Torn Cable Jacket Repair: A Game-Changing Solution

Polywater's new Cable Jacket Repair Kit offers a game-changing solution for torn cable jackets that restores waterproof protection without needing expensive splice enclosures. Ryan Murphy from Polywater explains how this innovative product came about from field conversations with service providers and details its unique two-part epoxy formulation designed specifically for polyethylene cable jackets.

• Developed after identifying a critical need for reliable cable jacket repairs in aerial and underground installations
• Tested to withstand extreme temperatures from -60°F to 250°F and 1,000 hours of UV exposure
• Features a thixotropic (dripless) formula that makes application easy even in overhead scenarios
• Provides approximately 10 repairs per $45 kit, bringing cost down to about $4 per repair
• Takes just five minutes of working time with a two-hour cure time
• Creates a waterproof, debris-resistant seal that maintains flexibility for moving cables
• Effectively adheres to polyethylene, one of the most difficult materials to bond with
• Works for both aerial and underground applications without needing air or UV to cure

Check out Polywater's application video on their website to see exactly how to apply the Cable Jacket Repair Kit for optimal results.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Cable Jacket Repairs
• 4:27 Meet Ryan and Polywater
• 11:31 Creating the Repair Solution
• 19:15 Product Testing and Performance
• 27:12 Application Process and Best Practices
• 33:14 Storage and Cost Considerations
• 39:40 Final Questions and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wiremonkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. Have you ever had a cable jacket get torn on you and you feared making the phone call to your project manager so telling the boss I broke the jacket on the cable.

Speaker 2: 0:17

You want to listen to this show to go. Fiber optic dreams shining bright, copper cabling strong we're reaching new heights.

Speaker 3: 0:28

With every connection, we're changing the game.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Innovators unite, we're rising to fame, unlocking the future, hands on expertise in this digital age.

Speaker 1: 0:39

It's our time to seize let's talk cable and feel the energy rise. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by apprentices, installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, customers, even ICT personnel. We are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. Ict personnel, we are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry.

Speaker 1: 1:28

Wednesday nights, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on TikTok, instagram, youtube, facebook, linkedin, anywhere I can send the feed out to. Well, you get to ask your favorite RCDD. You know I'm your favorite RCDD questions on installation, design, certification, project management. I even do career path questions. But I can hear you now, chuck. I'm driving my truck in for 6 pm on Wednesday nights. I don't want to get into an accident. I record them and you can watch them at your convenience. Also, while this show is free and will always remain free, would you click on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours. Of course, you can even buy let's Talk Cabling t-shirts.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So, like I said in the intro, we've all done this and if you're trying to tell me you didn't do this, you're lying. We've all had cable jackets get torn and ripped for various reasons. You know either you pulled on it too hard or it was a sharp edge, or cable burn going to pull through cable trays. We've all had it. And we've all have feared that phone call to the project manager. Hey boss, remember that 24-strand fiber that we backcored and took forever to come in? Yeah, I broke it. That's not a fun conversation on either side of that phone call. And I've been on both sides of that phone call, unfortunately so recently.

Speaker 1: 2:53

You know me, I'm always perusing the low-voltage stuff. Your products services people's work out on the job site. I live and breathe low-voltage. And I came across a new product from a familiar company. Now they've been on the show before, polywater, and they're known for cable lubrication and we talked about that before, but they came up with a really cool product that I really want to talk about today. It's called their Cable Jacket Repair Kit, or CGAR kit. I'm bringing on the show Ryan Murphy from Polywater. Ryan, welcome to let's Talk Cabling. How are you doing my friend Phenomenal.

Speaker 3: 3:29

I really appreciate jumping on the show and, yeah, it's just a blessing to be here.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Absolutely so. Give us the 50,000-foot view. Who are you and who is Polywater?

Speaker 3: 3:42

I'm Ryan Murphy Polywater. If you look us up in the dictionary, we are a niche chemical manufacturer. We provide solutions to utilities service providers, you name it. We are here just to provide solutions. What I do is I'm a sales manager. What that means is not necessarily selling, it's more educating.

