The Coolest Wire Wrap Tool Ever! - Telephone Tuesdays

Today on Telephone Tuesday @hackmodular chat with our new best mate Mick Coleman about his long career with British Telecom.
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Mitch / Hack Modular Patreon: / hackmodular
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#vintage #telephoneexchange #restoration #telephony #telephonetuesdays

[@vk3hau]

As a telephone tech it makes me happy to hear you say slate and not grey.

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

Forgot to say that wire wrapping is better than soldering, as you get 4 connections per turn on the post. Plus after time the wire cold welds at the post at every corner, which is why its harder to unwind than it is to wind on. Also you will notice that the wire will sometime break as unwound. used wire wrapping at lot on Automated test fixtures as it's faster than soldering and a lower resistance connection.

[@hackmodular]

I did forget! Was gonna say they used wire wrapping on the Saturn V moon rocket because it’s more resilient to vibration than soldering

[@Curt_Sampson]

@@hackmodular Yup. It was also used on the backplanes of '60s and early '70s minicomputers, such as the PDP-8. (You can do an image search for 'PDP-8 backplane' to see some of them.) And in the '70s and '80s it was extensively used for prototyping and homebrew microcomputer systems. Sadly, it's all fallen out of favour nowadays for some reason, and everybody just gets PCBs done instead. Which is annoying, because not only are they less reliable but you also have to wait for the turnaround time for your order. (Or several turnaround times, if you make mistakes in your PCB design. :-/)

[@richardneale246]

8:18 We use to call it "Tag Rash" when terminating. Stores issued a leathers strap, a bit like a fingerless glove to protect your knuckles whilst terminating.

[@sparkyprojects]

btw Mitch, i used to terminate 300 wire triples, i recently went through to remember all the combinations, i think i got them right (pink and turquoise were 2 of the third wire colours) Back thhen it was plain colours, not striped, so blue, orange, green, brown slate were all paired with white in the first 5, red in the second set etc, so you had to twist the pairs to keep them together.

[@timsmith57]

This brings back so many memories.Worked on exchange construction when i left school in 1973.Still got the solder burn scars but my hands have recovered from the wax string used to lace the cables.Happy days

[@PhilR0gers]

A company I worked at named their file server Strowger, after the Strowger selector switches used in the old telephone exchanges.

[@mickcoleman5396]

Mitch, in the cable is a piece of cotton, it is there so you can pull down the cable and cut through the insulation

[@hackmodular]

Ahh seems obvious now. What do you do to cut around though once you’ve split it down?

[@beefchicken]

@@hackmodularstill score the knife like you did. But it saves having to do multiple scores to remove a long piece of jacket.

[@bylescx]

rip cord

[@pileofstuff]

@@hackmodularYou start at the open end and pul the string towards where you will be cutting off the sheath.

[@Simple_But_Expensive]

That cable lacing is essentially a timberline hitch.😊

[@gregodianne]

Done plenty of "gunning" onto tag blocks in my time (as the person below described) Used the gun on MDF. IDF and multiple rear blocks. Happy days, the sound of the exchange noise, radio one playing (or the test match!). The forming of the cable took time of course and you needed to be able to fix the odd "snap" by overwrapping or rarely soldering. Exchange construction in the 1970's and 80's was a fantastic job, I wish I was back there now working around Wigan, Preston area.

[@SparkcatcherFox]

I worked in power planning for BT for 12 years and am now continuing as a BT contractor and only with this video have I understood what the function of an IDF is!

[@DJTonyPegler]

Actual blood sweat and tears going into this project

[@adamlubkowski1107]

put some tape on that bloody finger!

[@sparkyprojects]

That didn't look like a clove hitch, i did a vid on lacing, same knot but might be easier Tip for stripping, you can score the break point, but if you cut into the end of the cable, you'll find the end of one of the strings, it's tough nylon, wrap it around a screwdriver and pull awy rom the cable, it will slice the side of the insulation open It's fine to lace in the open unti you get to the holes, i prefer to insert the wires in the holes once you reach them so you don't forget to branch out at the right point I liked the electric wire wrapper, 110 volt with a transformer, i ran out of extension leads to reach the racks, so i made an adaptor to plug into the + & - 50v, ran a lot smoother :D

[@hackmodular]

Darn won’t be getting my scouts badge any time soon!

[@zebo-the-fat]

nice and tidy, someone spent a lot of time on those cable looms 😄

[@klassisch3039]

Love the live LMNC music in the background!

[@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER]

Woopwoop!

[@slipstreamvids7422]

Cable wired pbx’s or slides as we called them, for Western Electric in Westminster, Co. I had two months to memorize 1038 wire wrap terminations. I was surprised that I could do that.

