Wall Plates: Terminating multipair snake cable to

[jeffpiano]

Hi there: This is Jeff in Mesa Arizona USA. Just joined forum. I've been asked to correct some wiring in a studio being constructed. Mutipair snakes from the control room are run separately to an isolation booth and to the main studio. The snake is from Conquest, mfd by Gepco (wouldn't have been my choice). Each channel is foil shielded, not individually jacketed, (I'd prefer they were jacketed). The outer jacket of the snake is removed back about 18", exposing 40 pr. of foil shields, some of which have unraveled. My inclination is to unterminate all the channels, rewrap the foil on each channel, secure it with tape if necessary, slide a large diameter piece of shrink over the outsdie jacket of the snake to act as a collar, slide narrower heat shrink tubes over each individual channel, leaving an inch or so of the conductors to be stripped for soldering, slide an individual piece of clear spaghetti over the last inch or so of the drain. This way, the drains are jacketed, the foil shields don't unravel or contact one another.

This is very time consuming. I mentioned that the cable should have been individually jacketed multipair in the 1st place.

Am I committing overkill? I am a believer in keeping shields and drains intact and individualized as much as possible. The studio owner thinks I'm too concerned. (His studio builder also used hardare store grade light dimmers, and is surprised that there's a buzz in the system!)

What would you suggest as the best way to prep and terminate these cables? WHen would someone want to use multipair cables with channels that are only foil shielded, not jacketed?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

JEff

[AVare]

What you are planing is what I would do.

Good luck!
Andre

[knightfly]

One reason for using that cable is that it may have been cheaper; another (since they didn't know cheap dimmers suck)is that they might not have known better.

Either new, correct cable or what you proposed will work, but it also sounds like you first need to EDUCATE your customer... Steve

[jeffpiano]

Hello again:
Thanks for responding to my post. The constant nagging of my client was causing me to 2nd guess my innate sense of how best to approach the prob. I felt bad telling the customer that the wrong type of cable was used in the application.

Now I am remembering that foil shielded cables are meant for applications where the wire will not be flexed much, if at all, as in a permanent installation, lying in a tray or conduit. If the cable will be used, as in this case, to become a multi-pair fanout, where the cables will be flexed and connectors plugged and unplugged, braided copper shielding is more appropriate since its flexible.

And for fanouts, definitely individually jacketed channels are imperative- however, in the non-individually jacketed multi-pair mentioned above, if shrink tube had been applied immediately after stripping the cable jacket and connectors terminated correctly, it would have been a workable, though not ideal, solution.

Now back to work.

Jeff