Punch-Down Tool Saves 200 Man Hours During School District Installation
by Leo Kolesar,
General Manager of Hartmann Electric’s Technology Group,
Elk Grove Village, IL

In an industry where time equals money, installers are always looking for tools and methods to make the job go faster and easier. That's what Hubbell Premise Wiring considered when they developed their new 1-Punch tool.
The company says that 1-Punch saves time by accurately punching down and cutting off all eight conductors laced to a Hubbell Xcelerator jack. "I looked at the time involved in terminating all four pairs on a jack with a traditional single-blade tool and decided to make a tool that does everything at once," says Randy Minor, product manager for Hubbell Premise Wiring. The new tool saves approximately two minutes of termination time per jack, and recently saved more than 200 man-hours of work at Niles Township High School District 219 in Skokie, IL.

Termination Revolutionized
District 219 consists of Niles North High School and Niles West High School. In March 2000, taxpayers of Niles Township approved a $65 million referendum allowing for the expansion and renovation of both schools to accommodate an estimated increase of 500 students. Renovation included a new cabling infrastructure with a fiber backbone and Category 5e plenum cable terminated at 6,300 Hubbell Xcelerator jacks installed in Hubbell Infin-e-Station modular faceplates- 2,900 jacks at Niles North High School and 3,400 at Niles West High School. Traditionally, all eight wires of Category 5e cable had to be individually seated into a jack and laced to the IDC 110 towers, using a typical single-blade 110-impact tool. Hubbell's new 1-Punch tool, however, has overcome this extensive termination process.
" The concept behind the 1-Punch tool was for installers to no longer have to terminate eight separate wires, one at a time," explains Minor. "The head of the 1-Punch tool, which includes eight seating blades and four cutting blades, fits over the jack. With just one press of the handle, the tool simultaneously seats and cuts all eight wires." The 1-Punch is used with a termination aid-a stable platform that holds the jack steady and protects installers' hands.
" When we received four prototypes of the 1-Punch tool to use with the Xcelerator jacks at the District 219 Schools, we were amazed at the amount of time it saved our crew," says Joe Lucente, foreman for Hartmann Technology Group, a division of Hartmann Electric, Inc. (www.hartmannelectric. com), selected to install the new cabling infrastructure. "We liked the tool's rubber handle and replaceable head, and we determined that it saved two minutes of termination time per jack. And on this project, that translates into more than 200 man hours of work, or a $12,500 savings."
According to the company, the tool practically eliminates the possibility of damaging the jack, provides superior termination accuracy, and reduces installation time. "We wanted to design the 1-Punch tool to punch down smoothly and with more stability than a typical tool," says Minor. "Because the tool head fits snuggly over the Xcelerator jack, it punches down more accurately every time, unlike a typical single-blade impact tool that can move or slip." Accuracy in termination is imperative. If wires do not seat properly in the jack, they will have poor contact and can result in decreased performance on the network. "The 1-Punch tool is comfortable, easy to use, and saves time and money, especially on large termination jobs," says Minor.

A Valuable Addition
At each school, Hartmann crews ran 12 strands of fiber to each new or remodeled intermediate crossconnect (IC) from a centrally located main crossconnect (MC). They ran 25 pair of horizontal Category 5e cable from each IC to classrooms, computer labs, and offices. Working in a school environment proposes several installation challenges such as being prohibited from entering classrooms and hallways during school hours. According to Lucente, it's important to learn to work in different environments and become skilled at being invisible to the people around you. "1-Punch definitely helped us get in and out of classrooms much faster," says Lucente.
Niles Township High School District 219 project includes underground fiber to connect the two schools and outbuildings on the property, as well as an updated security system, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology, and prewiring for projectors, cable TV, and a future wireless system. Scheduled to be completed before the start of the 2003-2004 school year, the District 219 project is currently one of the largest voice and data projects in the state of Illinois. More than 40 new classrooms, nine computer labs, eight science labs, and two small theaters will be added to the schools, each of which will provide students with connections to a new high-speed 1000BASE-T network.
Remodeling older sections of the two schools in the second phase of the project will include nearly 4,000 more Xcelerator jacks "I just wish we could keep the 1-Punch tool all to ourselves," says Lucente. "That tool has really sold me." The patent-pending tool features a high-impact handle with cushioned grip, sharp blades, and replaceable punch-down head and cartridge blades.

Reprinted with revisions to format from the December 2002 edition of Cabling Product News,
a supplement of Cabling Installation & Maintenance. Copyright 2002 by PennWell Corporation.