Fish Tape

Fish tape is a industry term (or slang) to refer to a tool used to get cables through conduit (thin, metal piping about 1" or less in diameter).

Fish tape is a self-contained reel of rigid metal tape.  It's a thin, flat piece of metal about 1/4" wide.

conduit pipes coming out of the ceiling into a network closet (above)

Below is a picture of a reel of 120' of metal fish tape.  You can get fiberglass Fish tape too.

Opening a Cisco 3900 CME router

Cisco 3900 is a ISR router used to host the Cisco Call Manager Express phone system.

I recently had to do a lot of trouble shooting on one.  I had the opportunity to take it apart (actually two of them as I was swapping parts).  I took several pics and here they are

this unit contains a SPE-150 with several VIC cards and a T-1 card.  Also, it has an SRE-900 card.

.  This is a pic with the SPE-150 cards out.

These are a couple of SPE-150 cards that connect to the back plane.

Here's a little closer.  The pic is hi-res, so you can click to enlarge it.

Also, I had to remove one of the power supplies to put in the other one.  Here's what that bay looks like.

On the left is the cover with the 5 fans.

Airtight wireless intrusion prevention

This little device which much like a Wireless Access Point is actually not.  Its roll is to sniff the wifi frequencies in search rogue wi-fi networks and war-drivers.

Smart jack

A "Smart Jack" is usually the point at which the telephone company hands-off the circuit to the customer.  This is also referred to as a "demark" (or demarc or point-of-demarcation).  It also had the roll of acting as a control and trouble-shooting device for the phone company.  For instance, the tech on the phone company side can communicate with the smart jack.  She can put the smart jack into a Loopback mode which would allow her to run diagnostics on the span.  This helps ddetermineif any trouble in the network is on the phone company side or on the customer side.

Beautiful cable management

DUST - Why hardware overheats!

There are three top killers of Network equipment (or all electronics for that matter).
1. Lightning
2. irregular power (power surges and sags)
3. Heat

This article addresses HEAT.

Even with the most expensive network / server installations, no one is ever appointed as the :"person to be sure the equipment is kept clean, dust-free, and climate-controlled".  A professional IT admin should know this, but I've rarely seen one with a dust cloth or a vacuum.

However, dust-control is so disparately needed.  With the exception of formal data centers (which are self-cleaning due to air circulation systems that filter the air), any installation will begin to accumulate dust within a few months.

Almost any enterprise-grade switch, server, or router has a fan in it which spins 24/7.  As it does it's pulling dust into the device it is trying to cool.  Again, unless the air is very well filtered (as it is in a data center), all air contains some dust.

Dust begins to accumulate on the vents, the fan blades and the components inside the device.  As it does, three things start to happen.
1. The vents let less air in (now the fan is working harder which leads to failure)
2. The fan blades become less efficient because they are no longer smooth (they are caked with dust)
3. components that accumulate dust now cannot be cooled as easily because the dust is acting like blanket to keep heat inside.

Vents on a Juniper switch almost 100% clogged by dust

I see this so often when working in the field - clogged vents.  And, you can hear the whine of the fan running at full speed desperately trying to cool the CPU.

I don't blame the staff at the locality, they don't know any better.

Usually, if I have time, I will attempt to remedy the situation.  But, as a field tech, one has to be careful about touching stuff that is not in the scope of what you were sent there to work on.  The old cliche applies - "No good deed goes unpunished!"

POS terminal with dust clogging vents

What will help?

Simply making it a point to dust and vacuum around the network equipment once every 3 months would be a great start.  If you want to go a little farther, invest in a air filter big enough for the room your data equipment is located-in.  Ideally, network and server equipment should be kept in a small room with a closed door.  However, in many small business settings this is often not the case.  It's usually stacked on some shelves in the accounting office or in the storage closet.

Another Heat Source - STUFF!

