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All About Cables
Think about your dream home theater system and visions of DVD players and high definition plasma TVs likely dance in your head. However, we rarely think about the cables that make all the flashy technology work in harmony with each other. Cables have many different sizes, shapes, lengths and connection types. First, you need to decide whether you need an analog or digital cable. Then you must decide between the four types of cables on the market -- coaxial, composite, component and S-Video. Chances are, your home theater system needs at least two of those four types of cables. Here is a breakdown of the four:
Coaxial cables: the most basic and common cables. They are cost-effective and send a signal over a long distance.
Composite cables: use a single standard RCA-style jack to pass video signals. It is capable of delivering a high-quality picture, but the color and brightness is not as accurate as S-video and component.
S-video: the "s" stands for separate, which means that color and brightness are processed on separate paths which makes for a sharp picture. S-video provides a sharper picture than composite video.
Component: works similarly to the S-video, but provides even sharper color. This is the best cable to use.
And, lastly, while buying your cable, keep in mind that you want to "round up." Experts say it's a good rule of thumb to always buy more cable than you need. So, for example, if you've measured and determined you only need 4.5 feet of cable, buy 6 feet.
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Advantages Of Fiber Optic Cables
CableOrganizer.com Tip: There have been great improvements on wires and cables in recent years, particularly with the advancement of the fiber optic industry. Fiber optic cables offer many advantages over other cables, including:
· Higher speeds by which information travels
· Larger bandwidth capacity
· Further distances that information can travel
· Greater resistance to interference caused by other equipment
· Less maintenance
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Forward Thinking for Successful Cable Management
According to techworld.com, a little forward thinking goes a long way when it comes to cable management. For example, if you spend a few extra dollars to buy snagless connectors, when it comes time to pull any wires out of the neat bundle under your desk, you will be able to pull the cable out of the pile without ripping off the little plastic tab that holds it in the port when it's plugged in.
Also, document your system and keep it in an easy to access place. In other words, write down your cable layout, what each color means and how you routed your cables. This way, if you are away from the home or office and a problem arises, it will be much easier to direct someone to fix the problem. It's easier to tell someone to move the green cable from port 24 to port 95 rather than saying "grab one of the black wires on the left sort of near the bottom and put it in that thingy all the way to the right..."
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Types of Corning Cable
CableOrganizer.com Tip: Here are some Corning cable types and what they do, courtesy of CableOrganizer.com:
Corning MIC riser cables: use these for routing cable inside of buildings, building backbone, horizontal installations in riser shafts, telecommunications rooms and work stations for all high speed data applications.
Corning MIC plenum cables: meant for building backbone and horizontal installations in plenum and general purpose environments.
Corning ALTOS all dielectric gel-free cables: lightweight cables used for outdoor aerial and duct installations.
Corning FREEDM LST gel-free cables: good for inter and intra building backbones for aerial, duct and riser applications. Gel-free makes cable preparation easy because the cables contain no messy gels. Also, with this cable the buffer, tubes and fibers in each tube are color-coded for quick, easy identification.
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Cable Management for Home Theater Systems
There are cable management solutions for making your home theater system look as sharp as your new high definition plasma TV. Here are some cable management products for your home theater, courtesy of cableorganizer.com.
Home theater slide out racks and rotating shelving systems to store your technology in an eye-pleasing and easy-to-access way
Surge suppressors protect your equipment from power surges
High performance speaker cables
Wire strippers to access your wiring
Crimp and compression tools to connect cabling
Telescoping poles to aid you in handling wire in hard-to-reach areas along ceilings and inside walls and crawl spaces
Digital multimeters can measure voltage and currents
Braided sleeving to organize and protect your wires
Raceways hold, guide and protect wires and blend into your walls for a clean, finished appearance
Wire looms hide cables
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Chemicals That Can Damage Your Wiring Duct
CableOrganizer.com Tip: If you are using Panduit wire duct, the company warns there are some cleaning solvents and cutting fluids that can specifically damage type NNC and NE wiring duct. These chemicals are known to cause stress cracking in the halogen-free PPO material:
Hydrocarbons
Phenols
Ketones
Amines
Ethers
Petrol
Organic, inorganic and oxidizing acids
While you should be careful about these chemicals affecting your ducts, a Panduit wire duct also has some great benefits. If you need to route and conceal wires within a control panel, consider Panduit wiring ducts. Even if you are working with a tight space, you can find a Panduit wire duct that will fit. The line of ducts come in varying sizes, colors and materials.
Panduit has a complete array of ducts to choose from which makes wiring your home or office that much easier. Along with narrow and wide ducts, there are also corner ducts to make wiring in those tight turns a breeze.
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Color Code Your Wires
Which cable is the positive lead? If you are a car enthusiast fixing or experimenting with rewiring your car, you need to take precautions. Make sure and mark the positive cable with a red piece of heat shrink tubing. Heat shrink tubing is also available in yellow and green stripes for ground lines. Moreover, good heat shrink tubing can add protection to your cables against chemicals and extreme temperatures, as well as abrasion.
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Why Use Electrical Wire Covers
CableOrganizer.com Tip: If you don't mind the way your mess of electronic wires looks and need another reason to use electrical wire covers, how about for the safety of your family? According to experts, exposed wires cause fires every year due to cords lying on the floor and being walked on repeatedly, heavy and light objects being placed on top of exposed wires, consumers using the wrong wire size for the technology in their home or cords attached with staples, wrapped around nails or curled.
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) says flexible cords and cables should be protected from high traffic areas, sharp corners and wherever they will meet accidental damage. Therefore, it is wise to use wire covers.
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Better Desk Cable Management in Seven Steps
Good desk cable management means that all of your wires, power adapters, hubs and modems are lifted off the floor and out of harm's way. Here is some advice from cnet.com, a publisher of computer and technology news and information, for having good desk cable management:
Label your cables because when it comes time to move your equipment around, you may have trouble reinstalling everything. Will you be able to tell which is an unused network cable and which is a live cable?
When you install a new piece of equipment, use a short instead of a long cable. Otherwise, the extra cable will get in your way and make running new wires difficult. Also, extra wiring radiates electrical noise.
Rip out old unused cabling instead of thinking you might use it in the future. Chances are you will not use it and it will just crowd your office.
Wrap related cables together every few feet, or bundle them. Do this instead of simply plugging them in and dropping the cables behind your desk. Otherwise, you will be cursing yourself when you can't figure out what goes where. There are cable wraps sold for the purpose of bundling cables.
Wireless objects will not solve your problems completely. Some wireless mice are heavier than the cordless ones, which is not good for your wrists. Wireless usually costs more, as well.
Super short extension cords allow you to plug all of your bulky power adapters into one power strip so that every slot on your power strip is being used.
Buy networking and USB cables that have smooth boots over the ends and your cables will be pull-up friendly. This means when you get some new electronics and want to pull up the cables from the old electronics, they will be less likely to snag.
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Avoid Duct Tape as Cable Covers
We've all heard that duct tape is the universal solution for many household projects. But experts in the wire management industry warn you to bypass the duct tape when considering how to organize and hide your cables and wires. While duct tape has a wonderful ability to conform, stretch and adhere to many surfaces, it's not ideal for cable organization. And here's why, according to cableorganizer.com:
It's ugly and inefficient
It can damage flooring
It can be dangerous when it comes unstuck
Instead, spend the money to get a proper cable cover, a product intended to protect and organize your cables.
