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The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

thebroadcastbridge.com

101–110 of 156 posts

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#101
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just poking fun at Velcro's absurdity. I in no way endorse their view of their branding. I just saw someone say Velcro and I never have had an opportunity to share that lovely page. Seemed tangentially relevant.

Examples of alternatives to trademarked names: * "Velcro" -> "hook and loop" * "Kleenex" -> "tissue paper" * "Dumpster" -> "garbage bin" * "Frisbee" -> "flying disc"

Wait, dumpster is trademarked? I've never heard of this before, but according to [0] it is definitely a generic trademark. Although this may be a great example of why VELCRO(R) is fighting a losing battle. At this point, it may be too late to change the average consumer's habits, as VELCRO(R) is in almost the same situation. Perhaps if they had started this campaign when the patent expired and generic alternatives appeared, but it's probably too little, too late at this point.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#102
post #80
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.velcro.com/legal-and-privacy/dontsayvelcro/

He capitalized it, showing it as a proper adjective. That's pretty good casual trademark use in my book. :-) I really like genericized trademarks - fun to look over lists like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize... The problem is when the either the brand becomes so dominant ("Kleenex(tm) facial tissues") or the item really lacks an easy, generic noun (Velcro(tm) "hook-and-loop-fasteners". Ye…

The capital V was just iOS auto-correct.

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#103
post #78

Aside: I work in med-tech. One of the largest complaints of doctors and nurses, especially in the ICU, is the cables and tubes. There are just SO MANY cables and tubes in a working ICU. Nurses and docs are constantly stepping on them, pulling them out, choking off blood/saline/urine/air in some tube, knocking power off of another, etc. Most of the machines can't do wireless, as some of the machines will 'jam' that pa…

It kind of sounds like they need a raised floor. Cabling bundles can be fed into ports in the floor tiles and run the length of rooms without being exposed in a way that people would trip on them.

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#104
post #78

Aside: I work in med-tech. One of the largest complaints of doctors and nurses, especially in the ICU, is the cables and tubes. There are just SO MANY cables and tubes in a working ICU. Nurses and docs are constantly stepping on them, pulling them out, choking off blood/saline/urine/air in some tube, knocking power off of another, etc. Most of the machines can't do wireless, as some of the machines will 'jam' that pa…

MR tech here. Newer MR safe power injectors and patient monitoring systems are wireless, which is very handy. They can be controlled from outside the room. I don’t know how they work, but I’ve assumed that they are avoiding particular frequencies. The downside is the batteries, which seem particularly short lived.

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#105
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if zip ties are used at all in a project like this one.

Leave plastic out in the sun, exposed to UV radiation: plastic degrades. Sub-zero temps? Plastic snaps. Snip the end, they leaves sharp edges. Zip ties are great for most conditions under which humans can survive. Now, NASA could have special "space zip ties" that are formulated to resist such conditions, but I would imagine they would bear little resemblance to the ones at Harbor Freight that comes in bags of 100 fo…

For those wondering, they do make zip ties out of PEEK[1] for high temperature ranges. They are rated up to mid 200s C for temperature and cost about $1-3 per tie.

I noticed that all zip ties seem to be made out of thermoplastic polymers (most are nylon). I assume something about the manufacturing of them rules out thermoset polymers? Anyone on HN care to enlighten us?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyether_ether_ketone

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#106
post #78

Aside: I work in med-tech. One of the largest complaints of doctors and nurses, especially in the ICU, is the cables and tubes. There are just SO MANY cables and tubes in a working ICU. Nurses and docs are constantly stepping on them, pulling them out, choking off blood/saline/urine/air in some tube, knocking power off of another, etc. Most of the machines can't do wireless, as some of the machines will 'jam' that pa…

This actually seems like a really interesting problem to me. I don't think there's one pretty solution here. You'd have to break it down a bit. - Do the patients go to the machine, or machine to the patient? Wireless makes sense for the latter, not the former. - What's the failure mode? An alarm/alert to the nurse station, or death? Wireless makes sense for the former, I think. - Are there any machines at every bedsi…

> The audio world solved the "cables being knocked out" problem a long time ago with locking connectors (not screw-ins, so they're still quick connect) like Speak-On and XLR. The former is much more formidable.

