Please make fun of me

F

Fint

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2004
Messages
1,046
I need to be humilated in order to get some motivation to clean this crap up.. please, someone laugh at me (and not about the poor image quality, its the best my cell phone can do).

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These two aren't too bad, but they could still use some TLC.
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What for? The patch panel's ports are labeled (i.e., port 343) and the switch ports are labled, why label the cables? Its easier, and more efficent, to play "follow the cable" than it is to hunt around for the cable labled 343.
 
Well, I tried to come up with some sort of ridicule, but our racks are in fact much worse. I'm not allowed to recable them because that would mean *CHANGING* something. :eek: zomg.
 
tbh, its not that bad, the cables are easily located and arent in the way of anything.
to tidy it up I would either use shorter cables or find a way to tie each cable up to take up the slack.
Cable ties are cheap, very handy and easily removed.

It wouldnt take long to unplug each port and reroute the cables so they have a cleaner run after tying up the slack with a cable tie or 2 on each long cable.
 
Chernobyl1 said:
tbh, its not that bad, the cables are easily located and arent in the way of anything.
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You can barely see it, but in the first picture, under that pile of spaghetti, is a white APC ups with a bad battery.. a ups that I can't get out of the rack to fix because of the Cat5 in the way :(
 
lol, you're right I didnt see it.
maybe you can move the UPS to the right hand rack so you can leave the cables :D
 
What products/concepts are available to fix this in the future? [Yes, it'd be nice to have Cat5 cut to exact lengths, but handcrimping isn't cost effective when you factor in bad crimps and someone's time.]
 
Fint said:
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*cleanup in aile 4*

I guess it was a long night last night, for your rack sure has a hard time keeping its food down?

Please, I need some Alka Seltzer

Psychologist: "Ok Mr. Switch, just let is all out"
Swicht (see pic)

Nature Guide: "And here, my children, we can see the cable spider in its natural habitat, but don't come to close, it may bite and take the payroll server down."

yeah I am not funny today.
 
it's worth the time and effort to make custom cables for everything, i personally think. what happens when something fails, and you have to replace it. you could just disconnect everything from the patch panel, or you could weed through a jungle of purple wiring. this is one of those "i told you so" type of things, but i never told you to do it right the first time around. convince your boss that it needs to be done, cause it will reduce heat, and lengthen the life of the networking components, lol. it will make a nice little break from the norm, and you will be proud of yourself. if you get the proper tools, it will be a breeze
 
Seriously...you would be fired where I work. You ALWAYS label the cable....doesn' matter if the patch panel is labeled...you ALWAYS label the cable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
poison123 said:
Seriously...you would be fired where I work. You ALWAYS label the cable....doesn' matter if the patch panel is labeled...you ALWAYS label the cable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I don't understand the logic behind it; can you explain to me? Its easier, and more efficent, to play "follow the cable" than it is to hunt around for the cable labled 343.

I don't want dogma, I want logic.
 
Soz to mention this again but it is the simplest solution.
Loop the excess cable, flatten the loop and tie wrap each end of it and maybe the middle if the loop is long enough.
So cheap, quick, easy and can be removed with a pair of snips.

If this isnt what you are after, can you explain further please?
 
my telco racks look worse....but I get to use the 'it's a lab' excuse, so it can look like shit. Tracing cables isn't that bad, I have it down to a science.

Reason it looks like shit, engineers can't keep it neat.....
 
Hrm, telco racks, like this one? (this one isn't my responsibility, it belongs to the Telco guy, but in all fairness we both inherited our respective rat's nests)

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At least my area looks clean by comparison now..

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if you dont clean up those cables, im going to find out where you live and work. i will then beat you to death with your own shoes (ref - wayne's world anyone?) :D
 
Chernobyl1 said:
Soz to mention this again but it is the simplest solution.
Loop the excess cable, flatten the loop and tie wrap each end of it and maybe the middle if the loop is long enough.
So cheap, quick, easy and can be removed with a pair of snips.

If this isnt what you are after, can you explain further please?
Click to expand...
tie wrap + patch cables = no no.

velcro or similar ftw.