[@pileofstuff]

That's a clever wire wrap tool. I've used a variety of different sorts over the years (decades) and not seen that style before.

[@Scoots1994]

In my past I had memorized all the wire color pairs in order. Now I'm so old I can barely see the wires :)

[@WeHadOneOfThose]

Its amazing how anything worked with the level of mechanical switching gear - testament to the build quality and engineers !!

[@TheBigChill1]

I have done quite a few wraps on Stronger and Pentaconta/ITT systems back in the 80's/90's after that was the digital age with the Cut-Off of the analog systems here in Portugal... We use the same British norms... Good old memories...!

[@technikschaf1574]

Don't know why, but i absolutely love such wire art. it's pure joy to organize, sort and install this stuff. this video was just so relaxing to watch. but know i want to build something....

[@loopinnerthe]

It is no wonder computers took over but also mind boggling to think that every line in every household was actually wired up by people and then dynamically connected by electromagnetic switches. Thank you so much for this video. ( EDIT: I was pondering how much more multiplexed our world has become. One twisted pair used to connect to another and that was a single call. Now one twisted pair can carry hundreds of Megabytes of data a second representing thousands of calls. Plus the calls are between many individuals multi nationally contain video and text the Internet brings so much bandwidth and flexibility and diversity...but what does the future of all this look like another generation on and the nature of communication is going to be utterly unfathomable)

[@vaughanwarburton9623]

I worked for BT and always thought the wire rapping was done by bloke highly skilled wth his 81s

[@CandyGramForMongo_]

Oh, this is much like the Connections Museum in Seattle, Washington. You guys should trunk!

[@DasGanon]

I feel like there's probably a US/UK system conflict but since you don't want to pay long distance phone anyways it should be Internet protocol anyways. That said they should definitely do a Teletype system with each other

[@CandyGramForMongo_]

@@DasGanon Exactly my thought as well. It’s funny to consider that there is really no way to get an analog pair across the ocean anymore.

[@stjohnprice8415]

Good to see tag rash is alive and kicking from the tags… .. ask anybody who’s worked on them what tag rash is like until you get used to it? God is a pain… Great video showing a UAX13. The video shows all the kit that you’d get in an exchange from the recorded message tape machines to the cold diversion RCF 10, It looks good..

[@McTroyd]

As convoluted as this might seem to the modern eye, imagine how many decades it must have taken to evolve this process. I bet Mr. Strowger's original efforts were just point-to-point wiring, and hellish to troubleshoot as the systems got larger. 👍

[@frogandspanner]

When doing my PhD in the mid '70s my office phone had a trunk bar on it, which prevented dialling trunk calls (with an initial 0) after normal hours, during the cheap rate. I hypothesised that the bar was a modern digital add-on to a traditional exchange, that old-style exchanges would treat the pulses modulo 10, and that the bar would count exactly 10. So, I tried dialling a trunk call by tapping 20 on the 'phone cradle, then dialling the rest of the number. It worked - I got through. I never understood why the University wanted to discourage outgoing calls at the cheap rate.

[@VAXHeadroom]

A list of words to remember a set of letters is an acrostic, i.e. Every Good Boy Deserves Favor (EGBDF for the notes which are written on the lines on the treble clef) An acronym is a pronounceable word made of letters usually from the first letter of a group of words i.e. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) An abbreviation is an unpronounceable word where the letters are usually just spelled out, i.e. The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)

[@hackmodular]

Mnemonic! That’s what I meant lol - we got there in the end!

[@MrMoon1ight]

оо обвязка кабеля веревкой очень интересная штука даже в современном оборудовании иногда пригождается 👍

[@Audiobungalow]

Such a cool process to see.

[@luce2988]

There is a knife called the jokari knife wich would help stripping the cable ^^

[@cambridgemart2075]

They are an essential tool in my toolbox (in fact I have several). Lidl do them at a decent price occasionally. Best way to remove the outer sheath without nicking any conductors (except for that nasty CAT5 outdoor black cable which has a ridiculously thin sheath as well as being filled with grease).

[@richardandrews6754]

That was dead cool thank you for explaining how it works!

[@hackmodular]

No worries 👍

[@isaacplaysbass8568]

So cool. Your hnds have been through the wars with this haven't they? Nice work.

[@TheEmbeddedHobbyist]

that's thick lacing cord, the cord I used to use was much thinner and would cut through your skin as you pulled it tight. We had to lace in a way that if you cut the cord it did not come loose. but then I was lacing cableforms in avionic equipment where there was not much space for the wires. the black dye would come off in the cuts so you had black lines on your fingers until it faded away.

