Seven Silent Cabling Mistakes That Cause Failures Later

We break down seven common field mistakes that quietly ruin structured cabling performance even when the work looks clean. We also share the mindset habits that separate average installs from work that passes certification, earns trust, and holds up years later. 
• untwisting pairs too far at termination and losing noise resistance 
• setting the punch tool wrong and risking bad IDC terminations 
• ignoring bend radius rules and creating internal crosstalk 
• pulling cable with too much tension and stretching or breaking conductors 
• treating heat, storage, and jacket damage as “no big deal” 
• labeling late or inconsistently and making troubleshooting painful 
• mixing manufacturers and undermining optimization and warranties 
• skipping certification testing or trusting continuity too much 
• slowing down to prevent rework and protect profit 
• learning from mistakes, finding a mentor, taking pride in craft 

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Transcript

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Welcome And Housekeeping

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey Water Monkeys, welcome to another episode of Let's Talk Cabling. This episode, we're talking about the seven most common types of mistakes that technicians make in the field that they may not know that they're making in the field. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by apprentices, installers, technicians, project managers, estimators, designers, customers, IT personnel, anybody and everybody who wants to know more about structured cabling systems. We're connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching the 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 help us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage, and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry. Wednesday night, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, what are you doing? You know I do a live stream where you guess your favorite RCDD, and you know that's me. Questions on installation, design, certification, project management, IT questions, even career path questions. But I can hear you up, but check I'm grabbing my truck at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

I don't want to get into an action.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Relax. Breathe in, breathe out, exhale. Yes, I record them and you can watch them at your convenience. And finally, while this show is free, it will always remain free. If you find value in this content when you click on that QR code right there, you can buy me a cup of coffee, you can schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours, of course, even by Let's Talk Caling Merchandise. So, as I mentioned, this episode we're going to talk about seven types of mistakes that technicians make all the time in the field. These things are silent killers. They don't look wrong, but they are wrong.

Mistake 1 Too Much Untwist

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Mistake number one, untwisting too much of the feminine. When you look at a cable's cable, when you take the jacket off on a four-pair cable, you'll notice that they're all twisted. They're all twisted at different rates. And that's to reduce the effects of EMI and RFI. EMI's electromagnetic interference, RFI's radio frequency interference. The number of twists per inch is important. We need to make sure that when we terminate the cable, that we don't untwist too much of the cable. Technicians, what they'll do is they'll take, they'll strip the jacket off the cable, they'll take the remaining piece of jacket and use it to untwist the cable. The best way to terminate that jack is to bring it into the jack and then take your thumb and your forefinger, grab the pair, do a half twist backwards, that'll open up the pair a little bit, and then put that into the jack and then punch it down. It maintains signal integrity. If you start untwisting it, it's going to start causing interference. And the rule of thumb is no more than a half of an inch. Now, technically, what it says in the standards is no more than a half inch jacket removal. It doesn't say anything about pair and twist. But if you're only removing the jacket a half of an inch, technically you can't untwist more than a half inch of the pairs. When you terminate that cable, you want to make sure that that jacket comes all the way to the back side of the termination. And then you're going to lay it in and then punch it down. When you're terminating on your IDC jacks, always make sure that your punch tool is set in the low position. Punch tools have a dial on them. One says high, one says low. The only time your punch tool should be set in the high position is if you're seating C4 clips, C5 clips, or maybe punching down on a 66 block. Anytime you're terminating on an IDC, make sure your punch tool is set in the low position and maintain that twist.

