Patent Application
20090059552
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management apparatus for cables. More particularly, the present invention relates to a device for holding a plurality of cables with attached cable glands for purposes of restraint and routing of cables within a network or equipment rack.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cable glands are well known in the existing arts. A cable gland is generally a structure which is mechanically fixed to an outer jacket of a cable, typically by a frictional fit, compression fit or possibly an adhesive. The cable gland also has attachment features which allow the cable gland to be attached to a secondary object, such as a housing, plate, or guide. The cable gland thereby provides strain relief to the cable. In other words, a pulling force applied to the cable's jacket will be transmitted, via the jacket, to the cable gland and hence to the secondary object (e.g., a housing or a guide). Therefore, the pulling force on the cable will not pass beyond the secondary object (e.g., to a termination of the cable, such as a plug received into a jack).
For more information regarding cable glands reference may be had to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,030,741 and 5,405,172, which are herein incorporated by reference. Also, reference can be had to the assignee's pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/828,198 entitled “Removable Cable Gland,” filed Jul. 25, 2007, and Ser. No. 11/735,585, entitled “Pre-Terminated Cable Assembly with Integrated Cable Gland and Pulling Eye/Sock,” filed Apr. 16, 2007, the entire contents of both applications are herein incorporated by reference.
The mounting holes 15 are spaced at a regular interval to align with standard spaced mounting holes in standard sized equipment. A common unit of measurement in the industry is known as the rack mounting unit (RMU). An RMU is 1.75 inches. Racks are specified as having a certain RMU capacity, such as 45 RMU. Equipment to be mounted to the rack has certain specified sizes as well. For example, a first patch panel might be 1 RMU in size (i.e. 1.75 inches), whereas a second patch panel might be 2 RMU (i.e., 3.5 inches) in size. Therefore, a 45 RMU rack could hold five of the first patch panels (5 total RMUs) along with twenty of the second sized patch panels (40 total RMUs).
A vertical cable raceway 17 is disposed adjacent to the second vertical support member 13. The raceway 17 may be attached to the second vertical support member 13 by a plurality of fasteners 16 passing through holes in the second support member 13. Cables entering and exiting the pieces of equipment extend horizontally, pass through support fingers 18, and enter the raceway 17. The middle support fingers 18 in
Inside the raceway 17, the cables often change direction to extend vertically, then change direction once more to extend horizontally before reaching another destination (e.g., exiting the raceway 17 to attach to another piece of equipment above or below the entry point to the raceway 17). Dashed line 19 in
The Applicants have appreciated one or more drawbacks associated with the designs of the prior art.
When fiber optic cables are used in conjunction with the devices of the background art, there is a risk of exceeding the minimum bend radius of the fiber optic cable at the point where the fiber optic cable transitions from the horizontal direction to the vertical direction inside the raceway. Perhaps hundreds of cables extend vertically within the raceway; during installation of a new cable and pulling the new cable through existing cables in the raceway, frictional engagement occurs between the jacket of the new cable being pulled through and the jackets of other cables existing in the raceway. The frictional resistance can cause snags and exert a pulling force on another fiber optic cable already in the raceway, causing the preexisting fiber optic cable to exceed its minimum bend radius as it passes over a support finger 18 or another cable during its transition from a horizontal travel direction to a vertical travel direction.
Applicants have also appreciated that the pulling force exerted on existing cables within the raceway as a new cable is installed may lead to momentary disconnections of existing communications channels. Many fiber optic terminations are spring loaded. In other words, a momentary tug on a fiber optic cable jacket can cause a spring-biased ferrule within a connector to unseat from a receiver in a jack. If the momentary displacement of the ferrule is sufficient (e.g., more than half a wave length), a communication channel may be interrupted, which can lead to an automatic equipment reboot, lost data, or an alarm.
