I do cable a lot for my work. I have probably a mile of cat 6 at this point. I do fiber too, and yes I want a big chunk of undersea cable to make art with.
Edit, I accidentally replied my own comment:
Honestly we just throw chunks of fiber away. For our purposes, if it’s over 320 feet it’s going to be fiber anyway. I made the mistake one time of underestimating the amount of fiber I’d need and cost my company a lot of money. Now I always over order and the extra goes in the trash because it’s worthless. Next time you see guys doing fiber they might just have some scrap fiber to give you.
A few weeks ago I had a guy come up to me and jokingly say hey you should give me some of that copper line. I was feeling generous and gave him an unopened 1000ft box of cat6. Don’t tell my boss!
Edit edit- it was plenum, and the good stuff that goes for $300+ on eBay, please don’t tell my boss. I never sell it because I like my job.
kingly say hey you should give me some of that copper line.
Haa! that’s great. Imagine trying to harvest those 22g strande from the TP :)
I hit an auction for an electrician that went out of business, I got a bunch of remnant boxes for different coax for around $10. They all had between 100 and 500ft left. Most of it’s just RG8 but there’s some strange dual cable sat line in there that’s almost decent. I do a little home networking so I have a few hundred feet of cat 6. on hand and prob a half spool of cat5 that I’ll never use. And I have.
Mostly I want the big stuff because I see it but never actually get to touch it. It’s like I’d probably want a mainframe if I hadn’t spent plenty of time screwing with one.
Might as well scrap that 5 if you’ve got enough 6. They melt it away to conserve the copper. You might get some decent money. I’m typing with gloves because I’m about to go do ice breaker and snow for the hood. Good luck!
I was rereading this thread today because I’m a cable dork and I thought you might like this bit I forgot to tell last night.
So on that job where I underestimated the fiber, after I made the shitty call to my boss to tell him how bad I fucked up, I cut it around the mid point to make it easier to rip out. I swear to god not even 15 minutes later my boss calls back and says hey whatever you do don’t cut it! Pull it all out and wrap it up we’ll use it for another job. I’m like, sure thing boss. Luckily he either forgot about it or more likely gave me a break.
Ak, can’t seem to find them on my phone, there’s still on my computer but I can’t get back to that right now. I went to eBay and search for fiber optic cable and they showed up with giant spools of large cable with $1-$2. In the description below it clarified that they were just samples of the cable for that price and after you ordered the samples you could order more from them.
If you can’t find it I’ll take them back up in the morning and post them here.
I want like 1 ft of carrier bundle fiber optic, because I think it’s cool as shit.
Every time I see one of the spools I want to go up and hack a foot off of it but I wouldn’t want to come off as a tweaker.
Never heard of these?
those are boring, i want hunks of cable, undersea cable, backbone cable, local telco.
what can I say, I probably have issues :)
Ask the f’n Russians and Chinese, they might have a huge ass bundle hanging off an anchor.
ROFL, I’m certain of it!
I do cable a lot for my work. I have probably a mile of cat 6 at this point. I do fiber too, and yes I want a big chunk of undersea cable to make art with.
Edit, I accidentally replied my own comment:
Honestly we just throw chunks of fiber away. For our purposes, if it’s over 320 feet it’s going to be fiber anyway. I made the mistake one time of underestimating the amount of fiber I’d need and cost my company a lot of money. Now I always over order and the extra goes in the trash because it’s worthless. Next time you see guys doing fiber they might just have some scrap fiber to give you.
A few weeks ago I had a guy come up to me and jokingly say hey you should give me some of that copper line. I was feeling generous and gave him an unopened 1000ft box of cat6. Don’t tell my boss!
Edit edit- it was plenum, and the good stuff that goes for $300+ on eBay, please don’t tell my boss. I never sell it because I like my job.
Haa! that’s great. Imagine trying to harvest those 22g strande from the TP :)
I hit an auction for an electrician that went out of business, I got a bunch of remnant boxes for different coax for around $10. They all had between 100 and 500ft left. Most of it’s just RG8 but there’s some strange dual cable sat line in there that’s almost decent. I do a little home networking so I have a few hundred feet of cat 6. on hand and prob a half spool of cat5 that I’ll never use. And I have.
Mostly I want the big stuff because I see it but never actually get to touch it. It’s like I’d probably want a mainframe if I hadn’t spent plenty of time screwing with one.
Might as well scrap that 5 if you’ve got enough 6. They melt it away to conserve the copper. You might get some decent money. I’m typing with gloves because I’m about to go do ice breaker and snow for the hood. Good luck!
I was rereading this thread today because I’m a cable dork and I thought you might like this bit I forgot to tell last night.
So on that job where I underestimated the fiber, after I made the shitty call to my boss to tell him how bad I fucked up, I cut it around the mid point to make it easier to rip out. I swear to god not even 15 minutes later my boss calls back and says hey whatever you do don’t cut it! Pull it all out and wrap it up we’ll use it for another job. I’m like, sure thing boss. Luckily he either forgot about it or more likely gave me a break.
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The blast resistant stuff is pretty neat too. I just hate dealing with the gel/icky-pick when you have to terminate the cable.
No, I get you. The artifacts for these you see at museums are impressive. The bigger ones would make some great bookends.
Where the hell are you hanging out, that you regularly run into spools of fiber optic cable? I’ve never seen one in my life!
I’m not who you responded to but my answer is all the time due to my job.
there’s a lot of construction near me, it was all wilderness, now they’re putting in housing developments.
If you live in the UK I’ll send you some. 864f OK?
Aww, that’s awesome—you’re awesome! And that’s a wicked-looking cable. Sadly, I’m in the US.
It made me ponder, though. It looks like several different product manufacturers sell affordable samples of some of the larger cables.
Links?
Ak, can’t seem to find them on my phone, there’s still on my computer but I can’t get back to that right now. I went to eBay and search for fiber optic cable and they showed up with giant spools of large cable with $1-$2. In the description below it clarified that they were just samples of the cable for that price and after you ordered the samples you could order more from them.
If you can’t find it I’ll take them back up in the morning and post them here.