[@devttyUSB0]

What a job!! Awesome tidy cable work though!!

[@padders1068]

Mitch! F**CKING AWESOME! How people designed such Electromechanical brilliance, before even the idea of a computer can only be described as just F**CKING Geniuses! Very well explained as well mate! Much Regards! 🙂😎🤓❤

[@hackmodular]

Yeah well cool ennit cheers!

[@smudge0161]

Be On Guard Before Seven (Blue Orange Green Brown Slate)

[@Scoots1994]

You ARE going to use the exchange to make it possible to connect patch cables between synths in different rooms right? You have to!

[@thenoblerot]

Lmao at these youngsters excited about wire wrapping tools

[@hackmodular]

Happy to still being called a youngster ha

[@chrisprobert6]

Haha My bt landline keeps breaking. How can we connect to yours😅

[@monktoncrew]

Absolutely loving this shit, Mitch!

[@derb_]

Would love to see an old phreaker come and demonstrate the tricks used back in the day. Blue box and such.

[@curtishoffmann6956]

Someone cut off Mitch's coffee! He is *wired*!

[@alyro-ls1dv]

Thank you and very good edutainment. Happy holidays Albrecht. p.s. should this video be PG rated being a bloody affair?

[@weapea]

This gets over My head 😅 wery too complicated even without any computers involved.

[@c1ph3rpunk]

Is that a Speak and Spell over the door?

[@Robotron-zg6mf]

you strip the cable with the inbuilt nylon string, don't cut around the cable

[@beefchicken]

You still need to cut around the jacket, but only at the very end. Lots of telecom guys would just chop off the loose piece of jacket with a single snip of the splicing scissors, but I’ve never found that to be a good look. I’ll use the string to do the lengthwise strip, then use a sharp knife to score the jacket to make for a nice square cut.

[@Simple_But_Expensive]

So how many calls can this setup handle at once?

[@hackmodular]

It depends how many linefinders decide they want to work that day! But the limiting factor is the final selectors, of which we have 15.

[@luther99flame]

0:47 the box at the bottom of the frame with the speaker, I picked up one of these at an antiques fair last year with the intention of repurposing the box for a project. But it seemed like a waste of a good piece of test equipment and I've been waiting to see if I can find it a new home. If you guys want it, I live in Ramsgate and can pop it in sometime??

[@THISMUSEUMISNOTOBSOLETE]

We would love to give it a new home! Open every weekend from 13th April, come down and say helllo!

[@Skraboing649]

For non-British viewers, "knackered" means broken 😅

[@DISCOTECHS]

Hows it going with Linefinders ? i see you have one or two on bench ?

[@hackmodular]

Got quite a few working. Mostly a case of replacing wipers, adjusting vertical markers and cleaning banks. Need a chunk of time to do the rest but been prioritizing more interesting jobs!

[@davidholman2536]

Will 5705 connect to a Look Mum No Computer cover of City Boy's 5-7-0-5 ?

[@hackmodular]

Well… one of our next jobs is to connect the dial-a-disc machines

[@graemedavidson499]

This may explain the origins of Ethernet wire colours…

[@beefchicken]

The Ethernet wire colours were absolutely derived from the telecom wire colours.

[@DjMjk]

We’re is Sam 1:09

[@ethanpet113]

TBH I could not follow how a call is connected at all. 'm here for the hardware portn, but oif you want me to understand how POTS works, you're going to have to adjust your presentation style to be more hierarchical and less adhoc.

[@davidrobertson5700]

It's not a 20 pair it's a 41 wire btw

[@THISMUSEUMISNOTOBSOLETE]

explain why? we are not using the earth

[@chrishahn3834]

13:09 ...and down below is where we connect our phones to the Ethereum line

[@robertwilson7045]

Why did you not use 50 pair cable?

[@hackmodular]

You use what you got!

[@mickcoleman5396]

Line finders..yuk, Uniselectors all day :-)

[@hackmodular]

Haha but why have one motion when you can have two!

[@mickcoleman5396]

a bit of diversity @@hackmodular

[@AMPProf]

Hmm TELEPHONIC PRIVATE NETWORK !!!!!!!!! . Almost like a 1960's Automated music box Computer.. Just add data decoder!. You could literally add a button or better yet a wind up key to activates the Museum to play a short ditty live .. THE wind key Front Facing wall by the Walkway outside IT'S The Engineer whooo ay yes yes

[@punpck]

such a big installation for a handful phones, imagine how it looked like for thousands of phones 🫣

[@mickcoleman5396]

A lot of selectors , half a football field full..