Audio has the advantage of both ends being heavy and solid. Attaching a line that goes into a person with stitches or a balloon (urinary catheter) is done, but what happens when those get yanked forcefully is bad.

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#107
post #78

Aside: I work in med-tech. One of the largest complaints of doctors and nurses, especially in the ICU, is the cables and tubes. There are just SO MANY cables and tubes in a working ICU. Nurses and docs are constantly stepping on them, pulling them out, choking off blood/saline/urine/air in some tube, knocking power off of another, etc. Most of the machines can't do wireless, as some of the machines will 'jam' that pa…

It kind of sounds like they need a raised floor. Cabling bundles can be fed into ports in the floor tiles and run the length of rooms without being exposed in a way that people would trip on them.

Raised floors would be hard to keep clean in a hospital.

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#108
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating a wiring loom is a skilled task. If you keep those same skilled workers and make part of the job easier that's probably a good thing. What sometimes happens is that a PHB will see the switch away from lacing and to cable ties and think that the rest of the job is now lower skilled, and they put lower skilled workers on that job. This is bad, because wiring looms are tedious to inspect and test, and we now ne…

Panduit has an even nicer, more ergonomic one- I use a Panduit GTS at work, and I love it.

That panduit does look lovely.

Here's a link to one model: https://uk.farnell.com/panduit/gts-e/tool-cable-tie-installa...

Good hand tools are always worth the money.

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#109
Thanks for the reminder. I have a sprawling mess in my basement and have only done wire lacing once (it's trivial to do well, a little harder to do obnoxiously well) and had forgotten about lacing them -- it's perfect!

I used to work in Telecom and I remember when I first saw a monstrosity of laced wiring. This was at a (staffed) phone switch (raised floor, all hardware and technicians) so there was an amazing amount of wiring and I recall admiring the cleanliness of everything (there's a point at which the various colors of running wire, perfectly laced, is a very interesting piece of modern art). The wires weren't done by an amateur; each cable was lined up -- it looked as though there was a harness specifically designed for the bundles of wires that placed them perfectly parallel (or perpendicular when one ran off of the bundle).

I made an off-hand remark about how long it must have taken to do all of that and was informed from the ops guy that they had just completed it last month. Prior, it had been partially laced, partially tied and generally "clean-but-haphazard", however, the switch had just brought in a new manager and somewhere between his first and second day he went on tear through the switch and demanded it be corrected on the short-order. So over about 8 months, every run was separated and laced[0]. Frankly, I would have been proud if any of my personal equipment were as well maintained as the "before" pictures, but the difference after lacing made the "before" look like spaghetti by comparison.

The benefits are huge, though, for anyone who has encountered a run of wire with heavy-duty zip-ties and a misplaced set of clippers[1]. You can lace wires about as fast as a zip-tie if you're only aiming for "good enough", but you can rip through and redo laced wires with a car key or something that is far less likely to slice a wire.

[0] ...according to the tech, "Twice"; they really didn't like the new manager. I've never seen a lace job this excellent -- it wasn't a bundle of clean wires, it was a perfect rectangle of multiple laced wires laced together with each loop/knot hit with a low-temp heat gun to strengthen the knot (which -- while I can't speak to how much value it really adds strength-wise, it had the effect of making the looped/knotted spots look really straight and clean.

[1] I must own thirty pairs of clippers of various sizes/shapes purchased for the sole purpose of cutting zip ties. I'm sure they're all in a container ... somewhere ... all together. I don't think I've ever had one available to me when I actually need it.

Re: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018)

#110

Our techs love to cinch down the zip ties as hard as they can, I've seen a lot of bruised insulation. Also, the fat end of the zip tie is annoying when you pull a harness through a wireway. Still, this seems way too laborious unless you're building some aerospace thing.

They should be using cable tie guns set to the right tension. They usually come with a sheet that tells you which tension setting to use based on cable tie model. If you are doing the same installs each time, it's a better idea to use a gun set to the right tension to avoid damaging the internals. The guns also cut off the extra bit too so it's a one shot action rather than pulling it through and then finding clippers.

If this is IT, I used this hook and loop tape that you would came on large spools that you cut to length. You always got the exact length of tape you needed and there were never any parts to get caught. It was also reusable which was nice when you had to add an extra cable to the bundle.

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