Why Not Use the J-Hooks to Organize Cables?

Have you ever been annoyed by the messy patch cables deployed in your cabling network? Did you take the cabling pathway as an ideal solution to manage the massive cables that provides better support to the cables? In fact, when deploying a high density network with large amount of cables, it is very necessary to choose the cabling pathway to manage the cables, which is generally made up of conduits, cable trays, ladder racks, surface raceways, and underfloor ducting systems. However, considering that it would cost a lot if we put every inch of the cable on the top of each support element to deploy the cabling pathway, this paper will introduce the J-Hook solution that can not only save the construction material but also provides well continuous support for the messy cables.

What Is the J-Hook?

J-Hook is a common kind of fastener, usually made of galvanized steel but sometimes of plastic polymers, that is designed for giving support and management to the massive cables, so that the cables can be protected well and the performance of the high density network can be ensured or even improved. From the following figure, it is easy to find that the J-Hook has a J structure as its name implies. This J design with smooth beveled edges allows a large bending radius for cables, which also facilitates the cable installation. As for its application, you can learn it from the figure below that the orange and blue Ethernet cables are simply put on the J-Hooks and supported by the J-Hooks. You can mount it both in indoor and outdoor for managing and supporting the cables.

How to Install the J-Hook?

Installing J-Hook is as easy as using cable tie to manage the cables, which is very easy to acquire. Firstly, choosing a proper kind of J-Hook, which relies on where the J-Hook would be installed. Common locations J-Hook would be installed are wall, stud, beam, flange and drop-wire. Secondly, aligning snap lock attachment of J-hook with holes of the chosen bracket and snapping J-hook into position. Thirdly, ensuring that the intervals between J-hooks is about 1.2 m to 1.5 m. Fourthly, putting the cables in the J-hooks like the blue Ethernet cables in the figure above. And finally, checking the whole installation to see if the cables are managed well or if there is anything else wrong. If there is a need, just improving the installation to ensure the performance of the cables.

Common J-Hooks with Different Attachments

After knowing the procedures of how to mount the J-Hook, you may feel confused about the types of J-Hooks and which type is suitable for your application. In fact, there are some commonly used J-Hooks fitted with different attachments, J-Hook with angle bracket, J-Hook with beam clamp, J-Hook with hammer-on clip and J-Hook with wire/rod clip, which can be flexibly used. As for the structural differences of these four common J-Hooks, you can take the following figure as a reference.

J-Hook with angle bracket can be mounted in the ceiling, which is also a cost effective solution for the cable tray. As for the attachment of the 90-degree angle bracket, in can be easily installed or removed to meet your requirement. The second type, J-Hook with beam clamp, can be fasten to the horizontal flange that allows for up to 1/8 inch flange thickness. Unlike J-Hook with angle bracket, it can be rotated 360 degrees to support all directional cable runs. As for the J-Hook with hammer-on clip, it also features swiveling 360 degrees for various direction installation. Meanwhile, it can be fast mounted by the use of the hammer. As for the fourth type, its attachment is the wire/rod clip which is very similar to the bat wing, so it is also referred to as bat wing clip. The J-Hook with wire/rod clip can be attached to various structures with its bat wing clip.

Conclusion

In contrast to the traditional pathway elements, J-hook is easier and faster to install and move on-site that doesn’t need any special tool. Definitely, it is an good solution with high flexibility and ease of installation for horizontal cabling support, which is also cost effective with fewer logistical demands, less installation labor and lower material cost. Meanwhile, we can also learn from this paper that J-hook features several kinds of attachments that enables itself to be installed in different applications. Due to these advantaged, there is no doubt that J-hook will be used for more and more cabling networks.

Comparison of Cat5e and Cat6 Ethernet Cable

Although the copper-based patch cable performs not so well as the fiber patch cable in Ethernet network, it is still popularly used due to its advantages of low cost, high flexibility, easy installation and operation. So far, there are various kinds of copper-based patch cables that were published and came into the market in succession, such as, cat5/cat5e, cat6/cat6a and cat7 Ethernet cable, etc. Among these copper-based patch cables, Cat5e and Cat6 Ethernet cable are two of the most commonly applied types that have similar features and functions, which may be a little hard to distinguish. Do you also feel confused? Let’s study the knowledge of these two patch cables and acquire which one is more suitable and cost effective to be used.

