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The lost art of lacing cable (2018)
- tyingq 4y agoThe corrugated cable sleeves that you see under the hood of your car are certainly easier. I suppose it has the downside that it's usually opaque, so you can't see the cables inside, but there are ones made with braided material.
- djha-skin 4y agoDiscussed previously on this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582844
- ofalkaed 4y agoLacing cables is one of the few things I miss about electronics, but I don't need more stuff so I have nothing to build and I have long since grown sick of building stuff for other people.
- zikduruqe 4y agoI used to run a few telco switching offices back in the circuit switched days... and I truly miss wiring up DSX panels. I would come in on a Sunday afternoon with music playing and that was my zen.
- ethbr0 4y agoI've always wondered, from people more knowledgeable than I -- Any advice on bundling cable runs, re: crosstalk? Does it actually cause issues? For either electrical or data? Know it's less on a concern with fully-shielded and -terminated (Cat6a+?), so this may be a somewhat historical question. Interested in theory and/or real-world practice and results. Links welcome too!
- bayindirh 4y agoGigabit Ethernet doesn't care much if you have a good quality Cat5E+ cable. Doing this a lot in the data center for a long time. However you don't want high power AC cables going alongside with them. Just carry them separately, or keep power source local to target. Similarly, other data cables (Infiniband, SAS, etc.) doesn't care either, but they're both short length when used in copper form and they have ample shielding.
- crest 4y agoLacing cables together isn't worse than running them parallel using other means e.g. velcro loops unless you're lacing them tight enough to crush the cables.
- ethbr0 4y agoFrom memories of electromag, field coupling from current in parallel cables decays with 2*pi*r, no? So it seems there would be a fair amount of difference at extremely low separation distances. But we never worked through high frequency EE derivations, which I assume are more average-current- or capacitance-dominated in terms of effects?
- SAI_Peregrinus 4y agoThe distance between cables doesn't vary much between lacing methods. The balanced nature of the signals also means the common mode rejection ratio is very high, so external EM interference (which almost entirely shows up as common mode) isn't a huge concern.
- brk 4y agoOn a decent quality cable you are unlikely to run into any scenarios in a typical residential or small business install where noise and interference causes a degradation in throughput. The balanced signalling used in twisted pair communications is very robust these days, and then you have various protocols on top of that which can handle small errors natively (eg: TCP retransmissions). It is highly recommended, and often required by code, to keep low voltage and high voltage (high voltage being 120V AC power lines, which really aren't that "high" of a voltage) separated physically. This can be air separation, keep them several inches apart, or conduit separation (don't ever run them in the same conduit). This is mostly a safety issue in the case of insulation breakdown to keep any high voltage leakage from entering the low voltage cable and equipment. Similarly, things like minimum bend radius, and untwist amount at termination can often be wildly violated with no ill effects. But, it's still best to not temp fate if not needed. Even max cable length can often be exceeded by 20% or more.
- jaclaz 4y ago>It is highly recommended, and often required by code, to keep low voltage and high voltage (high voltage being 120V AC power lines, which really aren't that "high" of a voltage) separated physically. It depends, there are types of data cables certified (insulation above 400 V) to be installed in same conduit as mains wires: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34725851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34725851
- brk 4y agoUntil you wind up with an AHJ who doesn’t care and requires you to separate the cables.
- jaclaz 4y agoWell, that can happen about almost anything, having data and mains cables separated is anyway a good idea, but (with the correct cables) is not (anymore) against code in many situations.
- 4y ago
- bluGill 4y agoIf doing long runs just run fibre. gigabit Ethernet is about as fast as copper can get - yes 10gb Ethernet exists, but it is power hungry (one reason 2.5gigabit starting to appear). You can send a lot more data with fibre, there are no cross talk issues, and it is cheaper than copper. Transceivers are still expensive though, so copper is best for shorter runs (within your house distances), but still everyone who might run some cable in the future should learn about fibre and how to work with it.
