Mastering Information Communications Technologies: From Cable Management to Project Handling

["i'm Not a Man"]

. I want to announce also I am starting another RCDD study group in January of this year . So I've got the QR code right there on the screen right there . Take your phone , click on it . I'll take you to the page RCDD study group . Me and Phil Kleingsmith .

We're both RCDDs , we're both Bixie technicians , we're both trainers , we're both Bixie members of the year different years , of course , different years and we both . He has more experience than me and I've got 41 , 42 years of experience .

So , rcdd study group and if you're not interested in doing it and you know somebody who was studying for their certification , the RCDD credential , recommend us , recommend us , okay , recommend us . I'm also tankering .

I'm 99% sure I'm gonna do this a study group for people who are gonna be taking their Bixie technician test , or study group for people who are gonna be taking their Installer Cop or Installer Fire , because they all study out of the same book . I'm gonna do the same thing , tony .

What do you think If I do the same process as I do with the RCDD , because you've been in the RCDD study group ? Now , if I do a study group for technicians the same way I do that , do you think that would resonate ? Do you think that would help people ? Let me know , let me know . All right , so let's get on to the questions .

I got lots of questions . I don't know if I'm gonna get done by 630 , that's the problem . So the first question is what are some advanced techniques for cable management in low voltage installations ? So cable management is a must . I really think it's a must .

You have to have vertical and horizontal wire managers because if you don't , the patch cables will get damaged . That affects the performance . They might get kinked . It helps me look nicer . So for racks , you should have a vertical manager on each side of your racks . For horizontal wire managers , you should have one above and below every patch panel .

Now , with that being said , there are some people out there , like Pierce from All Green Lights and some other people , where they're doing installations without wire managers and they're making it look really nice , really nice . But I'm always gonna default to . You really should use wire managers , because that's gonna help maintain that stuff .

The second question is can I explain the benefits of using plenum rated cables in certain installations ? So plenum and rosary rated cables are listed cables . They are tested . The manufacturer sent them to an NRTL . They test them . They burn them . The plenum cable produces less smoke and less toxic off gases .

Now the benefit there is it gives people more time to get out of the building , right , cause it takes longer for the smoke to fill up the building . So that's the advantage there for as far as the end user . For you as an installer . I get this question all the time , chuck . How do I know whether to put in plenum or rosary rated cabling ?

And if you're just not really sure which to use , put in plenum , it's gonna cost more , but plenum it can be put in Everywhere inside of the building , everywhere inside the bill . Well , let me phrase that Because you can't put it inside of an air duct . I got post coming up with that where somebody ran some cables through an air duct .

You can only run cables through an air duct if the cables directly related to the operation of the air HVAC system and if I remember right , I think it's got to be less than 6 feet in length or 4 feet in length inside the actual duct . So if you're looking at a ceiling , if you don't know it's a plenum or riser rated ceiling , put plenum cable inside of .

That's gonna save you from all kinds of problems down the road because you know , if you put in the wrong kind of cable and Then the fire investigator investigates the fire and realize you put in the wrong kind of products and people got injured , people got hurt , you can be a liable for that . Yep , yes , you can . Yes , you can .

And for the end , so very , very basic for those who don't know how to tell this way and plenum and riser-rated cables every cable as a , on the cable jacket somewhere There'll be a bunch of information and it should say CMP if it's plenum or CMR if it's riser rated . Okay , that's how you can tell .

I also get asked quite often what about slow smoke , zero halogen ? That's not a , a Cable that's recognized by the NEC . So in the US you still pretty much have to shy away from . You find a lot of that in Europe , but there was talking putting it in the code in 2023 , but it never , never made it . So yeah , there you go .

Next question is how can low voltage installers ensure proper Bonding and grounding in their projects ? Number one training , training , training . Oh , I've got a show coming up . They finally agreed to come on to the show . It won't get recorded till January , probably Right .

