New building horizontal & vertical copper & fiber riser structured cabling

acesea

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 2, 2004
Messages
211
We're looking at a multi level commercial and residential greenfield project and will be designing and configuring the MDF & IDF closet layouts as well as the vertical and horizontal riser system for the structured cabling and networking solutions. This is not a datacenter and their won't be any cable trays or cable ladders.

The plan for the building is to have at least three 4inch EMT conduits (for fiber, cat6, coax) running vertically north south from roof to ground thru the IDF closets on each floor. All horizontal east west cabling on each floor runs from every wall jack thru 2x4 metal stud frames back to the floor's IDF closet.

We are assessing the options of north-south cables being only distribution and designing each floor's IDF as the access point for that floors' clients to coax multiswitches, voip to analog gateways, and layer 2/3 ethernet managed switches versus greater consolidation and economies of scale by staggering and segregating aggregation points across different floors. For example closets on floors 1 & 3 could passthru ethernet fiber and cat6 to floor 2 where larger switches would aggregate the access layer for floors 1-3 and trunk back vlans to the routing core.
fl10 Coax
fl9 Telephone
fl8 Ethernet
fl7 Coax
fl6 Telephone
fl5 Ethernet
fl4 Coax
fl3 Telephone
fl2 Ethernet
ground Demarc. L3 Routing core.


We're shopping locally and around online and are looking for more ideal solutions for some parts etc and would like to receive some different ideas, opinions, recommendations etc for efficient and effective solutions from you fine folks.

We are thinking of mounting junction boxes on each closet's fireproof plywood between each ceiling to floor 4" EMT conduit assuming it will add some functionality and clean aesthetic. We've found junction boxes similar to the following http://www.anixter.com/north-americ...lectrical+Supplies.Electrical+Enclosures.html but are still looking at more effective solutions for distributing and exposing cables between conduit and the equipment on the plywood. Are there any more ideal junction or distribution or pull boxes for the IDF closets that would accept the 4" conduits and enhance serviceability and cable routing to the floor's patch panels that would be mounted nearby on the fireproof plywood? Or would exposing the cables out of each of the 4" conduits to the plywood some other way be more effective?

We are not required that the fiber optics and their termination be guaranteed to any particular spec so does anyone offer yet more cost effective pre terminated LC/LC fiber with some longer lengths? So far best found at: ~$31/ea 40 Meter 10Gb Fiber Optic Cable, LC/LC, Multi Mode, Duplex - (50/125 Type) - Aqua
www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10237&cs_id=1023704&p_id=7627&seq=1&format=2
Otherwise who has reasonable prices for made to order terminated fiber with prompt turnaround?

What other parts, advice, and techniques can you recommend as indispensable for such a project?

Many thanks
 
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Hire a certified and licensed wiring professional. Sounds like you or your company bit off more than they can chew. Do it right so you can avoid a pissed off customer and possibly a law suit.
 
Hire a certified and licensed wiring professional. Sounds like you or your company bit off more than they can chew. Do it right so you can avoid a pissed off customer and possibly a law suit.

A friend contacted us about this project they were in the process of developing and given circumstances we are helping pro bono. Hiring it out for any reasonable compensation won't happen. We are guaranteed no pissed off customer and liability was waived in writing so no law suit.

What in our post sounds to you like we bit off more than we can chew? Or is their a more appropriate forum for opening this kind of discussion?
 
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Will there be small businesses mixed with residential on the same floors or what? What does the building zoning look like?
 
Will there be small businesses mixed with residential on the same floors or what? What does the building zoning look like?

Ground level will have commercial suites and some parking. Floors 2+ are residential.
 
Only 3x 4" risers does not sound like a lot of room for any future needs/expansion. It is cheap and easy to put in more risers now, do it so you dont get stuck in the future.

I also don't understand your usage of the term north/south for the vertical runs. North/south is another horizontal plane, not a vertical one.

I would keep each floor its own for all services on that floor back to the core (depending on number of outlets/clients on each floor). Eases troubleshooting and prevents issues down the road.