- ethbr0 4y agoI was looking at it. What's the current best home-hobbyist option for terminating? Last I checked, it looked like it made more sense to just buy pre-terminated, built-to-length cables.
- bluGill 4y agoThat is one of the downsides of fiber: you need to figure out your distances before hand and order the right length. One more reason to use copper in the house most of the time. Maybe some ~2ft lengths of fiber for use on your server rack where you need speed between the server and the switch.
- xattt 4y agoIs it still worth doing Cat 8 for stringing Ethernet in a new build, or is it okay to cheap out and just go with Cat 6a?
- crote 4y agoCat6a can do 10GB over 100 meters, cat8 can do 40GB over 30 meters. Current consumer hardware is starting to support 2.5G over 100 meter of cat5, and we miiiight see 5G over 100 meters of cat6 become common in a few years. If you're that worried about upgrade-ability, better stick to fiber.
- toast0 4y agoNote that the specs are 100 meters in a dense conduit. You can probably manage higher than rated speeds in a household environment which likely doesn't have dense conduit nor 100 meter runs. If you're wiring from scratch, sure put the best you can afford, but if you've got cat3 in your walls already, see what runs, your NICs aren't going to look at the label on the insulation. (For better or worse, ethernet speed negotation runs at 1Mbps and the specs don't contemplate testing conditions and reducing speeds until you get to the multi-gig (2.5/5/10g) equipment. Some equipment will drop to 100M in drivers though)
- JKCalhoun 4y agoAs a foil, people building point-to-point tube amplifiers are very concerned about "crosstalk" in the circuit itself and try to have signal carrying wires cross at right angles to each other rather than run parallel (for obvious electrical-theory reasons).
- BenjiWiebe 4y agoBut those signal wires aren't balanced twisted pairs.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- crote 4y agoIt can definitely causes issues. The risk factors are: - High-current power cables - Analog signal wires - Low-voltage signal wires In practice it is mostly a solved issue. Applications like Ethernet, HDMI, and professional audio have been using balanced signal pairs for decades and they cancel out most interference. We figured out how to do that in the 1880s.
- cuSetanta 4y agoI have spent months of my life trying to diagnose issues with spacecraft hardware that ended up being caused by cross-talk from a noisy clock signal in AWG30 wires. Added some shielding and everything worked perfectly. In the most recent case, the clock was interfering with a series of motors, causing an antenna pointing array from getting lost and moving erratically. We had had some issues with the motors in the past so assumed it was an issue there and performed 100s of tests to try understand the issue. When we realised it was crosstalk I was quite red in the face. In spacecraft we talk a lot of precaution to avoid crosstalk when laying out our harness. Shielding is not always an option.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoWhy weren’t wire ties used? Or twisty ties (the kind used in garbage bags)?
- JKCalhoun 4y agoMy guess is — this would be quicker. Having to stop and twist together a new tie every 6 inches vs. just continuing your daisy-chain of loops only having to expend any significant effort at the beginning and end of the chain.
- gvb 4y agoLacing dates back to the beginning of electrical wiring (late 1800s, early 1900s) a) "Zip ties" were not invented yet (nylon was invented in 1935) b) Twisty ties are thin metal wires covered by paper (plastic covered ones were not practical until the late 1900s). The twisty wires were a threat to cut into the wire bundle. They also rust. Even in modern days with zip ties, lacing has a significant advantage in that zip ties have sharp "tails" that stick out from the bundle and cut your hands and arms when you reach into a compartment. Lacing lies flat against the bundle and has no sharp ends.
- calvinmorrison 4y agoGotta recommend you get a zip tie gun... Snips and tightens at the same time and doesnt leave a sharp point
- pimlottc 4y agoInteresting, I hadn't heard of those before! I had to go look up a video to see how it worked [0]. However, since it uses standard zip-ties, there's still the extra bump of the head on the finished tie, which can snag if you're pulling on the bundle. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBP7kMi-mN4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBP7kMi-mN4
- gregmac 4y ago> zip ties have sharp "tails" that stick out from the bundle and cut your hands and arms when you reach into a compartment. The guy that ran a computer shop I used to frequent was an ex-Bell tech, and taught me about using flush-cut snips exactly to avoid this. They've been a part of my toolbox ever since. They're also my go-to cutting tool when working on small electronics.