Applicants have also appreciated that splice trays are often employed in network racks. A splice tray often employs a roller assembly or slide assembly to permit the tray to slide partially out of the network rack to give greater accessibility to the fiber apparatus (e.g. splices, splitters) on the tray. When a tray is slid out, the cables connected to the fiber apparatus on the tray extend out of the network rack as well, which may result in forces being applied to other cables within the raceway, as cables extend from and retract into the raceway as the tray is pulled out and pushed back into the network rack. Again, the relative movement between cables within the raceway can lead to snagging, bending of cables, and disconnection of cable connectors, as discussed above.
One of the primary purposes of the vertical cable raceway is to help in organizing cables in the network rack. By providing a narrow cabinet to one or both sides of the network rack, the cables can be routed to the sides of the equipment. Hence, the equipment is more accessible and the overall appearance is improved, which facilitates troubleshooting and adjustment of the equipment on the network rack by technicians. Applicants have appreciated that some additional organization of the cables may now be used inside of the vertical raceway in order to simplify the overall layout of the system to the benefit of technicians.
To this end, Applicants have appreciated a need in the art for a management apparatus for fiber optic cables for use in conjunction with vertical or horizontal cable raceways.
It is an object of the present invention to address one or more of the drawbacks of the background art designs and/or Applicants' appreciated needs in the art.
This and other objects are accomplished by a cable gland holder including a base member and a core for holding a plurality of cable glands. In one embodiment, a plate is removably attached to the core. In another embodiment, more than one plate is attached to the core. Each plate has a grooved edge presenting a series of grooves to which cable glands may be attached. The holder may be attached to a vertical or horizontal raceway of a network rack to assist in protecting and organizing the cables within the raceway.
Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.
The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given hereinbelow and the accompanying drawings which are given by way of illustration only, and thus, are not limits of the present invention, and wherein:
The present invention now is described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which embodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.
Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. In the figures, the thickness of certain lines, layers, components, elements or features may be exaggerated for clarity. Broken lines illustrate optional features or operations unless specified otherwise.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the specification and relevant art and should not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein. Well-known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity and/or clarity.
As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. As used herein, the term “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. As used herein, phrases such as “between X and Y” and “between about X and Y” should be interpreted to include X and Y. As used herein, phrases such as “between about X and Y” mean “between about X and about Y.” As used herein, phrases such as “from about X to Y” mean “from about X to about Y.”
It will be understood that when an element is referred to as being “on”, “attached” to, “connected” to, “coupled” with, “contacting”, etc., another element, it can be directly on, attached to, connected to, coupled with or contacting the other element or intervening elements may also be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being, for example, “directly on”, “directly attached” to, “directly connected” to, “directly coupled” with or “directly contacting” another element, there are no intervening elements present. It will also be appreciated by those of skill in the art that references to a structure or feature that is disposed “adjacent” another feature may have portions that overlap or underlie the adjacent feature.
Spatially relative terms, such as “under”, “below”, “lower”, “over”, “upper”, “lateral”, “left”, “right” and the like, may be used herein for ease of description to describe one element or feature's relationship to another element(s) or feature(s) as illustrated in the figures. It will be understood that the spatially relative terms are intended to encompass different orientations of the device in use or operation in addition to the orientation depicted in the figures. For example, if the device in the figures is inverted, elements described as “under” or “beneath” other elements or features would then be oriented “over” the other elements or features. The device may be otherwise oriented (rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the descriptors of relative spatial relationships used herein interpreted accordingly.
The mounting holes 15 are spaced at a regular interval to align with standard spaced mounting holes in standard sized equipment. A common unit of measurement in the industry is known as the rack mounting unit (RMU). An RMU is 1.75 inches. Racks are specified as having a certain RMU capacity, such as 45 RMU. Equipment to be mounted to the rack has certain specified sizes as well. For example, a first patch panel might be 1 RMU in size (i.e. 1.75 inches), whereas a second patch panel might be 2 RMU (i.e., 3.5 inches) in size. Therefore, a 45 RMU rack could hold five of the first patch panels (5 total RMUs) along with twenty of the second sized patch panels (40 total RMUs).