The other big enemy in the war-on-heat, is inadequate breathing room.  When a device (network switch, server, stereo, microwave) has items placed on top of it, or leaning up against it, this blocks the heat-dissipation path.  Which way does hot air normally move?  UP!  Of course.   When you stack items or place things on top of a devices exterior, you're blocking the natural exit path for the heat.
Now, somethings are designed to be stacked.  For instance high quality switches like Cisco or Juniper were designed with the idea that they would be stacked.  So, in that case stacking is OK.  But, may consumer-grade networking components are not.  If you were to take consumer-grade router (which usually has heat vent holes on top) and set another component directly on top of it, you would be reducing the natural flow of heat.

Gotcha Cornered

The last problem I can think of is that after the network equipment is installed, other (non-technical) people come in a try to push-back or slide the equipment up against the wall so they can re-claim the unused space.  The problem with this is that it blocks the vents.  Most "pizza box" style networking components pull air in through the left and right side walls.  But, when people push these components up against the wall, they completely block the vents on one side (or sometimes both sides).

What to do???

If you're planning the installation, or you have the ability to move the equipment.  Try to put the equipment up above eye level.  This tends to keep people from unknowingly using the network shelf as a place to store things.  Also, it would not hurt to put a sign up that says "DO NOT STORE ANYTHING ON THIS SELF".

Dusting:  Just a quick swipe with the vacuum about once every 1-3 months.  Or, use a "Swiffer" dust cloth. (those work really well).

In a perfect world, if you can install the equipment in a small climate-controlled room (or closet) with a door, that would be ideal

Silent Knight Intelliknight 5820

Fire Alarm Control Communicator

Alarm Sensors on a safe

those two gray rectangles on the left side of the safe are the sensors.  The one on the left is the actual sensor that feeds open/closed information back to the ELK panel.  The one on the right is just a powerful magnet.  So, the problem with this is that just putting a strong magnet on top of the left-hand sensor would fool the panel into thinking everything is fine while the safe door is wide open (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

Busy cable trays

Thats a a lot of cable!  I sure hope they didnt mix cat5 and cat6 in there.  Otherwise they might get Alien Crosstalk!

Posted via Blogaway

Typical cash wrap

This is a very typical cash wrap environment for retail stores (think Malls, clothing retailers).

One, two, or three POS machines sit atop a counter, and the ancillary technology is stored in the space below.

PagePro IP by Valcom

The PagePro IP is a device that allows paging to Analog PA systems via an IP port.  This is becoming increasing important with the proliferation VoIP phone systems.

Basically the way it works is the PagePro IP connects to the Ethernet switch just as any other ethernet device would.  On the back of the PagePro IP is an analog audio output which would go to the tip/ring input of your amplifier. (or some other "audio in").

One of the big differences between the way a purely analog paging system works vs. the PagePro IP is that the announcement is collected first, then broadcast only after the announcer hangs up.

Connections and facotry reset on Aruba ap-135

If you need to connect a management console cable to the Aurba AP135 use a cisco console cable.

The settings will be 9600, 8, N, 1.  Recommend Putty - Hypervisor gave me some trouble.

To reset the unit back to factory reset:

1. with your console cable already connected, power up the AP

2. when you see the autoboot countdown, hit enter to stop it

3. if you stopped the autoboot you'll see a prompt that says APBOOT

• type factory_reset, enter
• type purgeenv
• type clear os
• type save (saves your newly restored environment)
• type boot (to reboot).

ELK-M1XEP board

The Ethernet Interface board for most Iverify systems

changing batteries in APC Smart-UPS 1500 Rack-mount

Changing the batteries in a APC Smart-UPS

(SUA1500RM2U)

(any of the following pictures can be made much larger by clicking on them)

Begin by removing the black face cover (no screws).

2. Four new batteries, ready to go.

Look for the thick, red & black pair of wires with a little lanyard on them.  This is to pull and disconnect the battery supply cord.

Pull on the lanyard which will disconnect the batteries.

Slide the battery tray all the way out. 

This will be heavy! (about 20-30 LBS)

Disconnect the individual battery connectors.  Be careful to keep them in order so they will be placed back on the right spots when you put new batteries in.

Install new batteries and then place tray back into the APC.  Plug in the yellow supply cord and power on the unit.

