly as possibleh

[Jamo]

0.25m?!

 

Without cable management it just goes horribly wrong!

 

Patch

management

Patch

Patch

management

Switch

Management

[localzuk]

You mention a list of colours, but not different types of device.

 

I want to do this here at some point and have a selection of coloured cables ready for it.

 

I can only think of the following:

 

PCs

Wifi

VOIP

Printers

Servers

Oddities (those few devices which don't fit elsewhere)

 

How many colours do you need?

[timbo343]

It would be

 

Red: APs

Yellow: IP Cameras

Green: Printers

Black: Copper Uplink

Either Blue or Grey: Computers

Blue: for computers in the room obviously these would need more than 0.5m

White: Servers

Any other colour for other bits which i cant think of at get moment.

 

As for cables in the main cab where the smoothwall lives along with the ruchus controllers ill have to think of a colour and stick with it. This cab needs a complete rethink as there are patches all over the place, think oct half term may be devoted to sorting that out.

 

Hills Components do them... Hills Components UK and at £0.60 each for the 0.5m and £0.80 for 1m ones

Edited August 31, 2013 by timbo343

[Cache]

I tend to tag patch cables onto a CPC order if I'm after any at any time. RJ45 Patch Leads - Cat6 | CPC | Results

 

I've tried to tidy our cabinets at one point, however I spent 2 days on one once and it didn't look any better at the end of it because the actual cabinet is so damn small!

[nicholab]

I still like using short cables with a patch panned either side of a 48 port switch.

[catch21]

I patch with longer cables and 1U cable-brush-entry panels. Looks neat to my eye. Every cable in the cab should have a unique label at either end anyway. Got the coloured ones from fruity cables.

[CyberNerd]

Yeah, the brush strips are pretty handy to make everything look tidy.

[plexer]

If your infrastructure is cat6 then you need to use cat6 cables otherwise no point.

 

Ben

Edited September 2, 2013 by plexer

[catch21]

...and the other thing about cable brush entry panels is that the hardened connections can go into the frame whereas the soft (or temporary) ones can be patched outside until they harden. Makes the changes obvious. Read the network from the paperwork plus the soft changes then once its settled update the paperwork and harden the patches tidying the whole thing up again. I'll try and post some piccies of my cabs.

[MattRVBC]

Patch save are pretty good!

[sidewinder]

I would absolutely agree with this. I learned the hard way.

0.5M patch cables suck if you want things to be tidy and manageable. Longer cables and some cable management system is the way forward.

 

+1

 

I should know by now after 9 years doing this but still this year I ordered a load of 0.5m, which are fine for the first few patch panels but are just no long enough for the lower ones

[MattDLEA]

What length cables do you normally order then?

[MattDLEA]

Will it cause any issues using cat 6 patch cables in the comms cab when if we dont need to?

Just going to tidy it up we use cat5e at the moment just though using the new cable for if we upgrade?

[MatthewL]

Not really but a waste of money using CAT6 when everything else is likely to be CAT5.

 

Plus CAT6 cables are not as flexible as CAT5 so can make working in a cabinet hard depending on your setup.