Speaker 1: 4:05

If anything, I hear you, yeah, exactly it's funny. If anything, I hear you, yeah, exactly it's funny. You really like the show that I did two weeks ago. I brought a guy on, tim Carroll. He wrote a book Sales by the Book, and the whole entire thing. We talked about sales. You would love that show. You should go back and watch it. It's a good show.

Speaker 3: 4:23

I have to yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Yeah, because I tell everybody all the time, everybody's a salesperson, even the, even the apprentice out in the field, right? So I want to bring this up into three parts. The first one first part is going to be talking about what inspired Polywater to come up with this. The second one is how did you test it? And then the third section will be how can techs in the field or designers in the field actually use this product, right? So let's start off with the whole genesis of this right. What was the first incident or first call that convinced Polywater that you guys need to come up with a new system?

Speaker 3: 4:58

You know. So it actually stemmed from a sales call that I was on with Jake Jones, who actually has been on the show a couple of times, as you said previously. But we met with a service provider up in northern New Jersey and if you can imagine a lot of fiber up in the northeast, particularly northern New Jersey, new England, it's a lot of aerial plant. Reason being is the geology it's a lot of granite, it's hard to get underground and not to mention, even if they go underground they got to get the permitting and then it's even harder to execute getting it underground. So all that to say is this particular customer wasn't necessarily a perfect fit for a lot of polywater products.

Speaker 3: 5:37

Our products are designed for a lot of underground fiber, underground electrical cables what have you? You? So this was a unique customer in the fact that they were just curious. They were very curious about polywater. What we did you know how we're a smaller company that provides solutions and just kind of led to a discussion, an actual discussion of you know what are some problems that you guys have? And lo and behold, the number one problem was cable jacket cuts, lacerations in their aerial plant from trees, squirrels, you know, accidents, what have you, and again, that's where it was kind of start and from there we developed the product.

Speaker 1: 6:14

So, as installers, we've always had tape and epoxy kits already, so what gap did Polywater see that made them develop this product?

Speaker 3: 6:22

You know. So there's tape and there are epoxy kits right, but I attribute that to more of like, let's say, like a fax machine. Fax machines still exist for communication, but what I'm getting at here is there's always room for innovation, and we saw that there was room for a lot of innovation here. And you know, tape is going to work. The performance is going to be underwhelming. It's going to fail over time In certain areas, it's going to fail immediately.

Speaker 3: 6:48

Epoxy kits you know there are epoxy kits out there that might work. There's nothing that's specifically designed to repair lacerations in fiber cable jackets. Polyethylene cable jackets. Cable jackets polyethylene cable jackets you know polyethylene, as a material, is famously hard to adhere to, it's not easy to stick to and then, not to mention, cables are constantly moving, especially aerial cables. So you know, yes, there are some alternatives and options out there, just nothing that was specifically designed for this. So that's where we saw the room and that's why we decided hey, you know what? This isn't a problem just for this service provider in New Jersey. It's probably a problem of massive scales across the country. So you know, we saw a lot of room for innovation there.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Gotcha. So how long did it take you guys from that lightbulb moment to ding? Hey, this is a good thing. How long did it take you from that light bulb moment till you actually started, till you launched it?

Speaker 3: 7:49

About 18 months, so about a year and a half, um, and that is from literally in the call in New Jersey, uh, to getting back to Minnesota and immediately meeting with our lab, um, and having a beginning discussion of of, hey, what's the problem, what's the solution, what are some ideas that we can start with. And really that was the brainstorming session From there. You know, this was actually my first time in a product development process, right, so I learned a lot during this process. And you know, 18 months it can fly by and that's honestly relatively quick for, you know, a solution like this to just boom from light bulb to hey, we have a solution and we're ready to market it and we're ready to get it out to customers immediately on how they come up with a new product, from the time they envision it until they come up with the first unit, and then the second revised unit, the third revised unit and the fourth revised unit, and then they put it out for beta testing.

Speaker 1: 8:53

People don't realize it's not an overnight thing. It just is not. Not if you want a good quality product, right, which Polywater is famous for. Everybody's used Polywater cable lubricant, or they should be using poly water cable lubricant.

Speaker 2: 9:06

I'll just leave that right there.

Speaker 1: 9:09

So how long has this product been out now?

