# How many cat 6 cables do you pull at once?



## ilikepez

I'm working on this pretty large job right now with two journeyman and myself, all hired by this company this week. Neither of them have ever done a large job like this. 

The supervisor came to the site and said this morning we should be pulling 30-40 cables at once. The Journeyman think we should just be pulling to one office at a time, each office has about six cat 6. 

I've only done security and fire, so usually we pull maybe ten cables max at once. 

This was also a pretty complicated run, lots of piping and hvac crap in the hall, plus five 90's and transitions through 4" conduit. 

I've seen some data guys pull that much at once but it always seemed like a pretty damn straight run through drop ceilings.


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## MDShunk

I tend to pull as many boxes as were delivered or however many I have space to setup near the IDF.


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## ponyboy

with proper setup, labeling, conduit and layout i've pulled upwards to 20 and it still sucked. its doable though


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## ilikepez

Yeah this is a weird job. I seem to keep ending up working for places where none of the journeyman I work with know what they are doing...

Doesn't seem to matter on this job though, we are already too far ahead to really continue. I have no idea what we will be doing tomorrow.


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## Wpgshocker

Data is a beotch. 

Pulling 40 at once is asking for trouble. Especially when you start failing tests and have to pull new lines.
Break it down and pull smart. Easy work without headaches if you don't try to muscle your way through.


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## ilikepez

Yeah, we were getting far too many kinks in the cable. I don't know how the supervisor is going to feel about it, but he is brand new too apparently. We also have all the other trades in there trying to do work at the same time.


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## forgotflying

Tell that supervisor to show you how he wants in done, then pull 10 offices for about 60 runs in total while he struggles with 40 runs.


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## MDShunk

I've found cat6 to be far more robust than former versions where pulling is concerned.


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## ohmontherange

Wireless LAN - no mo cable pulling.


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## FlyingSparks

ohmontherange said:


> Wireless LAN - no mo cable pulling.


That is such a joke. I hate troubleshooting wireless.


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## mikeh32

cat6, or cat6e?

Makes a big difference in weight. 

But the pulling force is much less then what you are pulling. 

The max I have done is 16, and was not fun being my size


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## sarness

I've pulled 16 by myself, and that was a bit of work, but not impossible. 

I've pulled many more through conduit with help, I think our most may have been around 100.

If your doing conduit, do yourself a favor and pull them all at once unless it's a short run. Also pray that someone deburred the ends and all fittings are fully seated.


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## erics37

If it's straight runs I pull as many as I can.

If I'm doing drops for offices or something I just group it by destination. If I've got 4 or 5 or 6 drops going into one room I'll do those in a bundle, just to keep from having to separate out a wad of wires and pull them further if they're going somewhere else.


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## Dawizman

We usually pull around 20 at a time, depending on the run of course.


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## sarness

I usually start at the location and pull back to the m/idf, more work moving boxes, but less hassle trying to pull multiple locations.


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## chewy

We have pulled 18 Cat6's once in a special circumstance, Cat6A I wouldn't want to pull more than 8. Never had the need to pull 20 or 30 cables at once, much more efficient to give 10 boxes to 2 teams and do different sides of the building, if we are doing something like 24 switch ties or something like that over long distance then we measure them off into a loom and terminate one panel comfterably at a desk or sitting down, install it into the rack and pull the tail into the next rack where it can be terminated into a panel.

Be smart about your runs, I normally place boxes on the main arterial cable route where they peel off into their final positions. I pull the boxes staggered, taping on cables as I go, once your at the rack, walk the boxes over to the outlet in the field end, add a little for good luck and someone else can start dropping them and tying them on catenarys towards their final positions. 

Pull the longest first and the first pull you do drop into the telco closet and into the rack then down to the floor. Pull that back out and that becomes your measuring stick that all other runs are measured off, then after you have pulled everything get them into their looms of 1 - 24, 25 - 48, 49 - 72 etc etc and pull them and dress them nearly into your rack or panel.


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## zwodubber

I'm almost always on my own on data jobs so I do what is easiest for me per job. As chewy said, I'll pull along the main trunk and break off where offices/cubes split. I attached a pic of a job that had six cubes per cluster, each getting one data jack and a phone. Marked data and phone with tape and pulled 6 at a rime.

Each job varies a little it just depends on the layout of the offices/cubes/building.