- seanc 4y agoNo mention of the legendary NASA cable lacing guide? https://workmanship.nasa.gov/lib/insp/2%20books/links/sections/401%20General%20Requirements.html https://workmanship.nasa.gov/lib/insp/2%20books/links/sectio...
- luma 4y ago> Some organizations have in-house standards to which cable lacing must conform, for example NASA specifies its cable lacing techniques in chapter 9 of NASA-STD-8739.4. It's right there in the article.
- voxadam 4y agoI'm sorry, I actually meant to include your link when I submitted this. NASA's wiring documents are beyond amazing.
- ape4 4y agoI am happy to know if any NASA spaceships are intercepted by aliens that they'll have good quality lacing to represent us.
- VLM 4y agoGood quality lacing means the craft will probably be working. The worst case scenario is a tangle of cables hanging all the tension on one individual cable then apply a nice 9 G load with vibration and it snaps. Also good lacing in minimal volume which means maximal cooling air flow in general.
- nick123567 4y agoDepends on if you laced the wire that needs the most cooling deep in the center of the bundle...
- cuSetanta 4y agoIts also important during the building process to keep the rats nest of wiring to a minimum, it can get fairly messy inside spacecraft. Then its also much easier to ensure cabled are kept apart from other signals that could interfere with them.
- rtp4me 4y agoIn my experience, data center cabling is either a huge mess (random cables just hanging everywhere) or is tied down so much you can't do any repairs/replacements (velcro, tie wraps, etc). There is a fine line between cleanliness and usability. For the folks that work with me, I explain the importance of air flow, proper cable length, and component serviceability. You definitely don't want "piano wire" stretched across the rack that prevents someone from replacing a PSU or NIC without affecting other gear in the rack.
- vidarh 4y agoCouldn't agree more. And the latter (tied down) quite often devolve to the former over time exactly because it's so much effort to maintain that suddenly an urgent repair happens and ties get cut and cables torn out and something new just thrown in, and the effort of re-doing the original setup means it gets deferred. I stopped tieing cables together years ago for that reason. The more the perceived effort in getting what needs to be done out of the way + fixing the cabling afterwards, the less chance it gets done properly. Instead I'd aim to set an example of stretching the cables out of the way, labelling and getting length roughly right that is simple enough to work with in a rush and trivial to "fix up" afterwards. In large environments where crises are more likely to involved routing traffic away from entire racks or data centres, you can afford being a stickler for these things. Most places are not that large, and being too strict creates more problems than it solves.
- jonhohle 4y agoIs there any good resources for learning more about this? I have a lot of legacy AV equipment mixed with modern digital components and networking and despite best efforts, I typically fall into either a rats nest or something that’s too constrained to repair/modify without undoing everything.
- Zircom 4y agoI mean honestly there's not too much expertise involved, it's mostly common sense. It's just that it takes so much longer to do it right at the beginning to ensure its maintainable and ordered rather than just doing it the easy way and hoping that it's someone else's problem by the time someone actually needs to find the other end or replace a cable. Making your own cables that are the exact length they need to be instead of using preterminated ones and just stuffing the slack into the side of the rack, routing them down the side and through the floor or the cabling trays on the ceiling, standardized naming schemes for labeling devices/ports on either end of cables, documented rack diagrams, etc.
- rascul 4y agoI've laced cables in the past. It takes a little longer but can look nicer if the cables are exposed. Also there's the advantage that it's easier to cut the lacing without damaging the cable insulation than it is a zip tie.
