Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1476549
26 I ICT TODAY Temporary installations of longer reach 10GBaseT with Cat 6A, 25GBaseT with Cat 7, and 40GBaseT with Cat 8 have justified the development of a PCPA for pulling on long unshielded balanced twisted-pair (UTP) pre-connectorized cables. The costs and complexity of testing Cat 6A, 7, and 8 connectors with up to 2 GHz of radio frequency (RF) FIGURE 2: The PCPA attached to a 50 ft long UTP pre-connectorized cable and a fiberglass pulling stick. THE GENESIS OF THE PRE-TERMINATED CABLE PULLING ADAPTER Up to now, pulling a pre-terminated cable has been done using a pulling sock either attached to the pre-connectorized cable jacket with heat shrink tubing at the factory or in the field with electrical tape. The ordering of commercially available pulling socks is challenging. Finding a pulling sock of the size appropriate for a single pre-terminated cable had to be DIY fabricated for the purpose of this article. Once the pulling operation is completed, the heat shrink tubing or electrical tape must be scrapped, often along with the pulling sock, so it cannot be reused. The cost of a pulling sock is significant, and its installation is labor intensive. As a tool, the pulling sock is not ideal when needing to pull a single pre-terminated cable through a small diameter hole or conduit because the pulling sock buckle head is much larger in diameter than the cable's connector. See Figure 3. The development of the PCPA began in late 2021 with the initial idea of rein- venting a Kellems grip around 4 goals: • Miniaturizing it to allow a pull through a 3/8 in (<9.5 mm) diameter hole or conduit. • Weaving it in aramid fiber to avoid the friction of a metal grip on the inner walls of the hole or conduit. FIGURE 3: Commercially sourced pulling sock (orange) side-by-side with a DIY pulling sock (white) that is optimal for a single 4.8 mm (≈0.189 in) diameter long optical pre-connectorized cable. bandwidth makes it practical to temporarily use pre-terminated cables with factory installed connectors, until permanent structured cabling field terminating and testing becomes available. Furthermore, it is common for UTP pre-connectorized cables to be factory installed over molded connectors that makes their boots much more ruggedized than field installed connectors. See Figure 2 for an illustration of a PCPA mounted on a 50 ft (≈15 m) long UTP pre-connectorized cable and a fiberglass pulling stick.