ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Plasma and other TV wires inside walls

Often I get AV guys asking for a pipe that goes back to the reciever, and I just leave it at that...

Sometimes they'll run building wire and terminate it. And I think thats great, Component video, even fiber.... But often they are running all kinds of factory connectors through it, and never been fond of it. (HDMI, DVI, VGA, Firewire) Some of them ask for ridiculous conduit sizes, like 2"+. Anyway, I too am not fond of using these types of cable in the walls as premisis wiring. I dont think the insulation on them is rated for that use as com, or class 2 wiring, or listed for that use. Often they seem more decoritive than anything else. So I just give 'em a pipe, and lettum do whatever it is that they do. As Im sick of telling AV guys what they can and can not do, as they will continue to get away with murder until some inspector puts his foot down, if only he would look past the dazzling display.

I think that a major reason that the AV guys specify such large conduits is so that they can pull in pre-made cable assemblies with bulky connectors factory-installed on the ends.

I had one of those guys utterly amazed one time when he saw me actually SOLDERING a connector onto the end of a control cable I had pulled in. He actually stated that only the manufacturer has the ability to install those properly...

I am not surprised that newer folks in the trade (LV, A/V or electrician) believe the factory is the only one that can install a plug. We heard the same thing about plug caps on line cords (loss of U/L listing prevents a field installed plug).
They also have probably had problems with signal cables that had field installed ends. I know I would never try to make up a USB cable unless it was an emergency. Maybe I would have when my eyes were 30 years younger.

quote"I had one of those guys utterly amazed one time when he saw me actually SOLDERING a connector onto the end of a control cable I had pulled in. He actually stated that only the manufacturer has the ability to install those properly..."

I went to factory training for Heliax cable installation and termination and some other goodies that applied to antenna wiring. The Heliax terminations always involved soldering . Cool stuff to work on.

Way OT...

Soldering, crimping, or punching is not hard. (But, I've been doing it for 20 years. So I guess it's not that big of a deal to me.) Whenever possible, I'd rather terminate after pulling/fishing.

HDMI, DVI, VGA, USB, Firewire... I could go on... None of them are hard to terminate. Some are more challenging than others. (The worst connector I ever worked with was a Hirose for a wireless mic. I had to cram a SM resistor and a SM cap in this dink-ball connector. It's been in service for years with no problems.)

IMO, it really depends upon where the termination is taking place. Try terminating 40 XLR's on your back under a console desk. Takes a lot more time than a termination where you can actually work comfortably.

IMO, there's way too many people in the AV and audio fields that aren't qualified. But, that's probably the case in many industries.

Eric

Question is where did you find a HDMI and DVI connector that is field installable? How about bulk cable? I was thinking about if I had to do it and never came up with anything other than cable assemblies and connectors meant to be factory installed.

Thing is both HDMI and DVI (with its separate audio) have a distance limit. There are many converters out there that are cheap and will put the signal on a couple of CAT5's or fiber. Probably the better way to go.

-Hal

Pacific Custom Cable. Although, if you dig around, I'm sure you'll find other places.

Never bought bulk cable. Normally, one of the ends gets cut off, the cable is fished, and that end is re-terminated.

Fortuantly, I don't have to do that very often. At church, I deal mostly with audio cables. At work, we deal mostly with CAT-5/6.

Eric