Mistake 2 Bend Radius Violations

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Mistake number two, ignoring the bend radiuses. Now there's different bend radiuses for different types of cable. Category copper cabling, the minimum bend radius is four times the outside diameter of the cable. You look up the OD of the cable in the manufacturer's website or their catalog, multiply that number by four. So you don't want to exceed those bend radiuses. When you exceed the bend radiuses, you're changing the relationship of the pairs inside the cable, and then they're going to start interfering with each other. We call that internal crosstalk. And it gets labeled either near end or far end, depending on where that crosstalk is actually happening. Sharp ends are bad things. Where do you find these things? Coming out of firestop sleeves and doing a 90-degree turn to come down the wall, coming out of a cable tray or a ladder axism without a bend radius protector. Those can all cause you to exceed the bend radiuses and also damage the cable via crushing. And I see this done all the time on pictures on all the low voltage sites. But here's the bottom line. If it looks like a kink, it's probably a problem. If you see a white stressor mark on the jacket, it's probably a problem.

Mistake 3 Pulling Too Hard

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Mistake number three, pulling too hard on the cable. When you pull too hard on the cable, the cable copper cable can only be pulled on up to 25 pounds or 110 newtons. If you pull too hard on the cable, you will change twist rates. You could stretch copper and thus reducing the conductor size. And you can even break copper conductors. I remember pulling a cable one time at the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. Of course, it was coax, and we were pulling a really long run and we were pulling it, and I literally felt the copper center conductor break. At that point, we already had 300 feet installed, and it was not a good day because we had to take it all back out and replace it. And this was talking about earlier. These mistakes can save you from those kinds of problems. But I can hear you now. But Chuck, you said uh 25 pounds. How do I know what's 25 pounds? You can practice. I bought a weight scale for luggage, attached pull strength to it, and I practiced 25 pounds, so I knew exactly how much strength that was. Fiber cable, you can go up to 50 pounds. Outside plant cables, you can go even higher. You can go up to 600 pounds with outside plant cable, depending on the size and configuration of the cable. By the way, if you're doing outside plant cable, pro tip number one, always use a Kellum's grip with a rated breakaway head. Now, Kellum's grip is just a wire mesh sock that when you put the cable inside of it, when you pull on it, it kind of comes down and holds onto the cable. You can buy a rated swivel breakaway head at different sizes. So you can buy a 600-pound rated breakaway head. Now, yes, what it means is if you pull more than 600 pounds, it will break. And by the way, those heads are not cheap. But how much is a brand new spool of optical fiber cable because you broke it? How much is your boss going to yell at you because you just broke that brand new big spool of

Mistake 4 Respect The Environment

SPEAKER_00 6:55

cable? Take number four, not respecting your environment. When you bring your cable, especially in ceilings, think about how hot is it getting up in that ceiling, especially if you're on the top floor of a high-rise building. Heat matters, it causes attenuation. So pay attention to those hot areas. Also, when you're when you got your spools of cable, when you got your boxes of cable, don't just throw them around. You know, be careful how you set them down. Store them properly, don't just throw them in there. Because what can happen is if you throw in a big throw cable in the back of the truck and you pull it back out and you start pulling on it, you can actually get a kink on that cable. And if you're not working with a multi-man crew where you got somebody stationed at the box end, you won't know that until it doesn't pull anymore. And now you've damaged that cable. Just think of it this way: any kind of damage to the cable jacket is a long-term failure. The cable's not indestructible. It looks like it, sometimes it feels like it, but it's not indestructible. So the first four mistakes can happen even if you're trying to do the things right. Now let's talk about mistakes that happen just because people are cutting corners. And that's where things really get expensive. Mistake