Speaker 3: 9:12

You know, about a month, maybe five weeks, you know if the official launch you know, has been really successful. I mean, the hardest part for us, you know, once we've developed it, once we've launched it, is making it aware to people. You know, a lot of times when there's a problem like this, if there's not a solution for so long, the problem just becomes normal. That's just day-to-day what happens and they just go throw some tape on it. So it's been out about five weeks and my job recently has just been I need to get the word out and you know that's another reason why we're here today as well. Gotcha, have you gotten any early feedback from contractors on it yet? Yeah, so I mean early feedback. I guess I would attribute to maybe some of the feedback we received during the product development process. So obviously during that process we needed to get in-field feedback right. Obviously during that process we needed to get in-field feedback right. We needed to hear from customers about you know how do we adjust from the formulation and create iterations of the particular formulation to make sure that it's fit for the field. Because if there's one thing that we know at Polywater, it's how to create solutions. But you know, we can only help and we need the input from the field.

Speaker 3: 10:23

So I guess the early feedback one thing I can point out that's specific would be you know, some of the early formulations of CJR were really hard, they were dense, because that's what we were trying to do. We wanted to provide a proper seal. You know, this isn't just a repair. This is a long-term seal to keep debris and water out from. You know is a long-term seal to keep debris and water out from. You know, infiltrating the actual cable. Um, so you know, one of the first pieces of feedback we received was hey, you know, this is great, but you know, if it's gonna bend, if the cable's gonna bend at all, especially an aerial plant where it's, you know, vulnerable to wind and it's gonna bounce a fair amount, it needs to maintain its form. So that was a huge finding from the field of okay, this is hard enough, but it's got to be flexible too, guys, and that was probably the most important piece of feedback that we received.

Speaker 2: 11:14

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Speaker 1: 12:10

Let me ask you this, and you probably got known Polywall, you guys probably have. Have you guys really thought about how this product is going to save the customer time? Because now they don't have to go buy a splice enclosure and install it, because now they don't have to go buy a splice enclosure and install it.

Speaker 3: 12:26

Oh, it's going to save them a massive amount of time. I mean, even if we're looking at an enclosure or even some other solutions that we haven't talked about, you know, heat shrink, cold shrink those still take a lot of time. And not to mention, we're not just saving them time but money as well. I mean, how much is an enclosure going to cost them? How much is a heat shrink going to cost them? The hours that it takes to do a repair like that? You know, with something like this, you know that was the goal we need a high-performing solution that's simple for the technician to use, that's cost-effective at the same time. Right?

Speaker 1: 13:04

Absolutely, and I appreciate you sending me the kit. I got a piece of outside plant fiber out up in the new podcast studio. I'm going to purposefully damage it, purposefully damage it, and then I'm going to go ahead and use the system. I like the system. It comes with the two-part. I don't know. Is that an epoxy? Is that what that is? The syringe there?

Speaker 3: 13:24

Yeah, inside the syringe, yep, inside the syringe, yep, yep. You got part A and part B and it's an epoxy that you know. That's the actual CJR formula that you're going to be mixing together and putting onto the cable.

Speaker 1: 13:37

You know I've got to ask this because you mentioned aerial cable plant. I live in Florida. I can't. I have a farm.

Speaker 3: 14:00

I use tie wraps for everything. Tie wraps literally last me again, because you got to kind of understand that when we were initially developing this, this was for aerial plants, so we understood that the conditions that it was going to be, you know, under, we knew that the sun is going to be blasting on this stuff and not to mention, these cables are black. They get pretty hot anyways and they're attracting the UV quite a bit. So that was another piece that was absolutely crucial. We cannot bring a solution to market unless it's UV resistant. That was just a non-negotiable.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Yep, I know you guys didn't bring this product to the market without testing it. I mean, I know, you know I guess I've had Jake on the show a couple of times and we've talked about the engineers. I know you guys like testing stuff. Let's talk about how you test it, right. Let's talk about first off lap shear. Right, it's tested, I think, if I remember right, to 150 PSI. Isn't that correct Around there? Yeah, yeah, and I think that actually exceeds what the lap shear of a cable jacket actually is, isn't it? Yeah?