- waterproof 4y agoMy life has changed since I learned that reusable zip ties are a thing. They have a little lever you can press to release the cam. They cost more of course, but I’m never going back.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoIt's not worth the effort but you can reuse regular zip ties if you have a small flat-end screwdriver. :)
- iso1631 4y agoI much prefer velcro. If you do use zip ties don't cut the ends. If you do, make sure it's flush, had many many scratches over the years from non-flush cuts on plastic zipties.
- devenson 4y agoOr melt the sharp ends with a lighter to dull them.
- 83 4y agoOr buy the right tool for the job. Panduit zip tie guns are expensive, but once you experience the joy of having zip ties correctly tensioned and trimmed flush with no effort you'll never look back.
- arein3 4y agozip ties have often a sharp finish over the length of the zip tie and can cut trough insulation if there are vibrations
- LeSaucy 4y agoAny benefits of this over velcro straps?
- throwanem 4y agoIt's a hell of a lot easier to pull through a conduit.
- VLM 4y agoIts kind of assumed by building inspectors that 'new' (post 1970s) lacing is fire retardant. Plenum rated velcro is available but unfortunately both costs more and looks absolutely identical to the flammable stuff, so building inspectors sometimes look askance at it.
- ambientenv 4y agoI was in telecom and IT for 35+ years (Bell Canada, NorTel) and worked with on-prem and CO-located step-by-step and crossbar switches at the tail end of their prevalence. It was a joy to be able to take the time to properly lace cable harnesses which were abundant in these installations. There were also PDP-11's, teletypes and such involved in network/switch monitoring which had their share of laced wiring harnesses (and wire wrap!). Also Datapac/Dataroute equipment cabinets and back-planes. It seems to me that the job title of "craftsman" fit in those days as there was often an almost artisan quality and craftsmanship to the work involved. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to experience it. Compared to my later datacenter installation experience (compute and power) it was night and day different.
- Aloha 4y agoYou should for sure write about your experiences. The transition point between EM/Analog Stored Program and TDM is important. There is little out there about Datapac at all.
- b112 4y agoAlso Datapac /me shakes fists, at naming of Datapac. I used this to connect to Compuserve, and it dropped endlessly. I guess my 300 baud modem was too much for it. Edit: realization dawns! It was you, wrapping cables, which caused my disconnects!
- Aloha 4y agoCable Lacing is still mandated by AT&T and (I think) Verizon in their facilities. I think AT&T only requires it for power cabling, but I'm not 100% certain.
- Aromasin 4y agoI shared this article a few years back; never expected it to reappear again. Here's the link to the old thread, if anyone want to read the previous HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582844
- dang 4y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: The Lost Art of Lacing Cable (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20582844 - Aug 2019 (153 comments)
- yourapostasy 4y agoThere are still ample supplies of lacing cords for example at McMaster-Carr [1] so there likely are still lots of sites using them. The part I never quite understood is why lacing standards didn't specify tucking a tail of cord at the end under a single winding of two or more whippings so one can exercise the future option to expand the loop locks if necessary to insert more cabling instead of re-doing the entire lacing run from scratch. I've also yet to find proper waxed whipping thread that is a smaller diameter than the lacing cord so the loose end of the wound whipping fits inside the winding without a snag-prone bulge at the end of the lacing cord; I have to messily make my own from 80/3 linen (or if lacing outdoor cabling, UV-rated polyester) fine sewing thread and beeswax. [1] https://www.mcmaster.com/products/lacing-cords/ https://www.mcmaster.com/products/lacing-cords/
- tibbon 4y agoThis is really helpful to me right now. I’m finishing up a large home recording studio and I’m looking for better ways than Velcro and zip ties to help dress wiring
- brudgers 4y agoI wonder how easy it is unlace cable when something breaks or gets replaced or new hardware gets added or a musician changes their mind or has an idea that requires a novel signal chain.
- tibbon 4y agoEverything is running to a large patchbay that helps with this, but your concern is entirely valid
- bluGill 4y agoMost studios are moving to digital. A ethernet stagebox (normally Dante, but there are other options) where each performer is, connect to your network. Just run an ethernet jack and power to various locations where you might want something and plug in what you want. You can get in-wall versions of the above to use in places where you will always have a lot of stuff connected. You still have the mic cables on the floor, but they are going to be there all the time and the ones that change most often.
