Wire & Cable Lacing

Erik wrote in news:erik-53FE7F.19133312052004 @news.verizon.net:

Er...Cable lacing is alive and well in telco central offices. I just spent the better part of my day lacing...

I learned cable lacing in the early 60's in GTE central offices and it was dead in Western Electric offices in the mid 70's.Cable clips and tie wraps were more cost effective.When I worked for Northern Telecom they used my lacing jobs on different sites as a selling point in buying their equipment to a potential customer.When building electronic equipment I still lace up for its look.

Reminds me of something a wireman I was working with did at English Electric, Kidsgrove, when I was a student apprentice there in 1962. He had a couple of wires connected wrong in a large laced bundle in a cubicle he was wiring. Inspection rejected it and he couldn't face taking the whole thing apart, so he fished out the wires, cut them, spliced them together to get the connections right, and stuffed them back inside the bundle. 8-)

Leon

Lacing is alive and well in aircraft. You don't cut your hands to pieces on those $%^&*(@ zip ties! It's slower than zips, but takes up less room, is easier to add or subtract ONE wire, and is mechanic-friendly.

Bob

Wow... I had no idea lacing was still used anywhere since tie wraps hit the market.

Is there any particular reason some phone company's still lace? I had the impression the only people still employing it were doing restorations and the like.

Erik

Dead art. Right. I learned the technique in the yearly 80's and still use it today in the electronics industry here at Lockheed Martin in Florida where we still build custom wire harnesses for the military.

But thanks for the Web links. I'll pass them on to the young whippersnappers coming into the program.

Regards

Jim Vrzal

Erik wrote:

Sounds like a request to get strangled by the tech that has to trouble shoot that.

I recently completed supervising a 6-month project in which T-Mobile had every one of their infrastructure network cabinets dressed by lacing.

We decided on lacing primarily because it's so much easier on fiberoptic cables. It's also easier on a technician's hands, and tie-wraps tend to be pulled way too tight, thus crimping the cables. This makes fishing cables out and fishing new single cables in a tough-to-impossible job without cutting the ties and replacing them.

Mike Patterson Please remove the spamtrap to email me.

Erik wrote in news:erik-8AE619.22362212052004 @news.verizon.net:

On cable tray it is a much "cleaner" installation. Plus, adding additional cabling is just sewn onto the existing stiches. a ty wrap pulled tight won't let you do that and lacing lets the cables run together tighter. No ty wrap heads to snag cables or to shred your forearms when the ty isn't cut flush... Lacing is more secure, I had a project for Nextel where we ran 30 or so

750MCM cables up a 3 story run of vertical cable tray. You might be able to pull off a couple cables like that with ty wraps but I wouldn't recommend it.

[ ... ]

It is indeed -- and I have done many projects (both at work and personal) which used proper lacing.

Yep -- cable ties are a lot quicker. Sigh!

Enjoy, DoN.