You can find new batteries between $20-30 each (when you include shipping).  One of the part number is 

SUA1500R2X138 (there may be alternates)

Valcom V-9941a volume adjustments

Valcom V-9941A

One Zone Talkback control.

If you take the cover off, there are two volume pots.

The one on the left is for the talk-back volume

The one on the right is the input gain for the TIP/RING input.  And therefore can be used as a over-all volume control for the paging (but not the music).

RJ-48X Wiring for T-1

Click on the picture to make it larger.

• White/Blue to Green
• Blue/White to Red
• White/Orange to Blue
• Orange/White to Orange

Wilson Sleek review

)

Fixing a BYTECH phone case

)

Sony Vaio heat fan clogged

My Sony Vaio (VPCF113FX) had been having trouble with heat.  I found it odd that the Fan would be running full throttle while I am still having heat problems (CPU temps above 90 Celsius). Sometimes, it overheated so bad, the whole machine shut down!!

 I checked the corner where the heating-sink fins were located and realized that there was no real air-flow.

So, despite my reservations, took the back cover off.  In order to get the back cover all you have take out ALL the screws.  Plus, removed the CD Tray.  If you're not comfortable working on small electronics, I would not recommend attempting this.

Below is a picture of the under-side of my Sony Vaio.  Followed by a picture of the clogged heat sinks (that black area above the fan).  Finally, there's a picture of the cleaned heat sinks fins. I used a toothbrush while simultaneously holding a vacuum next to it. You'll notice you can now see all the copper.  (you can click on the pictures to make them very large).

After the cleaning, the temps are closer to 52-70 Celsius and it runs a little faster now too.  The air flow now feels similar to a hair dryer running on its lowest setting.

Note: In order to get the fan open and clean the fins, you'll need to unscrew the heat-sink channels (those copper tubes) from the CPU and the GPU.  You'll want to have some Heat Sink Grease on hand to re-apply to your processors when you put the heat-sink back on.

Hand-twisted splices put money in my pocket

I'm sure more field technicians (or installers) know the proper way to splice low-voltage wires.  Unfortunately, as well-intentioned as they might be, often it's more expedient to just twist-tie the wires and put electrical tape over them.

The down side is that after a few years, the oxidation begins to menace the connection and create static, resistance, or even failure.

This puts money in my pocket as I'm the repair tech who has to find this problem and correct it.

Below, is an example of  how a proper splice should look.  These are di-electrict, crimp-on splicers (aka: Red heads).

Shoppertrak ST600

This is the control unit that communicates with the camera and the network.  The control unit needs network connectivity.  As such, it usually resides in the back office close to where the network switches are.

Below is a picture of the camera out on the sales floor.  It sits just above the entry threshold.  The "camera" is not really a camera in the surveillance sense.  It's a pair of lenses that are fixed.  They are used to track motion and height.` Its main purpose is to count the number of potential customers that come in the door.  It's a little tough to see, but it's that diamond-shaped white box on the ceiling with the two black dots (camera eyes).

Nightmare data closet

This the data closet of a highly prestigious car dealership.  Makes me wonder where else they cut corners.

This one is at a healthcare facility

Here's one from a corporate office:

And, here's what it looked like after I replaced the switch and cleaned it up:

 (insert pat-on-back here)

Cisco 1700 WIC Cards

This is what a "WIC" card looks like in a Cisco 1700.  these same WIC will fit in other Cisco models as well.   WICs can do different roles.  They can be T-1 CSU/dsu, 56k, or even POTS modems.  

Cisco Stack Cables

Cisco switches are often grouped together to form what are called "Stacks".  This group of switches is then managable as one switch (and via 1 IP address).  Those silver braided cables are the stacking cables that go from one Cisco switch to the next to create a stack.  The cables actually make loop to provide redundancy.  For example, in a 3-switch stack, a cable goes from sw1 to sw2, then sw2 to sw3, then from sw3 back to sw1.

That way if the cable from sw2 to sw3 were to disconnect (and this happens more that you'd like to know!), there is still a connection going in the other direction.