Or it won't come out till January , late January , with With Harger they make bonding and grounding components . That should be a really , really good show . So , number one , get training right . Because , number one , you have to understand there's a difference between the words bonding and grounding . A lot of people don't understand those differences .

When you are Bonding something , you're making two pieces of metal electrically continuous . So when you run that , that Number six wire from the bus bar to the rack , you're bonding that rack to a ground . If you're driving a ground rod into the earth , you're grounding something . So that's the good training .

And then there's very specific ways that you use to install it and that's why you need to get the training . There's the . There's the four prong earthmager where you have to do Prospecting . There's a way you can measure everything . A good resource is Mike Holtz .

He is a lot of information , he's more electrical than he has low voltage but he has a lot of bonding and grounding stuff . It's pretty good . So get that information and use it . And then also make sure that You're using the right kind of connectors , you're not exceeding bend radiuses and Everything will be fun .

And label everything , because bonding and grounding is gonna help that cable plant perform better and it's also gonna help people from getting injured injured . So Make sure you do it right now . I can actually do a whole , I can do two shows on bonding and grounding . That's why I'm not gonna get dived too deep in it here .

Maybe I should do a class on that . You know I have a fire stopping class right , I'm recording it this month and I'm gonna put up on Teachable so you'll be able to take the fire stopping class and it will be recognized what actually it is recognized for continuing education credits . I just got to record it . Just got to record it and get it posted up .

There you go . Loss of vacation time , plenty of opportunities to do that . The next question is what strategies can low voltage installers use to optimize the cable testing process ? Number one get good equipment .

You Know and in backup , most of that , know what your requirements are , because there's certifiers , there's verifiers and there's qualifiers and know what you're trying to do . If you just testing Just to for to make sure everything's working right , that's one test . If you try to test to get a manufacturer warranty , that's another type of tester .

Did a whole show on that . Go look into the back history . You talked about all that . So so know which what you're trying to do . Invest in a good quality equipment . Then the next thing is Train everybody on how to use that piece of equipment . All of the test manufacturers will come in and give you free classes on their testing equipment .

They'll , absolutely will do that . I don't know if any that won't . And there's some really good testing platforms out there , like fluke has a really good . They actually have a certification class you can take on to become a certified Tester with their equipment . But get , get . You get that training . The next thing is to have a testing plan .

Testing plan now this is corporate , wider , company wide . So the testing plan number one should identify training how you're gonna get the training , who needs to be trained , how often they need to be retrained , how you can train new people .

The second part of that testing plan Should tell about the equipment how you're gonna take care of it , how is it gonna get sent back for Calibration ? What is the process for downloading test results ? What's the process for sharing that information with the customer ? It's gonna be in PDFs , is gonna be in the native format of the tester , right ?

And then the second part is the . You know the inspection process . Whenever somebody picks up a tester , what should they look at ? How would they ? What are they looking for ? What to do if they find something wrong ? Then , finally , that any good test plan should also talk about . Should also talk about my mind just pulled a blank on me .

I'll come back to that one in a second . Oh no , I know , it is calibration . Who is responsible for maintaining the calibration ? This is a live show . Who is responsible for maintaining the calibration of that piece of equipment ? Because , per those standards , test equipment has to be Calibrated every 12 months .

Most manufacturers require that test to be calibrated in 12 . So who's responsible for that ? How do they do it ? How do they track it ? What are you going to do if you only have one certifier in the company and it's out to be calibrated ? What's the workaround process for that ?

These are things that should be in that test plan and then also Teach the technicians on how to read a test result . Now , you probably want to . Well , why should I do that ? If it just those paths or fail , good , good to go . What if you get a star pass ? What if you get a star pass ? What if you get a star fail ? What do you do ?

What do you check ? If you , if you fail because of insertion loss , what are the reasons plural reasons that it's failing it , because it's not always because it's the longest length . So if you teach them how to interpret that results , that's gonna make them more efficient in the field . Okay , there you go , just some tips .