- dclowd9901 4y ago> but professional installers know cable lacing lasts longer than cable ties. Come on. Look I love this and it’s beautiful but I can’t think of a single scenario where you need cable lacing to last longer than cable ties. My 76 BMW (an almost 50 year old car) uses cable ties for its loom under the hood. I’m currently in the process of restoring it completely and every single one of those ties is still intact, in an environment far less hospitable than a sound stage. The nice thing about this tie setup, it seems, is you get bundling it over a distance. Nowadays I think most people use nylon webbing for that but this is a cool alternative. Like, we can love the craftsmanship behind this for its own sake. We don’t need to ship lies or pretend reasoning with the story to sell it.
- CobaltFire 4y agoWorked aircraft and nuclear system maintenance/operations for the last 20+ years in the US Navy and I can say that cable lacing isn't dead there. Some people suck at it, but if we aren't doing a full harness build with the sleeving machine then we lace everything. I actually love the craftsmanship of building a proper harness up. There is a lot more skill that goes into it than most people expect, most of it regarding preventing edge cases (repair needs, chafing, EMI interference, signal contamination requiring separation...) during operation or maintenance. Lacing 400Hz AC into a harness with sensitive analog signals is a mistake that will lead to nothing but headaches...
- Rooster61 4y agoI can't help but be reminded of how cuts of meat get tied up to prevent them from curling up when searing. Funny that chefs use this technique for beef, yet we use it for miles and miles of spaghetti :) All kidding aside, its amazing how a bit of string can be such a useful engineering tool in so many contexts.
- trillic 4y agoHow about carbon string to rig your yacht? Or to lift very heavy things with very little line weight. https://www.futurefibres.com/ https://www.futurefibres.com/
- quux 4y agoCable lacing seems to be alive and well in aviation. I'm currently building a homebuilt experimental airplane and as I've started researching the avionics build I've noticed a lot of cable lacing on the wiring harnesses all over people's planes. I think it's because lacing is lighter weight, uses less space and is easier on the wires in high vibration environments. I do notice a lot more spot ties rather than running stitches. Not sure why.
- ryandrake 4y agoSame here. I just finished up an RV build, and all my wire bundles are laced. I chose to use individual clove hitches instead of running stitches because it's easier to fix individual knots later and, well, I just never got good at the terminating knots.
- quux 4y agoNice! I'm working on an RV-14A. Still on the empennage kit so I've got a long way to go but I'm enjoying the build a lot.
- buildsjets 4y agoWhen a single running stitch gets damaged, the entire bundle can come undone. Spot ties are failure independent. Using lacing instead of zipties means there are no sharp cut-off ends sticking out to tear up your hands. Zipties can pinch and damage insulation, especially when installed with a tensioning gun.
- quux 4y agoThat makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
- jamincan 4y agoThe company I work for develops geophysics instruments and we lace the wire bundles in our equipment. The feedback I've heard is that it isn't great in terms of ergonomics for the technicians who do the lacing - repetitive strain injuries are a problem.
