Video editing furniture desk and LAN station overview

LAN stations have been around forever, but I don't remember feeling a boom in demand for them until the late 90's during the dot com bubble.

LAN Station furniture has recently been more popular with video editing companies for their control room needs so depending on what your needs are you'll find many different types of possible set ups that may suit you best. Let's check out a couple.

If your set up is not complex you might want to consider a 24 inch station. The lower shelf is 14 inches deep and is great for shallow components and allowing you room to stretch your legs. The two 16 inch shelf's above can be adjusted in different increments. Includes a built-in cable management channel keeping your communication and power cables organized. With it's 1000 pound weight rating this will be a station that will last, a lifetime! There is a lifetime warranty, so you'll have something to pound on for a while. You may also want to consider some accessories that'll make life easier. I'd start with casters, keyboard tray, LCD mount and maybe a utility drawer.

Maybe you need to make the most out of the space you have at your location and you have multiple monitors you work with. You might want to consider a corner station, shove it in the corner of your location and you should have enough room for about 3 monitors.

Or, your in charge of a team of people and need to provide an organized solution for multiple work stations. You might want to consider a 96 inch station, this larger station also provides larger lower and top shelf's and is completely modular.

I just want to highlight a couple of options for you and hopefully you can find something that will fit your need best. For me I especially like the cable management, it drives me crazy when all those cables get messy and I have to have casters to easily get behind my equipment. Example.

Share if you care. Thanks!

"By Mercy Salinas"

Color signal transmission distance on coax cable for security cameras

Over the past decade of working with CCTV security camera installation contractors, one of the questions that has come forth is how far can signal travel for my color security camera?

After calling other cctv contractors and getting a feel for what the proper answer is, the "rule of thumb" was 500ft. for color and 1000ft. for black and white. Let's put he color to the test.



Now I need to figure out how far color can travel, perhaps a future blog post! Comment below.

"By Mercy Salinas"

What is and What Size is your Fiber Optic Cable Buffer

Yes, there are two different sizes to your fiber optic cable buffer but before we do a comparison of the two sizes I want to talk about why there's two and what fiber cable construction type is associated with one or the other.

The first fiber cable construction I want to talk about is "Loose Tube". These cables are mostly installed in outdoor only installations. Such as direct burial, pole to pole and anywhere else where most if not all the cable is outdoors. This cable construction is more durable and offers a higher pulling tension. I recently talked with AFL and I wanted to know what the life expectancy is for this type of cable construction and they mentioned that it all depends on the environment but a good estimate is 30 years.

Let's take a look at a loose tube cable from our YouTube channel.   



Another easy way to tell if you have a loose tube fiber optic cable is to read the print on the cable jacket and many cables will have the letters LT on it letting you know it's a loose tube, this cable construction always has a 250um size buffer. I say always because I've been selling fiber since 1999 and I don't remember ever seeing a loose tube with a 900um size buffer. Just makes sense, with a smaller size you can get more strands in a smaller tube hence the 250um size.

So that leads us to the 900um size buffer. This size is commonly found with a distribution cable construction. This is most commonly installed in underground conduits for building to building installations and indoors for riser and plenum installations. It has a smaller diameter, more flexible, lighter and overall just more pleasant to work with. Let's get a look at a distribution cable.



Now that you have a better feel for what size buffer you have before even stripping the jacket let's get a look at what these two sizes look like to the naked eye.



That was a great comparison of the two sizes that are involved with your fiber optic cable. As you can tell after stripping the buffer off the cladding the cladding size is the same, the 125um size. If you're asking yourself what is under the 125um size you then have what's called the cladding and then your core. The core is where your signal is transmitted. For Multimode your core size will be either 62.5 or 50.0 and for singlemode, it'll be 9.0.

Questions please comment below and to order online visit Discount-Low-Voltage.com

Why the Information Technology Industry SUCKS!

Wow! I found this guy named Archie on YouTube and his view about the IT industry is a one I've heard from many different IT managers. Take a listen, this guy is a real character and I do love characters!

  

I think Archie is a real good guy and he just got involved in some unfortunate situations.

Comment below, thanks.

"by Mercy Salinas"

MTP fiber cable assembly to what kind of LC connectors?

Here we go again, changing things when a traditional LC connector worked just fine, or did it? Over the past couple of years the convenience of a small footprint by the LC connector has been evolving due to manufactures battling for your data center dollars. Let's quickly go over the different types of connectors.

1) LC Traditional Duplex - This has been the most popular LC duplex connector since the dawn of time. A simple yet effective design by tightly holding 2 individual strands of terminated LC simplex connectors. A small clip is used to hold the connectors together and also offers a press down tab to easily remove the connectors from the port. Can you remove the small clip? Sure, but it's a chore and you'll destroy it.

2)  LC AFOP Duplex - The AFOP LC duplex has almost everything in common as your LC traditional duplex but the connectors are easily removed and reattached. If your in a busy closet you might have to move single a strand around, especially in an emergency or maybe reverse the polarity. A small clip is used to hold the connectors together, also offers a press down tab to easily remove the connectors from the port and has openings on the sides to allow you to separate the connectors and put them back together.

3) LC Generic UNIBOOT - The LC connector portion of the UNIBOOT is similar to the LC traditional duplex connector, but the main difference is that you have 2 strands of fiber now in one jacket. Since your now saving space in your cable raceway you can add more cables in the same size raceway or save on cost by installing a smaller raceway. This is an excellent choice for high density applications.

4) LC SANWA UNIBOOT - This connector is named after the the manufacture SANWA and truthfully after playing with this connector vs. the generic UNIBOOT I can't tell the difference, until I grabbed an additional tool that cracks this connector open. After opening it you can reverse the polarity easily! Check the video out. I've also seen this connector specified on many Verizon projects.

5) LC UNIVERSAL - This connector is a proprietary connector. Accepts the traditional size LC connector but also accepts the "MINI LC" for small footprint mini SFP (mSFP) ports. I thought the LC connector was small enough already but space is money. Currently these "High Density MINI LC" connectors are commonly installed and designed to work with Brocade's FC8-64 high density 64 port blade.

You'll probably want to save this post somewhere, I wrote it so I have it saved. If you check the rest of this blog out it's hard to keep track of everything going on out there, I can't remember it all. Don't forget to follow me on GOOGLE PLUS thanks!

"By Mercy Salinas"