Next question how do you handle interfere interference issues in low voltage installations , especially in complex environments ? One number one stay away from all potential sources of EMI . That's electrical cables , that's , that's fluorescent light fixtures If you're doing working like bars and stuff , for you know the AV stuff . Stay away from those neon lights .

Stay away from Conduit . Like you don't realize , we have a separation . If our stuff's in conduit and the electricians in conduit , there's a minimum of a six and separation there , right ? So the stem number one to stay away from everything . But sometimes the interference is not coming with the one within the building .

I did a project once when I was a younger guy that was having a lot of issues From EMI and when we , when we brought in an expert , we found out that there was a television station two blocks away from us and we had to go back and replace everything . She'll okay , so it's not always inside of the building , right ?

Make sure that you , the technicians , know the installation processes , because the twist of the pairs helps reduce some of those effects of EMI . So make sure they understand to Untwist as little as possible . Now those , the standard tells us a half of an inch on twist . Okay , half of an inch on twist .

If you run that jacket all the way to the very backside of the connector , you will be well within his guidelines to teach them how to do that . Teach them also understand how to recognize areas that might need shielding cabling . Example casinos , hospitals , military bases .

If you can think of a place that might need shielded cable , let me know whether you're in Tiktok or one of the other feeds . Right , and there's also equipment that you can buy to Monitor EMI and RFI . It's been a long time since I've done it . I don't know what that costs anymore , but I would if it costs $1,200 to rent a cable certifier .

I would have to imagine it would be very similar in price to rent some type of a test equipment that measures for EMI . But you can avoid a lot of it because our cables pretty resilient . You can avoid a lot of it just by taking the simple steps of knowing to stay away from everything . Right , stay away from everything . You know that's on the class today .

You know they said well , how far should we stay away from electric ? Three football fields , yep , three football fields . That should just about do it , yep , yep . So recognize it and then go for it and understand that if you do shielded cabling , you got to bond that to a ground correctly . That's the key .

A lot of people missed that step Gotta bond it to a ground correctly . Next question is Can you explain the process of certifying low voltage installations and why it is important ? Oh , my gosh , oh , I'll just talk about this not too long ago on a live stream . But a Manufacturer's gonna make you certify . Okay , most , most manufacturers will make you certify .

That's that , that very expensive piece of test equipment . But it's my personal feeling that if you're going out and you're doing a project , a brand new project , you get what you get awarded a 75 cable project somewhere . When you get done you should certify that job . Now we can . We can have a conversation about whether you sell those test results or not .

But just your own projection , you should certify if you're out there . If it's a service tech and you're just putting in one drop here or one drop there , it'd be nice to certify . But you know what certifiers aren't cheap , you know they're not cheap . So so the whole certification process , it's pretty simple .

You know , by that certifier get training on that certifier .

When you go turn on the tester , make sure that it's been calibrated within the past 12 months , make sure you select the right kind of cable , make sure you select the right category rating and Understand that some testers are backwards compatible but not forwards compatible .

So you can't use that 5e tester on that 6a job but you can use that 6a tester on that 5e job . So make sure that's just you know , checked . If you're going to be submitting those certifications to a manufacturer , understand what they are going to be expecting to see right , is it zero star passes ? Or they can expect to see the name of the project .

Are they going to expecting to see the name of the the person who did the testing , or they just accept the generic you know , company name instead of somebody's individual name . That's going to vary by manufacturer . It truly is . It truly is . That it truly is . Then , when you test the cables , make sure you download them .

You got large before the cloud , before testers were put on the cloud . A lot of times you'd have a testers . They could literally have a couple thousand test results and if something happened to the test you would lose all those test results .

But now , with a lot of the testers are on the cloud , you can upload them automatically and those get sent back to the office so that we have to worry about things getting lost . Next question how can low voltage installers effectively manage projects to meet deadlines and Budgets ? Deadlines and budgets from an installer perspective .