- ckocagil 4y agoIMSAI Guy on Youtube made a video on cable lacing just last month. It shows a few different standards and knots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN8dDR4ipBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN8dDR4ipBU
- iso1631 4y ago> Cable lacing is definitely old school but it's been the method of choice for major broadcast facilities, stage rigging, CATV installers, NASA engineers, ships and aircrafts for many years I've worked for a major UK broadcaster for 20 years, and have installed equipment in dozens of core equipment rooms. Early in my career I sat next to a Tag frame (which predated krone blocks for jumpering audio cables), it was part of an old central aparatus room full of analog video cabling from the 1980s or before. I've never seen such lacing. Maybe it's a US thing, but our Washington office was built in 2005 and doesn't have it either. Cable ties all the way - either plastic or velcro.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mdip 4y agoIf I care about what it looks like and want to precisely arrange my cables, I always lace. It's time-consuming, finger-aching work, though and I'm not as good at it as I was when I was younger[0]. In my late teens, I worked at a telecom in desktop support and ended up on a multi-day project installing hardware at a switch site in Cleveland. They'd taken on a new director who was furious at the condition of the cabling/cable management[1]. I remember a piece of paper with a sliced black zip-tie taped to it and the words "FIRED" scrawled in big letters. Teams of two men were working throughout the site. They were ripping out/replacing a huge number of runs. During the week, a group was working on a bundle of what looked like thousand Ethernet cables coming from the ceiling, all labeled, starting out as a perfectly laced 3x2 ft rectangle through the channel in the ceiling and then falling into a spaghetti pile extending most of the floor of the large room. By the time I left, that channel was nearly done, the wires broke off at 40 or so points in different bundles ranging in size, but most were inches thick/wide, wires joined the bundle at various points in the metal channel causing the wire bundle that went to the floor, below, to be only a little smaller than the one coming in. Every curve of every bundle was visibly the same radius. After seeing what could be done, I decided to learn how to do it. :) [0] I'm not that old. [1] Some of the issues were straight-up code violations, but most were issues of good practice.
- ilyt 4y ago> If I care about what it looks like and want to precisely arrange my cables, I always lace. It's time-consuming, finger-aching work, though and I'm not as good at it as I was when I was younger[0]. I just use zip-ties. What is the advantage of lacing ?
- krupan 4y agoThe linked article has your answer
- brycedriesenga 4y agoIt says the following, but I still don't get it. How does a hook-and-loop tie add that much more obstruction that it could be an issue? "This old cable management technique, taught to generations of linemen, is still used in some modern applications since it does not create obstructions along the length of the cable."
- linker3000 4y agoHad to learn lacing during my Electronic Engineering apprenticeship in the 1980s, but the skill has been little used since. I did, however end up with a large spool of waxed, flat nylon, lacing cord, to which I fixed a small metal nut. The cord was very light and I could throw the nut (and cord) quite large distances through roof spaces and ducts; it was a great method for pulling through data cables.
- systems_glitch 4y agoI hear nowadays they have essentially a nerf gun intended for this!
- wildylion 4y agoOh, this was really common in Soviet radio, military and especially aircraft and space industries. Best part: Russian military stockpiled so much of amazingly durable PTFE-insulated cable that I could get miles of it for (relatively) cheap. Think anything from 36AWG to 12AWG. And yes, I often use the leftovers of 26AWG for my projects. That thing was something my EU friends were envying endlessly :) Sadly, with the EU RoHS regulations, I can no longer use this beautiful eutectic leaded solder... well, I can and do for personal use, but technically this is illegal :).
- detaro 4y ago> but technically this is illegal How does regulation for commercial manufacture and trade of electronic devices make your personal use illegal?
- Wistar 4y agoIn the large-scale video post-production facilities I worked in the 80s and early 90s, almost all the cables — miles and miles — were artfully laced with black linen flat lacing cord. One chief engineer in particular would sometimes loudly criticize other engineer’s lacing work and tear it apart and re-lace it himself. Great engineer but not well-liked.
- kuon 4y agoI use Velcro for all cabling, allowing toollless modification and flexibility, but a bit expensive.
- bichiliad 4y agoI had to run some long speaker cable around my living room, and this guide really made it so much easier to keep things neat. I'm glad to see it reposted again.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- JohnFen 4y agoOK, now I need to learn how to properly lace cables and start doing it in my own projects. Thanks a lot, HN.
- tracker1 4y agoSorry, I'll take velcro zip ties...
- Gud 4y agoIt’s not a lost art! It’s still done with high voltage cables, at least sometimes.