A vertical cable raceway 21 is disposed adjacent to the second vertical support member 13. The raceway 21 may be attached to the second vertical support member 13 by a plurality of fasteners 16 passing through holes in the second support member 13. Cables entering and exiting the pieces of equipment extend horizontally, pass through support fingers 18 and enter the raceway 21. The middle support fingers 18 in
Inside the raceway 21, the cables often change direction to extend vertically, and then change direction once more to extend horizontally before reaching another destination (e.g. exiting the raceway 21 to attach to another piece of equipment above or below the entry point to the raceway 21). The present invention provides a cable gland holder 23 for holding a plurality of cable glands. The cable gland holder 23 may be disposed within a trough of the raceway 21, as illustrated in
The core 27 may include a plurality of coupling features 29. Each coupling feature 29 may take the form of a slot 31 formed in the core 27. In a preferred embodiment, the slot 31 has a cross-section which is generally T-shaped. In the embodiment of
In a preferred embodiment, the plate 33 is formed of, or plated by, an electrically conductive material (e.g., the plate 33 may be formed of stainless steel). Preferably, the plate 33 includes a grounding feature, such as a through hole 37 for receiving a fastener connected to a grounding wire (not shown). By this arrangement, the plate 33 may be connected to ground and will enable grounding of armor surrounding cables.
In a first embodiment, the plate 33 is removably attached to the core 27 by a frictional engagement between a portion of the plate 33 adjacent to the bent portion 35 and the resilient side walls of the slot 31. In the embodiment illustrated in
In one embodiment, a diameter of the core 27 is approximately two inches and a length of the core 27 is approximately ten inches. However, it should be appreciated that other diameters and lengths may be used for the core 27. A primary desire is present a core diameter that is sufficient to maintain an acceptable minimum bend radius of a cable passing around the outer periphery of the core 27.
In a second optional embodiment, a distance d (see
To attach one of the base members 25 to the trough 55 of the raceway 21, a serviceman need only align the guiding protrusions 53 and the latching protrusions 49 with a desired series of holes 57 and press the base member 25 toward the trough 55. The latching tabs 51 will engage the sides of the holes 57 and cause slight deflections of the latching protrusions 49 to permit the base member 25 to move toward the trough 55. Once the base member 25 seats flush to the trough 55, the latching tabs 51 will snap past edges of the holes 57 to secure the base member 25 to the trough 55.
By the present invention, any pulling force exerted on a fiber optic cable secured within the raceway 21 to a spool-shaped core 27 will not be transmitted to the connector of that fiber optic cable. Rather the force will be transmitted via the cable gland 41, the plate 33, the core 27 and base member 25 to the trough 55. Therefore, the chance of a momentary disconnection, as discussed in the background section herein, will be greatly reduced or eliminated for that fiber optic cable. Moreover, the circular periphery of the spool-shaped core 27 will assist in preventing any exceeding of the minimum bending radius of a fiber optic cable, as the fiber optic cable transitions from its horizontal entrance orientation into the vertical raceway 21 to its vertical orientation within the vertical raceway 21, regardless of tensile forces applied to that cable, as also discussed in the background section herein. Moreover, the cables within the vertical raceway 21 may be better organized and managed for troubleshooting purposes.
Although
Although one embodiment of attachment features has been illustrated in
In the embodiment illustrated in
A flat plate or end cap may be attached to the cable gland holder 23 to cover the open end of the core 27. In
Although an example has been given wherein the gland 41 attaches a fiber optic cable 41 to the plate 33, it should be appreciated that the gland 41 could be used to attach another type of cable, such as a coaxial cable, a twisted pair cable, a patch cord, a security cable, etc. to the plate 33. It is also important to not excessively bend or stress other types of cables, such as coaxial cables.
The invention being thus described, it will be obvious that the same may be varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention, and all such modifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art are to be included within the scope of the following claims.