Number one Understand the parameters of the job . Okay , I Get this a lot . People tell me , chuck , I'm a project manager . Okay , how many hours are in your project ? I don't know . How can you be a project manager not know how many hours are in your project ? Do you have a schedule built for that , which you know ?

So there's a lot of things that go into that . I'm going to be doing a , a 10-part episode , I'm sorry , a class with 10 ideas on project management . That's going to be coming out probably like January or February . So first is , understand you have all of the information that you need to know to be successful .

If you have a project you're going to doing , you need to know how many hours are in that project , so that way you know if you're on budget or on time or not . Well , take it back . Budget is a different story if you're on time or not , right ? Because if you , if you're at 105 hours and you still got to do testing , guess what ? You're behind the ball .

You're behind the ball . Budgeting it's a little bit different , right ? Because you might have had an average crew rate lower than the actual crew rate of the people who were out there and stuck because the people who were supposed to be doing that job weren't available .

So you could actually be burning up your budget before you burn up your hours , and vice versa , actually . So you know , understand that information . So you need to also have some type of resource to track all your stuff , right ? So , again , gantt , charts per charts . That helps that process .

That can also help you identify when certain materials need to be on job site when certain tasks have to be done , and then make sure that if you're running a crew , that everybody on your crew knows those , knows those goals as well , because if they know there's a goal , they will strive to meet that goal right .

Another thing that I hope you effectively manage your project is communicate , communicate , communicate . When a customer comes up and says , hey , can we add on these extra jobs over there , are you going to extend the schedule ? Communicate , communicate , communicate .

And if you're on a project and it's a multi-week project and you're running into issues , write weekly progress reports , put in the good stuff , put in the bad stuff and then that way , if something happens , you have a documented path of hey , we were doing a project and we got delayed five times this week because of this process , because that might be a

potential change order and that could help you get additional time for your schedule and maybe some additional funds as well . The next question what are some advanced techniques for terminating and splicing ? Fiber optic keyling Wow , wow . So fiber termination you can do . There's lots of methods out there .

Going back to old school UV cure , where you had to , you put the stuff inside and you put a UV light on and cured it , you have the two-part epoxy connectors . Both of those are kind of hot melts . Those three have kind of fallen to the wayside .

So now the industry pretty much sticks with , the majority of the time , some type of a mechanical connector , some type of a fusion splice on connector . So now fusion splice on connector and fusion splice on pigtails are pretty simple , pretty easy . You just got to learn how to use the fusion splice and that's not that hard . It's not that hard .

So my suggestion is learn how to do fusion splicing and buy the fusion splice on connectors , because that's going to make your job so much easier . And then the other advanced technique is learn how to test with an OTDR , an optical ass test set , and how to interpret those results and when you would use either .

Or Okay , there's times you want to use an OTDR , there are times when you might want to use an optical ass test set . It just kind of depends . There's too many variables that you need more information to process that , and there's a lot of great free resources out there for you . Xexfo , they have a great webinar on how to interpret an OTDR trace Right .

That's a great thing and there's lots of free resources out there that you can kind of get that there . And then the biggest thing you can do to be successful with fiber is keeping everything clean . Keeping everything clean , yes , clean dirty connector Contamination is the number one problem of fiber Number one problem , all right .

Next question how do you stay updated with the latest low voltage technologies and industry's terns ? As an experience installer , why subscribe to the let's Talk K-Wing podcast ? Of course I'm sorry . I'm getting hungry . Yeah , blood sugar , I'm getting hungry , getting hungry . Wonder what mom is making for dinner . Oh , and I got ADHD on top of that .

There's lots of ways , lots of ways . So the first way that most people come back with oh , gotta get certified . Okay , I highly recommend training courses and getting certified . I highly recommend them .

But sometimes , depending on your situation , you might have just got hired by a company and they want to see if you're going to stick around before they put you on the $3,000 car ass , right . So then you may not always be afforded that availability , but if you got the money yet going , pay for yourself . That way , you got your own certification .