- jdeibele 4y agoMany years ago, I started an ISP. I labelled every cable on both ends. My more technical partner came in one day and started ripping off the labels. His reasoning? "They're going to be eventually incorrect so let's just rip off the labels now and trace the connections every time." It took a while but eventually we went our separate ways.
- hn_version_0023 4y agoI feel obligated to say this, even though it should be extremely obvious : As a manager of data center technicians, I would fire someone on the spot for this behavior. It is unconscionably stupid and entirely unprofessional and unproductive.
- ilyt 4y agoTechnically the way to fix that problem is to label cable with cable ID then track "which cable connects what" in IPAM. But then having to look up each cable is a bit of PITA
- kazen44 4y agowhat works really well is building a system that generated a QR code with URL embedded in it for the trace of the cable ID. (netbox can do this, not sure about other IPAM solutions). then all your DC techs have to do is scan a qr, and boom, cable trace is visible.
- qwertox 4y agoThis was always what I found most fascinating about the mars rovers. I loved to look at those selfies where you could see the laced cables. I just googled a bit and found a nice one from the inside of the Perseverance Rover [0] [0] https://i.redd.it/8vcspndiaph91.jpg https://i.redd.it/8vcspndiaph91.jpg
- devb 4y agoIt's nice looking. And I'm sure it's satisfying doing it. But velcro is better.
- cuSetanta 4y agoWhen working on spacecraft cabling we use a combination of zip ties and lacing cable depending on the situation. Lacing is used to hold a bundle together, fix shielding braid around cables and to connector backshells, and sometimes used to fix the cabling to the spacecraft structure. Zip ties are used for more structural tie down points for both cabling and small components.
- glonq 4y agoI remember having to wear nice shoes and nice pants for my first IT monkey job, then wearing out the toes and knees because I was always scurrying around on all fours chasing down problems. Like packets spilling out all over the floor because somebody forgot to terminate their 10BASE2.
- Prcmaker 4y agoWhy would someone place a toggle select for 'necessary cookies' on this page that cannot be deselected? It explains their justification for not being able to deselect (valid or not), but this does not explain removing or greying out the control.
- leriksen 4y agoI believe this is still taught in motorsport cabling courses
- CaliforniaKarl 4y agoHere's a 2019 video from the Connections Museum, showing how to do cable lacing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTC_r9AIgdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTC_r9AIgdo
- crazygringo 4y ago> The reason is not just for esthetic, but professional installers know cable lacing lasts longer than cable ties. As someone who knows nothing about this area, can somebody explain why? Cable ties really fail over time at a significant rate? And on a short enough time span that it makes a difference?
- hummus_bae 4y ago[dead]
- zw123456 4y agoThe first time I saw laced cable, I am not ashamed, much, to say was in 1978, when I had just finished my masters in EE and had just landed a job at Bell Labs. One of my first assignments was to develop a procedure to convert an old teletype system to the new "datapak" technology which was a version of X.25 (a predecessor to the Internet, more or less) and was called BX.25, I guess, Bell X.25. I went to an office that had the old teletype equipment, which reeked of PCB's, large coils with oil dripping from them. The circuit transmitted at 10 baud, not that is not a typo, not 10Mbps, 10 bps, or baudot, back then. 300 volts to zero and back again! Travelling hundreds of miles on terrible copper cables through hills and valleys carry the news wire of the day, AP etc. An old man with grey hair and a beard, crept out of his cubicle to greet me, I informed him that I was from HQ and here to help. Just kidding, but I am sure I said something stupid like that. He explained everything to me, which was fascinating. I was surprised to find out that he was only 25 years old, and the PCB's had aged him. Again, only kidding, I have no idea how old he was, but he ansured me that he was going to retire just as soon as we completed the upgrade to the new technology. He showed me around, the beauty of the equipment and the cabling astounding me, it was almost as if it would be a crime to touch any of it. The way it was tied so carefully. The way everything was put together. There was a beauty that was almost reminiscent of the Incan Quipu's. I am sure I am waxing philosophically here of course. But who is to say that ancient technology is any less amazing than old art or music?