Lost art of cable lacing

[keefaz]

A forming board can be useful for tight cable lacing

http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/

http://www.industrial-electronics.com/et-4e_25.html

 

[boji]

Every time I've done fancy lace jobs, I've ended up ripping it back apart in order to reduce coupling and hum.

Hmm... I'll have to bench one channel with lace and one without and see if there's a difference.  Were the wires you bundled ever shielded, signal only?

Also, what about patch panels?  I've never seen a professional one without some form of cable management.

Universe and everyone in it this far has taught they do not work

I've had ok success using a plunger type sucker + hot air for rework with minimal heat damage to pulled parts.
I've got a cheap de-soldering station too, and it also works for a single session if it has been thoroughly cleaned and the heating tube is gently reamed out.

I agree cheap suckers get melt-clogged very easily; I have no idea why they don't make them with some kind of ceramic composite tip.  The one in the pic I posted is supposed to address this problem, as it uses high temp silicone 'tips' that are meant to be replaced. The silicone tip also looks like it will conform to what ever's around the pad that's being de-soldered and is supposed to make for better suction than the plastic ones. We'll see...

 

[boji]

http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/

Ooh..  I think the link you just added was the one that was broken on the 'makezene' webpage.

Thanks!

 

[boji]

Strowger telephone exchange

Back for a moment to the SXS, PRR got me perusing a few more 'vintage' videos on the subject and I noticed the old exchange system's "common control circuit" was the perfect precursor to DNS, or Domain Name Servers that we use to scoot around the internet. 

Edit: https://youtu.be/owAjCeHRgMA?t=811

 

[Bo Deadly]

Ah yeah....I love my big blue solder sucker at times...... aka solder pad sucker at times.....lol

On an old single layer board, yeah. But I found a nice method when I shotgunned by ReVox B77 - I clipped the lead of the part being removed from the top, leaving a little sticking out for the solder sucker tip to hang on to and then sucked it through the top taking the bit of lead and blob of solder with it. That would leave the pad and a nice clean hole.

 

[Youngwhisk]

Arite! Nomex arrived, along with a solder sucker that has received positive reviews.  I'll try em both out soon!

Lucky indeed!

In my short career as a telephone cable splicer 42 years ago we used lacing twine just like that. We were taught to use a simple clove hitch at appropriate intervals. I have managed to obtain a few rolls from time to time and have never run out yet. It is useful for many different things. At that time we had telephone cables that had a white grease in them to keep any water out (also used to keep any water in). The grease made your fingers soft so the lacing twine would cut into your index finger at the first joint.

 

[shabtek]

The expandable silicone sleeving from RS makes a nice cover/extension for the soldapult tip,
Sleeving is also nice for training and lacing wire

 

[ruffrecords]

While we are on the topic of cable looming, I have recently been looking for some lacing bars for support and strain relief of cables wired to 19 inch panels. However, all the ones I can find sit about 3.5 inches (90mm) behind the panel (presumably to accommodate PO jacks) but I need some much shallower ones - 30mm would be fine but I cannot find one anywhere.

Cheers

Ian

 

[Gold]

Ian,
If you can’t find something readymade you could cobble together something.  If you had bar stock cut to length you could drill holes at through the bar stock at each end. Then feed screws though the front panel and through the bar stock.  Use jam nuts or stand-off sleeves to set the depth and cap with a nut.

 

[ruffrecords]

Nobody seems to make what I need so I plan to take your advice and make my own. I can use tapped stand offs to set the height and I have some lengths of small cross section extrusion that will do for the bar itself. . I will let you know how I get on.

Cheers

Ian

 

[johnheath]

It is a bit funny how this technique of lacing also is used in the world of arborism to secure limbs before cutting them of and slowly lower them to the ground with ropes... pretty easy to do when you have grasped the idea.

Should be useful for cables as well if you have nothing else like stripes

// John

 

[Gold]

I will let you know how I get on.

If you have enough play with the holes in the extrusion it shouldn’t be finicky. If you tapped the extrusion everything would have to line up perfectly. Washers are your friend.

 

[JohnRoberts]

It is a bit funny how this technique of lacing also is used in the world of arborism to secure limbs before cutting them of and slowly lower them to the ground with ropes... pretty easy to do when you have grasped the idea.

I recently paid a professional tree service (with bucket truck to trim a bunch of big branches from old (tall) pines in my yard... They just dropped the branches in place. While i was unfamiliar with the technique they first score the underside of the branch with chain saw, but not deep enough to bind up, then finish the cut from above. This way the branches break away clean, instead of splitting/tearing, and fall almost flat. They did punch some holes in my yard dropping several inch thick branches from tens of feet high. If they lowered each branch individually with ropes they would still be out there.  :

They roped the top section to bottom trunk of the one tree they topped (with lacing like knots) before completely felling it. This way they controlled where the top section ended up falling to reduce consequential damage to nearby trees. I have one pecan tree that would have been trashed by a straight drop of that unwanted pine.

