casey_torres60•25d agoMost Upvoted

Remember when we had to cut coax with a razor and pray it didn't fray? I swear it was an art form back then.

I started installing cable back in 2012 for a small company in Portland. We used to strip everything by hand with those cheap yellow coax strippers that would dull after a dozen cuts. Half the time you'd nick the dielectric and have to redo the whole F connector. It was such a pain when you were on a ladder and the rain made the jacket all slippery. Now I use a ratcheting crimper with a built in strip gauge and it takes like 20 seconds per end. The compression fittings are way more consistent too, I've had zero signal issues since I switched about 3 years ago. Has anyone else noticed the newer pre-molded cables are actually faster to terminate than doing it from bulk spool?

2 comments

2 Comments

ruby49425d ago

Yeah, read a forum post last week where a guy said pre-molded cables have tighter impedance tolerances than anything you can do by hand. Made me think, those bulk spools we used to fight with probably had tiny kinks from the factory that messed with the signal. I still keep a roll of quad shield around for long runs. But for short patch cables, the pre-mades are just way more reliable.

parker_patel8425d ago

Is it really that simple though? I've had way more pre-molded cables fail at the boot than any hand terminated ones I've made. Those molded strain reliefs get brittle in a year or two, especially if you move gear around a lot. Hand crimped connectors can be repaired right there, but a dead premade means digging in the bin for a spare.