You don't have to sign a training agreement , right , that's always a good thing . So , yeah , get those . Also , engage with industry experts and your peers . The best way to do that is social media , the best way .

Now I get asked because people know that I'm all over social media on a TikTok , instagram , linkedin , facebook the best way for getting in touch with your peers 90% of the time is gonna be through LinkedIn . Through LinkedIn Do you know how many times that I said , hey , I wanna do a show about X , y and Z ?

And then I would get on LinkedIn and I'd say who is an expert in X , y and Z ? It'd pull up the list and I'd already be friends with them . I'd reach out to that person hey look , I'm gonna do a show on such and such . You wanna come on the show ? Or hey , I got a question for you . Can you help with that ?

That's free , that doesn't cost you anything . You just gotta engage them . And you never know , you might develop a contact for a future project , a future job , and also go to the industry . Events like , for example , the Bixie Winter Conference is coming up in two months . Right , two months . Chuck will be there at the Winter Conference .

By the way , chuck will be there for the Winter Conference . So I just don't know if I'm gonna be there on the first day of the conference or not . That's the key . I got a class scheduled at the time , but I don't know yet . But I will be there , so stay tuned .

I might have some kind of a meetup while I'm there and then the other way that you can stay updated is to subscribe to and read Cable Institution of Managed Magazine and then make and watch their webinars , again free . Both of them are free and it's an easy way to stay current , and you might wanna consider there's lots of free webinars out there .

Again , if you're on LinkedIn , you'll see them all the time people doing free webinars and stuff . Watch those webinars , right , watch those webinars and then maybe also join a professional organization like Bixie , because they have the mentorship program and a bunch of other things that you can do . Excuse me , do as well .

Next question this is the last question can you share tips for troubleshooting common issues encountered during low voltage installations ? Can you share tips for troubleshooting Half chunking ? Half chunking ? Yeah , half chunking means you go to the middle of the problem . You test it that way . If it's as good , then the problem has to be that half .

You go to that half and then you just keep working your way down . So what that does is it gives you a systematic way to identify and chase down the root cause and also make sure you have the right diagnostic tools , the right diagnostic tools . Cable certifier will certainly help . If it's an EMI issue , a certifier is not gonna help you any .

If it's a crosstalk issue , a continuity tester is not gonna help you . Test that . A continuity tester will still say it's good or bad . You know it's got continuity , it's a reversal rate , but it's not picking up the crosstalk . So make sure that you use the right tools and sometimes I'm probably gonna give a flack for this .

Sometimes a simple voltmeter is all that you need and you can pick up a nice voltmeter for 50 bucks or less . Check out Ed , the old tech guy . I guarantee he's probably done a webinar or a thing on that already . Also , do visual inspections . Make sure you look at the connectors , make sure nothing is damaged and then also review all the documentation as well .

So there's the questions for tonight . Let me check . Flip back over . See , here we had a whole bunch of people come in . Alrighty , good equipment . Tony recommends good equipment . Absolutely , mark is in the house . Hey , mark , I missed you . I had the other screen up , but I didn't see the chat thing there .

So and then Jane here says they abandoned epoxy UV hot melts because of the ROC was not lining up with today's broadband neath . So they might have done that with broadband fiber optic network , jane . But I'm telling you now there's still some pockets of customers in the US that that's all they've got on their campus and they don't wanna change connectors .

It's a very , very small percentage , but they're still out there . So I know several people , several manufacturers . They're still selling the two part epoxy connectors . I'm not sure if 3M is still selling the hot melts or not , so I'm not sure about that . Oh , radio's a curve . Oh , there you go . See , I just learned a new acronym there .

I thought you meant return on cost , oops . Alrighty everybody . So we are at a 30 minutes . I appreciate everybody coming on today . Until next time , remember , knowledge is power . That's it for this episode of today's podcast . We hope you were able to learn something . Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content .

Also , leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications . Until next time , be safe .