Speaker 3: 15:02

it actually is, isn't it? Yeah, it does. I mean, to my knowledge, based off what I've looked up, it's around there. So what temperature range did you test this to? So in terms of so there's two temperature ranges that we have to kind of understand here. So the first one is working temperature, and when I say that that's talking about once it's cured, once it's on there and the repair is done, that temperature range is pretty darn large. I mean, we're talking about negative 60 degrees Fahrenheit on the cold end, all the way up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. So really, when we're talking about areas where this might not be solutionary, you're a little worried about using it in Alaska or you're worried about using it in Arizona. You know there's not many areas in the world where it gets up to negative 60. I mean and that's true temperature, we're not talking about wind chill. I'm from Minnesota. I've seen negative 60 on the feels like tab on the weather app. I've seen that a few times, but it's pretty rare. And again, 250 degrees Fahrenheit on the top end. We're not going to see that anywhere. So that's the working temperature.

Speaker 3: 16:06

Where we start to see maybe some slight limitations is potentially during the application process, because this is a two-part epoxy, that you know. The two parts need to intermix and they need to cure together. So temperature can kind of be the issue here. You know, especially when it gets a little colder we typically want to tell customers that it needs to be above. You know, especially when it gets a little colder we typically want to tell customers that it needs to be above. You know, freezing around 35 degrees is going to be the best, but it's not to say that if it's 35 degrees out they're not going to be able to get a repair on there. There's ways to do it.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Right. So you said you know the working temperature and the working time. So 250 degrees that's an extreme, right, that's extreme. And again in Florida, again we probably we don't get into triple digits often, although sometimes it always feels like it's in a triple digit, especially in August and July and September. But again that UV light is going to heat up that black jacket, like you said. So I don't think it's going to be an issue. But I noticed when I was looking at your product documentation, your tech sheets, it said something about UV blockers survived 1,000 hours. Can you explain what that test is, 1,000 UV hours?

Speaker 3: 17:22

sorry, yeah, to a certain extent. You know there's for me there's some limitations. You know I talk with the lab often but I'm not in the lab. To my understanding, and I don't want to mislead anybody, but to my understanding they do a lot of testing that is accelerated right. So they have to accelerate the time because we're not going to wait. You know, if we do testing on, you know, a duct sealant or anything like that, we need to accelerate its aging. So they do that in ovens a lot of times where they need to have some heat involved. But to the full extent of the specifics of that particular test on the UV, I'm not the guy that you'd be asking about that one, that particular question.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Gotcha, gotcha.

Speaker 3: 18:03

I don't blame you, I don't blame you when you said that you tested it in the lab. Right, because, again, my day job, I work for manufacturing we do the same thing and you can't you can't, literally cannot have put a jack into, you know, put it somewhere and let it sit for 25 years before you roll out the product. Right, you've got to figure out ways to accelerate that process and that's that's what all manufacturers do. They just doperson. You need to get as much you know, information from the field as possible. So I was still asking every customer I met with hey, do you see this very often, especially when I'm traveling out in, let's say, iowa, a lot of underground plant, and we just learned that there are more cases where it happens underground as well. So it's designed for both.

Speaker 3: 19:06

Again, this being a two-part, it doesn't need any, you know, air moisture to cure. It doesn't need any UV to cure. It's going to cure based off of the formulation part A and part B. So, in terms of curing underground, it's exactly designed for that. In terms of curing an aerial plant, it's exactly designed for that. This is a solution that is going to cover really all the bases for us in terms of preparing lacerations and cuts to fiber cable jackets. Again, the one thing I will note is this is not a solution if the fibers are cut. This is the solution where the jacket's cut right.

Speaker 1: 19:41

The jacket's torn. So let me ask what's the recommendation from Polywater if the jacket's torn and the armor is torn, but the copper or the fiber is not torn? Is it still good with that, or is?

Speaker 3: 20:00

there a recommendation that you guys have found in your testing on how to apply that. So for us, at this point in time again, this product being so new, we're still learning from customers. You know we're still learning about unique scenarios but at this point in time, as long as the fibers are intact, this is a good solution. Hammer cut, sheath cut, whatever you want to call it. If there's a cut and the fibers are no longer excuse me, the fibers are intact this is going to be a solution for you.