Mistake 5 Labeling That Fails

SPEAKER_00 8:09

number five poor labeling or no labeling. You know, everything looks fine until the troubleshooting begins. There are some crews out there that do not label their cables. They'll pull them, terminate on the patch panel, and then they'll label them out on the floor, whatever they want. The problem with that is they're sporadically all over the floor. You might have two drops together, one might be drop number six, the other might be drop number 48. That doesn't look good to a customer. A lot of technicians like to number them sequentially. Drop number one, drop number two, drop number three. That's fine as well, too. Just make sure you terminate them in order on the panel. And when you label, it should be a machine-generated label, not a sharpie. Okay. Sharpies are fine for rough in for initial pulling, but finished product, put a machine generated label on both sides. And the person who's going to save time is going to be you. Because now you don't have to tone out a bunch of cables. Make sure your new person knows this as well, too. A common practice is as you're pulling cable is to write the number on the box. If you're pulling a bunch of cables, let's say you're pulling six boxes at a time, you'll put a number one on one box, a number two on the second, three, four, five, six. When you pull the cables, when you get done, you're gonna label them and then cut them. Now, what you're gonna do is take your Sharpie, mark out those existing numbers you had on the box, and put in another set. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Put the labels on, pull them when you get back. Before you cut them, put the label on the other end and then cut them from the box. It's an easy way to label cables so that way you don't end up having problems down the road. And labeling the cables, by the way, makes you look professional. Nothing looks worse than having a job that's not labeled correctly or it's labeled sporadically. Oh, and by the way, pro tip number two, labeling by room numbers is a horrible idea. If you want to know why, ask me why in the comments below, and I'll explain why. Labeling by room numbers is really a bad idea. So when you label the cables, make sure you use a machine-generated label, and make sure you label within six inches of each side on the for horizontal cabling and within 12 inches of each side for backbone cabling.

Mistake 6 Mixing Manufacturers

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Mistake number six mixing different components with different manufacturers. Yeah, I get it. You know, we got the standards. The standard says I should be able to take manufacture A cable, use manufacture B connectors, and manufacturer C patch cords, as long as they're all matched to the same category rating. That is true. You will get a category rated performance out of that, but it may not be the best. You see, the manufacturers optimize, they enhance, they match the performance between their cable, their connectors, and their patch cords. So the best solution is going to be to use one manufacturer. Use manufacture a cable, manufacture a connectors, manufacture a patch cords. Plus, it's also gonna make sure that you still have a good solid warranty. Now I know a lot of people have mixed issues about warranties. You know, some people check that warranty is just a marketing thing. Chuck, the warranty is just something the manufacturer offers. We don't even offer warranties. I get it, I get it, but customers care about warranties, they're gonna want that long warranty on that cable plant because they don't want to have to go back and replace that cable, which is why we use standard ratings for everything.

Mistake 7 Testing Done Wrong

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Mistake number seven, skipping the testing or trusting it too much. This is a huge thing that you see argument all the time on the internet. Testing comes in three different types certification testing, qualification testing, verification testing. A certification test means you're using a cable certifier. This is a very expensive tester. It ranges anywhere from about $7,000 or $8,000 to $20 plus thousand dollars. It measures the cable's electrical properties, compares them to the standards, and then it's either going to give you a pass or a fail. A lot of people don't do certification tests, they'll just do a simple continuity test. Here's the problem. You can have a cable test for continuity, give you continuity between all eight conductors, but if it's laying on a fluorescent light fixture or if it's laying on some other type of EMI source, it won't pass the certification test because of crosstalk. That's why you really should be doing certification testing. The good installers, the good companies are certifying their companies because they realize that it's the, as the old tech guy says, it is the birth record of the cable. And that protects you in the long run. Because if the customer comes back two years down the road, four years down the road, and says that cable's not working, you can pull out that birth record and say, Well, look, it was working then. Then when you when then you do your visual search and you find that a cable got broken test or undisconnected, you can go back to the customer, and now you have a legitimate reason to charge them to fix it because something has happened to the cable afterwards. See, and then there are some there are some contractors out there who don't even test cable. Oh my gosh, talk about leaving it open door for problems. You don't understand. Customers, if you want to have good customers, give them a good product, good quality product. And that usually means cable certification. Now the green check mark doesn't mean it's perfect, but it does mean that it's past

