Wires stuck in ADC Punchdown

[fuzz]

I had to move a couple snakes around which resulted in re-punching two of our ADC bays. Wouldn't ya know it, some fragments of the originally punched wires are jammed in the terminal preventing new wires from making connections.

I've heard of this happening and that its a total pain. I spent a few hours today trying to free the lodged wire but to no avail. Tomorrow I'm taking apart the bay which will force me to disconnect everything to see if I can take out individual jacks and clear them out. Before I do this has anyone had the same problem and been able to fix it without taking the whole thing apart?

[fuzz]

Wow, this is a total nightmare...

FYI, I popped open the dang thing and the rear connections are punched as well. The jacks are removable in rows of 8 so I'll have to disconnect from both sides completely and I don't want to screw with the factory punches. There must be some other way. Is there a needle nose small enough to grip the old wires? I'm calling ADC tomorrow...

[The Scum]

I've never had this problem myself, but a couple ideas:

Really small needle nose? Surgical clamps & forceps.

And along a similar vein: a really pointy dental pick might be able to reach in and get those bits out.

[newfuturevintage]

a really pointy dental pick might be able to reach in and get those bits out.

+1. Put a slight bend in the tip too.

[fuzz]

Thanks for the responses. I was able to speak with some folks at ADC today and aside from the "somehow fish it out with a hook/needle thingie. They advised me to remove the internal factory punches and push out the old wires. I was able to get some wires out with a jewelers flat head I bent.

Since some of the wires were lodged too far inside the jack, i felt I had no choice but to push them through. As I thought would happen, in fixing one jack other wires would be damaged. Partly because the 3 wires overlap next to the punchdown jacks and removing one pulls all three out. I was able to beep out a few jacks on the ends of the rows, but nothing in the middle even after clearing and trying to re-punch.

Anyway, so the main problem then became getting my bulky punchdown tool at the correct angle to re-punch the inside. Not sure what they use at the factory but there is no way to get a straight shot with the tool from the inside. And every time the wire doesn't stay punched it gets shorter and shorter...

I'm looking for a solder bay cheap. They take forever, but when the wire is in it ain't goin anywhere and at this point I could have soldered the bay twice over. I'll still have the bays so any other input is still much appreciated.

[andris]

I'm thinking of switching from 3 96 point solder bays to 3 adc punch down types. I'm looking at used bays, is that a bad idea? The access for the punch down bays seems much easier than fixing the 15 solder connections that went bad.