Speaker 2: 20:29

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Speaker 1: 21:14

Yeah, I can hear the installer screaming at me. Now Again, chuck, how much time do I have from the time I mix those two parts together to actually apply this, and how long do I have to wait before I can bury it in the ground?

Speaker 3: 21:26

Yeah, it's a great question. Again, going back to the design of the product, again being simple, so you know this stuff, it has a working time of about five minutes. So, again, once you dispense it out of the syringe and you mix it, you got about five minutes of working time to get it onto the cable and spread it across the repair area, depending on the ambient temperature, but it's comfortably around five minutes. Um, once they have it applied, really it's, it's going to take about two hours for it to become fully cured. Now, bear with me on this answer here. That's two hours for it to cure and you don't have to sit there and wait for it to cure. You don't have to blow on it, you don't have to. You know, leave it to the air, moisture, the uv, you can put it back in the ground, you can put it back, you can retention the cable, you could put it back in the hand hole. That's, that's all good and fine.

Speaker 3: 22:12

The one thing that we did add into the instructions was we said if preferred, you can tape over it. Again, the only reason that we have that stated in there is, let's say, you know the instance of you know there was a cut in a hand hole and you know they don't want to. You know they put the CJR on there. They don't want to just throw it back there right away, unless they tape it. And the reason why I say that is because this stuff is still. It's still curing and it can get on, maybe the inside of the handle or it can get on other cables. So to mitigate that, I always tell folks it doesn't hurt to put tape over it. So to mitigate that, I always tell folks it doesn't hurt to put tape over it. All you're doing is just making sure that it doesn't get anywhere else. To that, you know, and to that point tape is not needed.

Speaker 1: 23:05

Again, you don't need the tape, but it's more so if you want to extend the processor, just get moving on with your day. Tape it up, throw it back on the ground, re-tension the cable. You're good to go. So does this bring the cable back up to being?

Speaker 3: 23:12

waterproof again once you install it. Yeah, and that's what we're doing. I mean, we want to make sure that no water gets in here, and some of the customers that I've talked to, especially up here in Minnesota, which is where I'm from, that's the biggest concern Water getting in, and then it gets cold out and and it freezes and then your fibers are cracked and for a full area or a large segment of the fiber.

Speaker 1: 23:33

So, yes, that's the goal with this one and that's what we can say for teaching me new words, and one of the new words I came across this looking at your documentation is I hope I pronounced this right thixotropic.

Speaker 3: 23:52

Yeah, I think you got it. I think that's right.

Speaker 1: 23:56

What does that mean? Because you guys say that this product is thixotropic. What does that actually mean?

Speaker 3: 24:02

So let's go in layman's here and let's just talk about it up on at our level, Chuck, at our level here. Basically, that is ensuring that it's dripless, right? Because and that was again going back to this being designed more so our thought was aerial. Our thought was somebody's going to go up in a bucket truck and they're going to be working with this stuff. We don't want it to fall on them, we don't want it to be, you know, thin and a thin viscosity, so it's dripping onto them. So we need to make this, how we call it, dripless. So that's kind of what that means for folks like us and technicians out in the field. Now, one point we'll talk about here later in the show is the perfect repair and we'll talk more about, you know, the dripless factor of this.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Actually, that was the very next question, right? Could you walk us through from the moment that the tech gets this? They got a cable repair, they got their cable jacket repair kit. Walk us through a high level, Don't go into the weeds, but high level. What are they going to have to do to install this?

Speaker 3: 25:12

So the first thing they're going to do is they're going to put their PPE on, right. They're going to get their eyewear on, they're going to get their gloves on we're going to start there and we're going to cover our butts here. But so the first thing is they're going to, you know, take a look at the area that needs to be repaired, right, let's make sure that the fibers are intact and let's make sure that this is, you know, a good use case of CJR. Next thing, they're going to grab a solvent wipe. You know, preferably, I'd say, a fast evaporator, because we don't want to put this on. You know, something that's wet. They should wait until it's dry, or dry it off.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Give us an example of what is a fast evaporator. What would they use? Because I guarantee if I type fast evaporator on Amazon, nothing's going to come up. So give us an example of what a fast evaporator is.