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## sarness

And here I thought I was the only one,

So many people I have seen pull cable setting up the boxes in the MDF or IDF and pulling from there, I won't say it's a bad method, and if it works for you that's all fine and dandy.

But I've been on a few jobs where people did this and what usually ends up happening is that they pull the dropped off cable along with the others they are extending. Then once they get everything where it goes they go back to the DF and pull everything back.

I much prefer to set up the boxes at the straightest run possible to the DF and pull everything to there. Then walk the boxes along the path to the end location. I do the furthest run first and add a pull string, then I have a pull string heading back to the DF ready to go for the next run. And depending on the layout and count, I'll actually put a pull string in, mark it, pull another length, tie off both ends, and then pull it back and forth. I usually do this on places I have a lot of corners and such as I can just tape it on and go instead of re-using or keep adding string.


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## xlink

I'd be reluctant to overrule the guys doing the job. It depends so much on the layout, the help available and the number of other trades that are going to walk on the wire.


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## halfamp

12 is manageable. More tends to get tangled and messy and doesn't really save a whole lot of time.

Start with your longest pulls, pull a string with, and pull closer and closer to the closet as you go. This way you can manage length too and get the most out of your spools/boxes


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## Ty Wrapp

zwodubber said:


> Marked data and phone with tape and pulled 6 at a rime.


I used to mark all my wires ahead of time thinking it would be time saver, but Murpheys Law says other wise. The labels would get tore off, cut out or just come up missing. Now I just pull the wire to each location and tone them out afterwards.


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## EBFD6

Ty Wrapp said:


> I used to mark all my wires ahead of time thinking it would be time saver, but Murpheys Law says other wise. The labels would get tore off, cut out or just come up missing. Now I just pull the wire to each location and tone them out afterwards.


Use a sharpie and write on the cable jacket when pulling. 

Pulling cables and toning afterwards might work ok for a small job but if you're doing 400 cables it would be an enormous waste of time.


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## sarness

I was on a big job and that's what we did too, pull everything, terminate the DF and locations, tone it back and label where it landed.

Otherwise I use a sharpie usually two times and three repetitions, if I'm not sure on numbering I use letters and re-label after.


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## Dawizman

We always pull to the TR, terminate at the DVO, and then tone back to the TR. It works well for us. We usually come in between .75 and .9 hours of labor per drop including certification. The bigger the job, the less time per drop usually.


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## halfamp

Write your labels on white tape, 2 copies. 1 for the end you're pulling, stick the other label on a plastic part of the box, and relabel when you cut. Then, when your job is done, all the locations go in order and doesn't look like a shizophrenic did it, putting numbers scattered all over the damn place.

And toning just adds more time

And then testing time takes less time as well


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## mikeh32

the key is to stagger the heads, and pull string, then pull another one


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## sarness

I'm all for making it look sensible on the initial install, and that's usually my SOP, by the same token, down the road when someone adds another jack down the road, it's numbers won't match.

Course someone else argued that they assigned jack numbers by room numbers, like 100-1, 100-2, that way your jacks would be in order. But pray tell me after you add a few jacks how orderly your rack now is? And what happens in a remodel?

I was on a job that they actually did worse then that, they had room number, N, S, E, W, (1&2 if there was more then 1) wall, and postion # in plate. So if you looked at the rack it would go like 100-N-1, 100-N-2, 100-W1-1, 100-W2-1, etc... So down the road you add a jack to that room and heaven forbid that you put it in-between 100-W1-1, 100-W2-1. Can you label it 100-W3-1? Sure, but now it doesn't match the layout. And you can't put it after 100-W2-1 in the rack because 101-N-1 is there. So you put it on the next open jack which happens to be next to 107-S-2 (which is there because it's another addition) but technically the last jack used to be 175-S-1. But now theres a bunch of non-sequential jacks after that for all the new locations. It made sense to them, which is why they probably made more then I.

And of course you have those that use A1, A2-A48, and then on the next patch panel B1 etc for each patch panel in the rack, which I think is ok for the most part. Certainly better then labeling the rack after labeling the locations first.

I for one am one to start at 1 and go from there for each cable type (or use if your going to dedicate it in another rack or patch panel), so if you have 1-8 in a room and you add one, it's the next empty one in your rack. I don't think I've ever had to trace a jack from the rack to the location, it's always been the other way around. So if I find jack 178 at the workstation I can go to the rack and it will be easily found.

