The Design Perspective

One of our clients was demonstrating the systems we installed to his colleague.  When they were looking at the heart of the system, the head-ends, his guest commented that the wires were not “all lined up” perfectly and tightly tie-wrapped.

In all my years designing control systems for pharmaceutical applications, I’ve always seen perfectly tidy wiring.   Each wire cut to exact length, heat-shrink tubing on the ends, and clearly labeled.  The bundles are then tie-wrapped together and attached to the backplane.

This is important in validated systems responsible for the production of medicines and foods, but is it a good thing in a home?

There’s a balance that needs to be stuck between tidy wiring, servicability, and expandability.

While tie-wraps help prevent connectors from being inadvertantly pulled out, they also make upgrades a nightmare as no two components are designed with the same connector layout.  Perfectly parallel Cat5e or Cat6 wires can actually induce noise into adjacent cables when run long distances together.  Current studies show a little randomness in the the wire bundles reduces noise.

Velcro straps are the proper tool for dressing rack wiring.  They do not pinch wires and make servicing the wires much easier.

For our out-of-state (outside Indiana) projects, we now specifiy and exclusively use modular punch-down blocks for all homerun wires–the wires heading out to the rooms.  This allows us to repurpose any wire simply by unpluging it and connecting both sides to another device.  It also allows a clear responsibility divide between the prewire contractor and our trim work.