Speaker 3: 25:56

I mean technically, you could use something like a high purity alcohol, right Like a 99.8% anhydrous.

Speaker 1: 26:04

And we got that. We're doing fiber, we've got that in the truck.

Speaker 3: 26:08

They got that. As we're doing fiber, we've got that in the truck. They got that and they can use that and and by the time they get this all ready and they've wiped it down, it's going to be dry for them to go um, so they could use something like that, um, and and from there, you know, they're going to assess it, they're going to get their kit, they're going to pull out, you know, the syringe. Grab some sort of disposable surface again, we don't provide that in the kit. You could use the box for all I care, piece of cardboard, piece of paper, something that you're going to be dispensing, the two parts onto, get your syringe, take the plug off, dispense, you know, depending on the size of the cut. You know maybe a quarter size amount or half dollar, maybe a little bit bigger. Obviously it depends on the. You know both the size of the cable and the size of the laceration, the. Obviously it depends on both the size of the cable and the size of the laceration.

Speaker 3: 26:48

The kit comes with 10 mixing sticks. They'll grab one of those. They're going to mix it for 10, 15 seconds really, until it becomes that uniform color of black and from there they're just going to just like peanut butter on toast, grab the stick, lather it on the full circumference of where the laceration occurred, right. So this is going to help not just with the adhesion, but just kind of make sure that that's going to be securely on there and seal it from again. The water, the debris, what have you? From there? They're going to put the plug back on the syringe, because this is a multiple-use solution. Plug back on the syringe, put it back down If they want to. This is when they can walk away. Or, you know, take the bucket down if they want to. They can add some tape if needed, but that's it. They're pretty much done from there.

Speaker 2: 27:34

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Speaker 1: 28:13

Email, chuck at advertising at letstalkcablingcom and let's connect your brand to the right audience today, what do you see as the number one mistake that a crew is going to do on their first try when they're trying to use this cable jacket repair?

Speaker 3: 28:30

That's a great question, and this goes back to an earlier discussion that we had, back to the fixotropic dripless discussion. They're going to put too much on. They're going to put far too much CJR onto the area that needs to be repaired, and this is going to be especially true for those with maybe smaller fiber counts. Know, a smaller outside diameter cable, a little bit of this stuff goes a very long way. Um, in fact, you know, I think it's, you know, a one and a half millimeters thick is all that's required to get cjr. So it really the amount, is going to be the thing that they're going to. Probably that's going to be the mistake.

Speaker 3: 29:10

Now, to that point. It's not like it's going to give them an improper repair, it's not like CJR isn't going to, it's just not going to look good, it's just well. And then that goes to the point where let's say it's Ariel and they put too much on. If you put too much of this stuff on, the potential for drip increases, right, so you might get some on your shirt if you put too much on. So that's again to my point. We're creating awareness for this product, but also you got to tell them just the little nuances of how it works.

Speaker 1: 29:39

And how to apply it. Again, my ADHD is kicking in right when you start talking about dripping and getting on your shirt. Is there an MSDS sheet for the cable jack repair kit?

Speaker 3: 29:51

There's a safety data sheet.

Speaker 1: 29:54

They change the name of them. That's right.

Speaker 3: 29:56

Yeah, SDS sheet. Those are available, readily available to anybody.

Speaker 1: 30:01

And that tells how to deal with it, how to deal with spills, stuff like that, all the normal safety data sheets. So let's say that I'm looking at the kit and how much, how big of a gap. I'm assuming there's multi-uses for this. That's probably why you have a resealable syringe right. So for you, multiple uses. So my question is, if I store this, do I have to take any special steps? Like again, I'm thinking in your paperwork you talk about Phoenix. I've been to Phoenix, I've taught in Phoenix.

Speaker 1: 30:39

It gets hot in Phoenix. You know where it gets hotter In the back of the work truck, in the van. I've literally seen it melt things. I've seen there's this thing called a oh, I can't think of the name of it. It's a puck that technicians use to comb cable and I've seen where technicians have left that on their dash and it melted the plastic Right. So since it's multi-use, do you guys have any recommendations for storing this so it doesn't get you know, so it still works when you want to use it six months or a year down the road?