Introduction to Cat5e and Cat6 Ethernet Cable

Cat5e Ethernet cable is an improved version of Cat5 Ethernet cable, published in early 2001. In comparison with Cat5 Ethernet cable, it has a very similar appearance, but composed of four pairs of copper wires rather than the two pairs that cat5 Ethernet cable features. Furthermore, the pairs of copper wires in the Cat5e Ethernet cable are twisted more tightly, reducing or eliminating the crosstalk when working in Ethernet network. After the upgrades, it has become the most common type of Ethernet cabling applied in modern homes and offices, offering much faster transmission rate, wider bandwidth and higher performance. From the following figure, you can see a blue Ethernet cable on the left side which is just an example of the Cat5e Ethernet cable.

The one on the right side of the figure is a Cat6 Ethernet cable, which was introduced to the market a year later than the Cat5 Ethernet cable. It is usually made up of four unshielded twisted pairs (UTP) and terminated with RJ45 jacks, capable of supporting the 10Base-T (Ethernet), 100Base-TX (Fast Ethernet), 1000Base-T (Gigabit Ethernet) and 10GBase-T networks. Compared to the Cat5 Ethernet cable, the Cat6 Ethernet cable increases the frequency responses, tightens the crosstalk specifications and introduces more comprehensive crosstalk specifications, for a greatly enhanced performance.

Cat5e vs. Cat6 Ethernet Cable

After knowing the basic information of cat5e and cat6 Ethernet cable, you must recognize that these two Ethernet cables feature different characteristics and perform differently, even if they seem to have common in appearance and function. Then what’s the detailed information about the differences between cat5e and cat6 Ethernet cable?

Different Transmission Speed

There is no doubt that the transmission speed is always the priority if you are considering making the upgrades for your Ethernet network, so does the upgrades from cat5e to cat6 Ethernet cable. As the cat5e Ethernet cable is able to used in 1GBase-T network at most and can only performs up to 100 MHz, the cat6 Ethernet cable is improved to support 10GBase-T network with data rate of up to 250 MHz that is more than twice that of the cat5e Ethernet cable.

Different Transmission Distance

As we all know, cat5e and cat6 Ethernet cable are copper-based patch cables which are only able to transmit signals for very short distances. What’s more, the data rate also affects the transmission distance. In simple words, the higher the data rate is, the shorter the transmission distance will be. Hence, when the signals are only need to be transmitted in a low data rate, both cat5e and cat6 Ethernet cable have the ability to transmit them at lengths up to 100 meters. But if the data rate is required to be the maximum speed, the cat5e and cat6 Ethernet cable can only reach 37 meters and 50 meters, separately. If transmission distance is longer than 100 meters, you are suggested to use the repeaters or switches to amplify the signals.

Different Reliability

The network reliability is also an important factor that you should take into account when deploying your network. Because if there are serious electrical interference in your network, the network reliability may be not so good and negatively influence the performance of your network, thereby the data transmission in your network would be in a wrong way or failed. To ensure a more reliable and stable network, the reliability upgrades is also done from cat5e to cat6 Ethernet cable, with the improvement of deterring signal interference from affecting your network. By using the advanced cat6 Ethernet cable, you’ll be able to have a longer and more reliable period of uptime, regardless of how close your network is to other surrounding networks.

Conclusion

The upgrades always occur with improved features swiftly, like the copper cable upgrades, to face the increasing requirements of the Ethernet network. Since the cat6 Ethernet cable is designed with the improved features of faster transmission speed, longer transmission distance and higher reliability, it is much more commonly used than cat5e Ethernet cable that can be available at a little expensive cost. Hence, you are strongly recommended to use cat6 Ethernet cable to deploy your network with higher performance.