Standards And A Growth Mindset

SPEAKER_00 13:30

at least the minimum. So all those problems I just discussed there are pretty much going to be common mistakes that happen to almost everybody. We are not robots. If you terminate 100 jacks, you're most likely gonna at least mess up one of them and have to go back and fix it. But here's the real difference between the average and somebody who levels up in that industry. Number one, the growth mindset, professionalism, long-term success. Follow the standards, follow the best practice manuals. Okay, don't go above and beyond the code. I hate when people say check it meets code. Go look up 90.1 paragraph B and report. Tell me in the comments why that matters to you. You should be following the standards. The standards are gonna guarantee performance. The best practice manuals are gonna give you the ways to design and install the cable plant for longevity, ease of use, and the way that it's gonna be a good quality product. These standards exist for a reason. I know some people will say, well, Chuck, they only have the standards just so somebody has a job to write something. Do you realize that those standards are written by volunteers? They don't get paid to write those standards. What the benefit they get from writing those standards is to elevate the industry so everybody's doing good quality work. If you follow the standards, you're going to be one of the best. Tell me in the chat box below, do you want to be the best? Or do you want to be an average installer? Again, there's lots of them to choose from. You got the ANSI standards, you've got the Bixie best practice, the design manuals, the installation manuals. And they're they're really, and you think about them for investment and career and making you the best. Yes, they're expensive if you think about them, but in the long run, how much is knowledge important to you?

Slow Down To Avoid Rework

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Lesson number two, slow down. Don't speed up. When you get in a rush, it's more easy for you to make mistakes. Mistakes are rework. You have to go back and you have to fix it. So not only are you going to have to back and terminate something a second time that you only had in the estimate to do it one time, but you're also losing customer confidence. Rework kills profit and it kills your reputation. Customers talk to each other. It's not unusual for one IT department to talk to another IT department and another company because they meet at trade shows and they say, hey, we need some cabling done. Who are you guys using? You don't want them to see, yeah, don't use the uh XYZ cable guys because they don't test anything, they don't label anything. Clean work, consistent work wins every single time. You know, fast installers get noticed, but accurate installers get promoted. Lesson number three, learn from every job. If you're in this industry, you should be a constant learner. Our industry changes literally at the speed of light. I've been in the industry for four plus decades, and I still strive to learn something new every day. But every thing that every failure that you come across, everything that you did wrong, that is feedback. That's a learning opportunity. Don't think, don't beat yourself up over it. You know, if if it doesn't, if you do something wrong and you don't understand why it's wrong, ask questions. Find your supervisor, find somebody who is more experienced than you. Ask them why it's that's not working correctly. Also, make sure you find a mentor. You can go to the Bixie mentoring program and get a mentor through that. You can even just ask somebody to be your mentor. You know, but check out what if they say no? What if they say yes? Right? There's a lot of people out there who really want to take and invest in people and make everybody

Mentors Pride And The Close

SPEAKER_00 17:05

better. Lesson number four, take pride in your craft. You want pride? Go look up Sean Rep. Go look up Lilovort Warby, right? Those guys will show you what pride and workmanship looks like. I know a lot of people say, well, Chuckman, yeah, they dress cables, it just takes more work. It does take more work, it does take more time. But you know what? Customers want quality. And if you're doing the work for the customer who doesn't appreciate that quality, maybe you need to fire that customer. Maybe that's not the customer you want to have in the long run. Because this is infrastructure, not just cable. That cable's gonna be there for years, and you want to make sure they're gonna be looking at that cable for anywhere from the next seven to ten years. And you don't want them every time they walk in the telecom room to go, you want them to smile every time they go in there. And again, dressing cable is gonna be what's gonna get you there. You're not just you're not think of it this way, you're not just pulling cable, you're building the backbone of their communications. Um let's be honest. Everybody in this industry, including me, has made these mistakes. The difference is what do you make of them? Do you ignore them or do you learn from them? That's the key. If you keep doing something wrong, the problem is you, not the cable. Because this industry will reward you if you respect it. So if you're new, don't get discouraged because we all mess up. That's part of this. Everybody starts off in this industry on day one with the same amount of experience. None. So just make sure that you don't make the same mistake twice. That's the key. Learn from your mistakes. If you found value in this, please share this with another technician who's coming up behind you because at the end of the day, knowledge is power. And in this trade, it also separates the average from the elite. And I know you want to be the elite. Until next time. Knowledge is power.