Speaker 3: 31:13

Yeah. So I guess my first, the first thing to say is once you do your first repair, so it's 18 months shelf life. Once you open it or you do your first repair, you do have about 30 days. So to that point, some of the customers that have already ordered it, when they have ordered this, they've been going out and that's their MO for the day. Let's go find laceration, let's let's go find cuts and let's go repair them. So you know there is a limiting factor in that sense that the shelf life falls so far down after the first repair.

Speaker 3: 31:43

But you know, once you do your first repair and how to keep it, you know in a good condition, make sure you put the plug back on. I mean, that's a non-negotiable. You know you don't want it exposed to air. That's just going to hurt you in terms of how long it's going to be performing at a high level, like most polywater products. Again, for a chemical manufacturer, all of our products, we want them in a cool, dark place, dry place as well. Cool, dark and dry. That's where we want these to be, you know placed. And to that point it's one of those things that you know. You hope the technician out there he's got it misdropped. You hope that he remembers to bring it back in the office or the warehouse or the temperature controlled area.

Speaker 1: 32:22

That's the goal. The cable jacket repair kit. Just what's the off the shelf price, Not the special. I'm ordering 75,000 of these things, but if I just go and buy one, I'm assuming I can buy this at any local distribution like Graybar, Annexer, CSE, or is there a?

Speaker 3: 32:37

special, you know. So we I mean we have a lot of distribution partners across the country. So you know, I'd urge customers, just go to your preferred distributor and ask them to get it to you. They'll be able to get it to you. But you know, I can give you ballpark pricing.

Speaker 3: 32:51

Um, you know, again, going back to the point of when we designed this, we needed to create something that was high performing, simple at the same time cost effective. That's the goal. So you know, it being a multi-use tool, you know I always like to look at this. You know price per repair, but let's say just the kit, the one syringe, the 10 mixing sticks, the gloves, the instructions you're looking at around. You know $40, $45 per kit and let's say you're going to get, you know, comfortably, I can say you're going to get around 10 repairs per kit. Obviously, the depending factors are the size of the cable, the size of the laceration, but generally I like to say 10. So that's, you know, $4 a repair as opposed to. You know how much an enclosure can cost or heat shrink and time savings, right, so Right Well my question is why do you have 10 cable jacket tears?

Speaker 1: 33:44

That's my question.

Speaker 3: 33:47

Oh, I've heard stories.

Speaker 1: 33:48

I've heard stories of I bet, hey, I got one for you and I won't say who this was, but somebody very close to me and he listens to this show works in data centers. He's an outside plant. Well, I need to send this to him. He's an outside plant foreman for a company that they sell products and I guarantee you've probably bought products from them and they have really large data centers. I'm not going to say who it is. So he was pulling. He went on vacation one week and while he was on vacation his cruise was pulling in a 6912. For those who don't know what that means, that's fiber optic cable that has 6,912 strands of fiber. It's about yay big. I got a sample of it up in my cupboard.

Speaker 3: 34:32

You see that cable right there.

Speaker 1: 34:36

I've got one right here. You see that cable right there. I've got one right there, huge. Yeah, it's a big fiber cable, right. So they were pulling it through some cable tray and the pull string cut through the jacket of another fiber cable on a new, another 6912. I bet you. I bet you that would have been good for actually it brings up a great question. You mentioned PE cable, aerial cable outside plant cable direct buried cable.

Speaker 3: 35:09

Can this be used inside of a building? What's y'all's recommendations that we're adhering to? But just based off of the fact that this is designed to adhere to polyethylene it being one of the harder materials to adhere to I don't see any issue with this being a solution inside plant.

Speaker 1: 35:25

Yeah, I could see this being used, obviously for outside plant cable inside of the building within that 50-foot mark that we're allowed to go before we have to change out. I could obviously see it there. Yeah, my concern is a lot of data centers are plenum rated data center. So my, my curiosity being you may not know the answer to this Maybe you might have to ask your engineers Maybe we'll put a comment in the, in the, in the video below but ask them if this can be used in a plenum rating environment, because the whole plenum rating testing stuff depends on how much it is and all kinds of stuff. So if you guys even thought about it, if that is an option because I could see that I just told you about that other example this would be perfect for that, except for that was a plenum rating environment. So I'm not sure if that would be good to be used for plenum rating environments.

