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DAE learn the hard way that stapling coax tight kills the signal 6 weeks later
I used to zap staples in as tight as they'd go, figured snug meant solid. Back in April I ran 4 drops through an attic in Garland and got called back twice for pixelated boxes, and both times the staple had crushed the cable jacket down to the copper. A tester finally showed me the loss, 8 dB on one run that looked perfectly fine on the outside. Now I leave a little slack and hand squeeze each one, and I haven't had a callback since. How tight are you all going, and has anyone found a staple gun setting that actually works for RG6?
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logan2715d ago
Knew a guy who ran a whole house with a powered stapler on its lowest setting and still lost two rooms to dropouts after a few months. He told me the staples felt loose going in, but the pressure point was still crushing the foam core where it crossed the wire. What I heard from an old cable tech is that the gun setting matters less than the staple type, you want the ones with the little plastic saddle over the top so the force spreads out instead of digging in. Tension wise, the cable should still slide a bit if you tug it, that's the sweet spot. Slack loops on both ends help too, lets the jacket move when temps change so it doesn't pull against the staple. Good call switching to hand squeeze, slow but you can feel when it's about to bite too hard.
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