Should be useful for cables as well if you have nothing else like stripes

// John

I vaguely recall doing some cable lacing back in the 60s as a technician on a military (navy) project, not much in the decades since then. I don't miss it.

JR

 

[keefaz]

While we are on the topic of cable looming, I have recently been looking for some lacing bars for support and strain relief of cables wired to 19 inch panels. However, all the ones I can find sit about 3.5 inches (90mm) behind the panel (presumably to accommodate PO jacks) but I need some much shallower ones - 30mm would be fine but I cannot find one anywhere.

Cheers

Ian

Hammond seems to make one with 2 inches depht, part number: CLB190BK
Mouting design is nut like, not tapped bar though...

 

[johnheath]

I recently paid a professional tree service (with bucket truck to trim a bunch of big branches from old (tall) pines in my yard... They just dropped the branches in place. While i was unfamiliar with the technique they first score the underside of the branch with chain saw, but not deep enough to bind up, then finish the cut from above. This way the branches break away clean, instead of splitting/tearing, and fall almost flat. They did punch some holes in my yard dropping several inch thick branches from tens of feet high. If they lowered each branch individually with ropes they would still be out there.  :

They roped the top section to bottom trunk of the one tree they topped (with lacing like knots) before completely felling it. This way they controlled where the top section ended up falling to reduce consequential damage to nearby trees. I have one pecan tree that would have been trashed by a straight drop of that unwanted pine.
I vaguely recall doing some cable lacing back in the 60s as a technician on a military (navy) project, not much in the decades since then. I don't miss it.

JR

Yes, of course you just drop the branches that are not to cause damage to the surroundings... I remember cutting down a mighty Birch tree, some 22 meters tall and at least half a meter at chest height, surrounded with three green houses entirely made out of glass... We had to lower every single piece of that tree with a zip-line and it took us the whole day to bring it down to the small piece of lawn next to the root.

The cutting technique you describe is just one of many tricks in the book... for instance if you are to cut down a tree with "slow" wood i.e wood that doesn't snap for the smallest cut you can actually cut slowly from the top side of the branch and let the branch fold like on a hinge and in the end rapidly cut the rest so that the branch dives straight down next to the trunk... useful in some occasions when the tip of a branch is hanging over a roof or similar.

//John

 

[JohnRoberts]

Yes, of course you just drop the branches that are not to cause damage to the surroundings... I remember cutting down a mighty Birch tree, some 22 meters tall and at least half a meter at chest height, surrounded with three green houses entirely made out of glass... We had to lower every single piece of that tree with a zip-line and it took us the whole day to bring it down to the small piece of lawn next to the root.

The cutting technique you describe is just one of many tricks in the book... for instance if you are to cut down a tree with "slow" wood i.e wood that doesn't snap for the smallest cut you can actually cut slowly from the top side of the branch and let the branch fold like on a hinge and in the end rapidly cut the rest so that the branch dives straight down next to the trunk... useful in some occasions when the tip of a branch is hanging over a roof or similar.

//John

That is why I paid professionals... I have a hard time getting trees to drop even close to where I want...

[update---  yesterday I dropped a tree in my neighbors yard and it was a textbook fall... tree dropped exactly where I pointed it. It was within striking distance of both the garage and house and I laid it down neatly in the yard midway between them... I guess the laws of physics are still intact.  At least for normal trees. [/update]

I saved $500 by cleaning up the branches myself (did I mention I'm cheap?).

JR

 

[johnheath]

That is why I paid professionals... I have a hard time getting trees to drop even close to where I want...

[update---  yesterday I dropped a tree in my neighbors yard and it was a textbook fall... tree dropped exactly where I pointed it. It was within striking distance of both the garage and house and I laid it down neatly in the yard midway between them... I guess the laws of physics are still intact.  At least for normal trees. [/update]

I saved $500 by cleaning up the branches myself (did I mention I'm cheap?).

JR

That sounds like a job well done... as far as it is possible it is mostly the safest and the cheapest solution to to cut the trees at the root

//John

 

[JohnRoberts]

That sounds like a job well done... as far as it is possible it is mostly the safest and the cheapest solution to to cut the trees at the root

//John

My huge pecan tree that fell last summer had a major root eaten away by ants. Without any root support on one side, it just dropped in the other direction during a rain storm.

I try to keep my chainsaw out of the dirt to keep it sharp. I left a few inches of stump for my neighbor to remember where his tree was.

After a few years in the ground the termites should get it...  My tree guy has a stump grinder but i didn't even price that, and still have one pine stump over there. When I was cleaning up that wood, I put all the termite infested stuff on top of the stump.  8)

JR

 

[PRR]

Lacing:
http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/

 

[ruffrecords]

Lacing:
http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/

That is a blast from the past. The last time I designed a harness jig was for a daisy wheel printer back in the 80s.

Cheers

Ian