And for some jobs we would have a blue print and write the jack number's on it if you wanted to know where it physically was.


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## zwodubber

Ty Wrapp said:


> I used to mark all my wires ahead of time thinking it would be time saver, but Murpheys Law says other wise. The labels would get tore off, cut out or just come up missing. Now I just pull the wire to each location and tone them out afterwards.


I only mark wires ahead of the pull when I feel there is no real threat of losing them, and I do my best to protect them. 

THIS PULL IS NOT SOP, AFTER YEARS OF EXPERIENCE SOMETIMES YOU DO THINGS OUTSIDE THE BOX. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS UNLESS YOU ARE POSITIVE YOU CAN PROPERLY MEASURE AND ACCOUNT FOR ANY OBSTACLE IN CEILINGS, WALLS, ETC,...

Short story on this run. I was solo on this one so I wanted to tone out as little as possible. Boxes were placed at the farthest point from the data room and I started measuring distance from data room to each office and pulled groups of six wires across the floor, labeling them and cutting the wires. YES, pulled all 10 groups of 6 wires and cut and labeled them while still on the floor (each cube and office had 6 cat6 cables 3 for data and 3 for phone). I'll admit it was a bit unnerving but I made sure to take everything into account on my measurements. 

I then got my head set by attaching mule rope, wrapping the labeled section of wire with some shrink wrap and then wrapped it with 3M tape. I started my pull to the data room at the farthest point before groups broke off top offices and pulled the trunk into the data room, then ran sections to the proper locations.

Everything worked out because I made sure my measurements were correct.

Some pics from the setup.


all wires for pull in bundles of 6, labled and color coded.












the head, mule rope in and wrapped in shrink wrap and tape (protects labels and prevents tape from pulling them off).












All the pre cut lengths laid out.












Time to start pulling to data room












Made the trunks as I pulled











Trunk in ceiling


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## zwodubber

Head poking into data room











Cables unwrapped from head with labels still intact. Data is punched into panel and phones were not at this point.











Branches split above ceiling and dropped to final locations. here are two pics, there were more drops but you get the idea.





















Furniture guys built cubes and I ran cable through


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## zwodubber

furniture almost done and terminations made











cube area (offices in front of cubes not in picture)












All lines tested, damn sonicwall denied ET access :no:












And thats a wrap. An unorthodox pull but a successful one in a timely manner with one tech doing everything.


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## jeffmoss26

I think zwodubber owns stock in 3M electrical division


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## mikeh32

holy cluster **** of a head of cables....


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## zwodubber

mikeh32 said:


> holy cluster **** of a head of cables....


6 bundles of 6 wires all labeled. 5 minutes to cut tape, seperate phone and data before terminating. doesn't take a genius to figure it out...


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## crazyboy

I'd be a bit uneasy precutting wires. :thumbsup:


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## mikeh32

yeah, i know. But it looks like ****, and a lot of wasted time. 

Sorry, guess when you do this **** daily, you learn other ways


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## zwodubber

mikeh32 said:


> yeah, i know. But it looks like ****, and a lot of wasted time.
> 
> Sorry, guess when you do this **** daily, you learn other ways


Well you do have me there, she ain't much of a looker but it did what it had to do. Didn't mean to sound like a d***, I just came off my 4th 12 hour day in a row and I'm a bit moody. Apologies.


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## ponyboy

mikeh32 said:


> yeah, i know. But it looks like ****, and a lot of wasted time.
> 
> Sorry, guess when you do this **** daily, you learn other ways


what looks like chit, the head? because if so who gives a f***, its a pulling head they're not made to be asthetic. but i know what you mean about doing it every day. we all have our ways


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## zwodubber

crazyboy said:


> I'd be a bit uneasy precutting wires. :thumbsup:


Yeah, it was a tough decision but because of the short time I had and being alone it made it possible to pull all runs at once. I lucked out and would most likely not do it again...


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## crazyboy

zwodubber said:


> Yeah, it was a tough decision but because of the short time I had and being alone it made it possible to pull all runs at once. I lucked out and would most likely not do it again...


Got to do what you got to do sometimes. :thumbsup:


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## chewy

Why didn't you just use a sharpie to write the labels on? We do 3 labels over 3ft and very rarely have all three of them rub off.

I also don't differentiate between phone and data outlets, they can be patched into whatever the client likes because we have provided a network, thats the point isn't it? Its multipurpose.