Speaker 3: 36:14

Yeah, it has not been on our radar whatsoever. We again focus more so on the outside plant world. So if it comes to it and you know we've got a customer that wants to, you know, have this as a solution, we'll do the testing for that, but right now it's, you know, so new.

Speaker 1: 36:31

That's a reasonable answer. I get that. I get that. So, if you don't mind, I'm going to give you a homework assignment. Sure, yeah, for five years of the podcast, 300 episodes. This is the first time I've ever given a homework assignment to somebody.

Speaker 3: 36:43

Is it because I look so young? Is that why?

Speaker 1: 36:44

you're giving me that. No, no, no, it has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do. It's because of I'm going to ask that you pose this question to your engineers. I'm not going to ask them to test it, but what are their initial thoughts on using the cable jacket repair in like a data center where it's a plenum rated environment? Because I know somebody's going to ask me that question and if they come back and say, well, currently we don't recommend it for plenum rated environments because we haven't tested it, okay, at least I got an answer for it Right, that's it. Okay, at least I got an answer for it Right. Because I understand you get plenum range. You got to send it to UL and NRTL to get it tested and that costs money.

Speaker 1: 37:23

I'm not going to ask you to spend money just to satisfy my own curiosity, but I know technicians will ask me that They'll say can I use this inside of a data center and it's a plenum range? Know, just send it to me and I'll make sure I put in the notes and stuff. So that way people, people know and, like you said, 45 bucks for for a pack, you know, even if you decide to use one, one whole entire thing and do that cable jack repair and toss the rest of it. A splice case is way more expensive than 45 bucks. Oh right, way more expensive and way more labor intensive, way more labor intensive, way more labor intensive.

Speaker 3: 37:57

Yeah, I mean this, this solution is it's kind of a no brainer and we we've kind of seen that with the launch here We've had a lot of success and you know, again, going back to the point, the products sell themselves. It's my job to educate.

Speaker 1: 38:12

Right, speaking of education, do you guys have any? I know you guys have technical documents cause I've downloaded them, read them, but I did shame on shot for not doing this. Do you have any training videos or videos on how to actually install the cable jacket repair?

Speaker 3: 38:27

Yeah, yeah, so, talking specifically about CJRs, we have, we have an application video and, in fact, the person that's doing that is me. I'm the person, I'm the actor that's doing it and it's very simple. You'll find that to be true with all the pretty much all of our products have an application video and that video is already released. Yeah, it's on the website.

Speaker 1: 38:47

So I'll make sure I put that in the comment section below, so if somebody wants to go, look at that video, they can.

Speaker 3: 39:07

They can go down and get their video. So if somebody wants to talk to Polywater about any kind of thing, whether it's cable lubricant or cable jack repair or maybe their specific application for cable jack repair, how do they get in touch with you or Polywater so they can reach out directly to me? Chuck, I'm glad to give you, I'm happy to give you, my contact information to just put right in here. I love having conversations with folks.

Speaker 1: 39:42

I also have an entire sales rep organization across the country that they're my local guys. I can't be in California all the time and I can't be in Florida all the time. I'm in Minnesota. But I'll travel to those places but I have resources. So you know we'll start with me and if I need to get somebody out to them, we can get my rep out there. I'll fly out there, that's. You know we want to be there for the customer but I've got a farm and lots of stuff going on in the springtime so I just haven't had the chance to actually take a piece of cable, tear the jack and then play with it yet. But I will and I guarantee you I will make a TikTok video out of it. I guarantee you, because I don't do nothing without TikTok videos nothing. So I appreciate you coming on, ryan, and I look forward to more innovations coming from Bollywater.

Speaker 3: 40:16

Yeah, I really appreciate it, Chuck. Thank you so much. Let's talk, let's talk, let's cable with pride.

Speaker 2: 40:27

In the world of ICT. Let's ride this tide. Thank you for joining us on let's Talk Cable. Stay tuned for more episodes filled with innovation. Keep connecting, Keep achieving. Until next time.