this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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How did that not get caught in the prototype stage? Like, did nobody ever test that thing with that type of RJ45 plug?
Because making shit / design isn't as easy as most think. You think of a million things and then the millionth-and-one screws you over.
Early in my engineering career, I was told that a screw hole on a part needed to be increased one size. Not knowing any better, I increased the size but made the thread count the same. Little did I know that the machine shop head had recently gotten unfairly grilled by management about following engineering drawings to a T, and had adopted an attitude of malicious compliance. So rather than reach out to engineering to check if they really needed this obscure thread size, he instead just went ahead and purchased a new $7000 threading tool for that size that would never be used again.
I learned a lot that day about common fastener sizes and to always be nice to the machine shop head.
Oh yeah, the magical "chart". As a tiny company / machinist shop I dread the day I have to order everything on it. But at the end of the day, it saves people hassle and you always have what you need. Luckily so far I only make stuff for my own use in the main job, which is injection molding.
It was only a particular kind of RJ45 boot that caused the issue, so if you are sensible and don't use a cable boot you never ran into the issue.
Just saying, this is not the fault of a single engineer but of a whole company that didn't think "try all common cable types" should be a required testing step before a network switch goes into mass production.
You don't have to test every cable boot. Just have a design guide that says "Don't put buttons above or below ports."
That can be difficult to accomplish...
Looks like they learnt and made a recess for the buttons.
And it's not in the center of the port. It's in between two ports where a boot should never be in the way.
That as well
Cisco is where good engineering goes to die.
Uh... huh? What, you're anti-boot?
Boots suck. Good connectors just have the tab be more of an inverted V shape, so it doesn't catch but you don't need to squish a hard plastic boot to remove it.
Like in the image? That's... a boot. Not a full one, but still a boot. (Side note: I'm starting to sound Canadian in my own head.) But I agree. The "snagless" ones are the best of both worlds: you can pull a cable through without it catching on anything, but still press down the plastic retention clip when the collar gets old and stiff.
Nah like this:
Instead of like this:
I've never seen one of those outside of this image.
They're pretty common in nicer datacenter environments. Newer cat6a is only 28awg (tiny and easy to work with!) and can do 10gb just fine.
For example:
Huh, good to know. Next time I'm looking for cable, I'll keep this in mind. Thanks.
Ah. It's better than nothing but I still have had trouble pulling cables like the top image. Those blocky edges get caught on things...
Yes.
i choose to believe this particular engineer saw the potential for this issue, but just hated those cables with a burning passion.
I could see it also being a problem if you're trying to remove a cable with a stuck latch. Wiggle it around a bit, accidentally hold down the button... oops