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## sarness

chewy said:


> I also don't differentiate between phone and data outlets, they can be patched into whatever the client likes because we have provided a network, thats the point isn't it? Its multipurpose.


Which is my point to start at 1 and go up from there for each cable type. Unless of course they take that cable and dedicate it for a specific purpose and its not terminated in the same panel /rack /cabinet.


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## Switched

I used to put on the 3M labels then reverse tape the cables to protect the labels from damage. It was nice and easy to remove the tape when done, with all the labels in perfect condition.

Haven't pulled data like that since I was an apprentice though.:whistling2:


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## LARMGUY

EBFD6 said:


> Use a sharpie and write on the cable jacket when pulling.
> 
> Pulling cables and toning afterwards might work ok for a small job but if you're doing 400 cables it would be an enormous waste of time.


I use a sharpie and mark my cables on the boxes and on the cables 3 times. I have found when I do this I always have a marked spot I can read. 
One cable marked F DOOR then pull it three feet and mark it again the three feet and mark it again. Reverse tape a wrap then tape up as usual. 
I would also consider pulling from the device to the panel instead of the panel out. That way you wouldn't have to drop any and could easily manage any snarls, kinks.

I also bag my cables in a trash sack if I'm leaving them for any length of time. It took me hours once to clean off paint overspray on 50 + cables. That was on my time not the job. I have also run about 35 cables from the front of a store to the back end 400 ft. and thought they were too long so I cut them off. As soon as I cut the last cable I realized what I had done. Sam Henry Ida Tom! The cables were marked with foot markers and brand names so it was fairly easy to fix.


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## LARMGUY

chewy said:


> We have pulled 18 Cat6's once in a special circumstance, Cat6A I wouldn't want to pull more than 8. Never had the need to pull 20 or 30 cables at once, much more efficient to give 10 boxes to 2 teams and do different sides of the building, if we are doing something like 24 switch ties or something like that over long distance then we measure them off into a loom and terminate one panel comfterably at a desk or sitting down, install it into the rack and pull the tail into the next rack where it can be terminated into a panel.
> 
> Be smart about your runs, I normally place boxes on the main arterial cable route where they peel off into their final positions. I pull the boxes staggered, taping on cables as I go, once your at the rack, walk the boxes over to the outlet in the field end, add a little for good luck and someone else can start dropping them and tying them on catenarys towards their final positions.
> 
> Pull the longest first and the first pull you do drop into the telco closet and into the rack then down to the floor. Pull that back out and that becomes your measuring stick that all other runs are measured off, then after you have pulled everything get them into their looms of 1 - 24, 25 - 48, 49 - 72 etc etc and pull them and dress them nearly into your rack or panel.


Methinks you me and zwodubdude would have a great time working together. Have you ever worked with someone and be so tuned to each other's thinking you would hand things to your helper without him asking when he needed it? I feel that is what we would do.



chewy said:


> Why didn't you just use a sharpie to write the labels on? We do 3 labels over 3ft and very rarely have all three of them rub off.
> 
> I also don't differentiate between phone and data outlets, they can be patched into whatever the client likes because we have provided a network, thats the point isn't it? Its multipurpose.


Like I said, great minds... :thumbup:


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## LARMGUY

All of the techs in our company have a different color tape rolls they use. This way we can tell who pulled what wires. I'm yellow.

I hate black tape because of the residue. You won't find one roll of black in my truck.


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## chewy

LARMGUY said:


> Methinks you me and zwodubdude would have a great time working together. Have you ever worked with someone and be so tuned to each other's thinking you would hand things to your helper without him asking when he needed it? I feel that is what we would do.
> 
> 
> 
> Like I said, great minds... :thumbup:


Its the fastest way to do it :thumbsup:


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## zwodubber

LARMGUY said:


> Methinks you me and zwodubdude would have a great time working together. Have you ever worked with someone and be so tuned to each other's thinking you would hand things to your helper without him asking when he needed it? I feel that is what we would do.
> 
> 
> 
> Like I said, great minds... :thumbup:



On my next solo run I expect you guys to come through for me, it's not like we're too far apart :thumbup:


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## LARMGUY

zwodubber said:


> On my next solo run I expect you guys to come through for me, it's not like we're too far apart :thumbup:


Just call me and I will be there, in spirit anyway.

:thumbup::laughing:


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