When I did cabling for...gasp.....a cabling company we only labeled patch cables if the customer asked us to, this is generally because patch cables have a tendency to get moved or replaced and thats not something you should rely upon. We always color coded according to function then bundled with velcro. I never wasted time tracing cables by hand or by label, I always used a tone gen and a amp probe to do it for me.

Clean patching was basically inherited from the fact that we had to do cable lacing in CO's and that was a PITA but the logic carried through to network patch cables as well, just without the lacing and use of the F-BOMB about 1000 times a night.

Jeff, you are no longer self proclaimed, I have proclaimed you.
 
drizzt81 said:
have you cleaned it up yet?

:D
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Yeah, about as much as I can while keeping the per-port outages to less than 10 seconds.. compare these two, before and after:
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As the mess at the bottom of the racks... I'm going to ignore them for now, they're hopeless without hours of work, which I just don't see the ROI on.
 
Fint said:
...which I just don't see the ROI on.
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Less downtime and man hours spent when you need to trace something due to any number of things from cable outages to shorts to port issues, etcetera. :) What's going to happen if the power drops and your failed UPS (that you can't get to because of the snake pit) can't pick up the load? There's your ROI... and it will look nice. :)
 
I think positive reinforcement is now adequate: well done :) Get yourself a beer :D
 
All those pictures hurt my eyes actually. I honestly don't see much of a difference in the before/after shot...sorry...

At home, I'm not too picky about how my cables look. Since there really aren't that many. At work however...neatness and organization is a must and I don't even work with the cabling that often...just in my office lab.
 
Purple Spaghetti anyone, mixed over with some overstressed switches and a hardware rack.

Those pictures can qualify for a prop in the new Transformer movie, messicon.
 
[H]exx said:
How about making some custom patch cables (length)?
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The problem with custom cables is price; compare how cheap it is to buy pre-mades. Then consider time for someone to measure custom cat5, cut the cable to length, strip the ends, crimp it, test it, oops someone mis-crimped, re-cut the ends, re-crimp, re-test... to end up with a cable that is more likley to fail later on, and usually can't be re-used due to the exact length it was cut to.
 
Fint, that is seriously the lamest excuse I've ever heard for not crimping your own stuff. If you can't crimp then you have no buisness managing the physical aspect of that gear.
 
poison123 said:
Fint, that is seriously the lamest excuse I've ever heard for not crimping your own stuff. If you can't crimp then you have no buisness managing the physical aspect of that gear.
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How long does it take you to crimp 100, 3ft cables and test each one? I think I can do about one patch cable in 4 minutes, which means it'd take me about 400 minutes. 400 minutes = 6.6 hours, which costs my company about $300 (my salary, benefits, 401k, etc). Now add in costs for 300ft of Cat5 (~$30) and 200 RJ45 ends, and you're looking about $350.

100 3ft patch cables can be bought for $125. Toss in shipping, you're looking at maybe $175. So now compare $350 for me to make the cables, or $175 for me to buy them. And then explain again why its a lame excuse.
 
Fint said:
100 3ft patch cables can be bought for $125. Toss in shipping, you're looking at maybe $175. So now compare $350 for me to make the cables, or $175 for me to buy them. And then explain again why its a lame excuse.
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because you haven't done the part that I underlined ;)
 
I don't skimp on things, but with an ever changing environment....cable crimping would be a waste of time....but cables in foot increments from 3' to 12' is great
 
protias said:
if you dont clean up those cables, im going to find out where you live and work. i will then beat you to death with your own shoes (ref - wayne's world anyone?) :D
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I thought I was the only one who said that! ;)

I would be fired in a second if I had a rats nest like that. I F'n hate tracing cables.
 
98EXL said:
I don't skimp on things, but with an ever changing environment....cable crimping would be a waste of time....but cables in foot increments from 3' to 12' is great
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Yeah, it's more easier to order pre-crimped cables in various lengths and use the right length. Another thing I noticed is that the top bracket between the racks is unused. Just lift some cable higher so it doesn't lay on the floor.
 
I can tell your a skinny guy...

Cause a fat man would just lift up the cables, like he lifts his gut, to get to that UPS..


You know they now have cat5 ends that the wires go all the way through so you can see the wires have gone all the way through to the end and don't have to guess if they touch the end of the connector or not. It makes cripping wires take like seconds.
 
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