Cabling Supplies and Tools

When you think of cabling supplies, you probably envision boxes of cables, wall plates, modular connectors, and patch panels. True, those are all necessary parts of a cabling installation, but you should have other key consumable items in your cabling tool kit that will make your life a little easier.

Some of the consumable items you may carry are fairly generic. A well-equipped cabling technician carries a number of miscellaneous items essential to a cabling install, including the following:

• Electrician's tape—multiple colors are often desirable
• Duct tape
• Plastic cable ties (tie-wraps) for permanent bundling and tie-offs
• Hook and loop cable ties for temporarily segregating and bundling cables
• Adhesive labels or a specialized cable-labeling system
• Sharpies or other type of permanent markers
• Wire nuts or crimp-type wire connectors

An item that most cable installers use all the time is the tie-wrap. Tie-wraps help to make the cable installation neater and more organized. However, most tie-wraps are permanent; you have to cut them to release them. Hook-and-loop (Velcro-type) cable wraps (shown in Figure 1) give you the ability to quickly wrap a bundle of cable together (or attach it to something else) and then to remove it just as easily. The hook-and-loop variety also has the advantage of not over-cinching or pinching the cable, which could cause failure in both optical fiber and copper category cables. Hook-and-loop cable wraps come in a variety of colors and sizes and can be ordered from most cable equipment and wire management suppliers.

Figure 1: Reusable cable wraps