You will also want to consider power protection for the distribution equipment on each floor.

The main thing is remember not to design just for now. Technology and distribution methods change over time.
 
Only 3x 4" risers does not sound like a lot of room for any future needs/expansion. It is cheap and easy to put in more risers now, do it so you dont get stuck in the future.

We are pressing for more conduit risers.


I also don't understand your usage of the term north/south for the vertical runs. North/south is another horizontal plane, not a vertical one.

Sorry for confusion as was under impression north/south depending on context was ingress/egress traffic into rack, building, etc so assumed it could also refer to ingress/egress per floor. Any recommended reading for better insight into these planes?


I would keep each floor its own for all services on that floor back to the core (depending on number of outlets/clients on each floor). Eases troubleshooting and prevents issues down the road.

If budget permits this would be the ideal path.


You will also want to consider power protection for the distribution equipment on each floor.

The building will have a backup power generator that's required to start for any interruption or voltage drop below 70% of nominal that exceeds one second duration and it must to be online and accept full load in 10 seconds or less.

We are discussing with the electricians on having two larger online double conversion ups systems on the ground floor that provide A and B redundant circuits to each floor's IDF closet that will keep systems online during transitioning to generator power. We are also thinking whether additional 220v from the ups to each IDF closet would be a nicety or unnecessary since most all gear accepts 110v.


The main thing is remember not to design just for now. Technology and distribution methods change over time.

Absolutely.
 
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Sorry for confusion as was under impression north/south depending on context was ingress/egress traffic into rack, building, etc so assumed it could also refer to ingress/egress per floor. Any recommended reading for better insight into these planes?

Its just the cardinal directions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_direction

When talking about vertical rise, we usually refer to them as floors, levels, up/down, etc.
 
I also agree with the comment of having a bit more on your plate than you are ready for. I have unfortunately been involved with low budget jobs before and they are the worst.

1) for anything more than 12 runs please use ladder rack to the racks with the patch panels. The weight of cat5e+ cabling is immense and will stress the cable if not properly supported.

2) having multiple floors run back to a single IDF is entirely dependent on how long the cable runs could potentially be. If you can keep the total length at the longest run <100m including patch cables and end device cables, you are ok. I try to keep total in-wall length to no more than 80m at the MAX (and thats a worse scenario). Even if your new construction runs are no more than 80m, consider a renovation later on.. it would really be awful to have new runs within the floor have no ability to done within spec.

3) preterm fiber is fine, OM3 50/125 is a good choice. Make sure that if you plan to run 10Gb over this that you total run length is <300m including fiber jumpers. also, PLEASE run them inside corrugated ducting and into a fiber shelf and not directly to the switches themselves.

4) i really like panduit, cpi, & ortronics for wire management and patch panels.

IMO these are the very basics to a job like this. I would seriously consider outside professional help. It costs a LOT more to make it right after the fact, especially when you calculate downtime and tenant issues.
 
For the vertical fiber that will be connecting switch uplinks to the core it'd be simpler to use preterm fiber but most of the horizontal fiber will be pulled for future proofing for possible active or passive optical network adoption.

Since we are not finding any bulk pre-term fiber longer than 40m would it be reasonable to run each floor's fiber back to fiber shelf housings mounted in each floor's closet and then in the future use mating adapter couplers as necessary for vertical fiber extension and accept the additional connectivity insertion signal loss?

Or given that this is a greenfield deployment and for what is to remain for now unlit fiber would it be better to pull unterminated sm 9/128 and mm 50/125 duplex aggregate all the 100+ fiber cable runs back to fiber shelves in a single closet in the building? Figuring such longer discrete cables would be more cost effective with less upfront costs for fewer fiber housings, adapters, and less management locations.

Any compelling reasons anyone prefers Corning, Blackbox, or other fiber rack shelf enclosures and their connector adapters? Looking at some of the models at http://www.cableorganizer.com/fiber-optic-enclosures/
 
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