What is L-com?

What is L-com? (blogger@L-com.com)

L-com Global Connectivity was founded in 1982 as a family-run business to supply the burgeoning connectivity industry with quality cables, connectors, adapters, and other passive signal connectivity equipment. Today, L-com is still a privately held corporation headquartered in North Andover, MA, with four locations world wide. One of those locations, in Boca Raton, FL, is HyperLink Technologies, a quality wireless manufacturer that L-com acquired in 2007 and incorporated into its overall product offering. As a whole, L-com Global Connectivity is one of the world's most comprehensive and high-quality sources for both wired and wireless connectivity products. Not only does L-com have a huge in-stock product offering, available on its L-com.com eCommerce site, but they are a premier supplier of custom built products for large scale military, aerospace, and OEM companies. Though the way we connect electronics has changed quite a bit over the years, L-com still provides its award winning customer service, free print catalog, and free technical information on its web site.

L-com.com Web Site Update

Updates to L-com.com (customerservice@L-com.com)


I apologize that I hadn't written a blog entry in so long, but we've been cooking up lots of events here at L-com. The L-com.com web site is now updated with all sorts of enhancements. The first that you'll notice is the image on our home page is now a rotating gif and is clickable. Clicking on the item family that you see will bring you to a page where you can browse that kind of item.

In searches, you will notice that the page numbers are listed rather than just a "next" and "previous" button, as we had before. This will let you flip through our huge connectivity product listings more easily. We've also updated the search engine on our site to be a little more intuitive.

You may notice that on the left-hand side of our pages the navigation has changed slightly. We now list "Shop By Type" above "Shop By Category", and we've included a link to Overstock and Sale Items.

The biggest changes, though, are when you place an order online. We want the process of shopping online to be as convenient as calling or faxing orders to us.

First, when you add a cable, connector, adapter, or other connectivity product to your cart, you won't be sent to the cart page and have to back up if you want to add more items. Instead, you'll get a message that your cart has been updated and you'll stay where you are until you've finished shopping. You may see the cart icon at the top of the page blink red when there's something in it just to remind you that its there.

When you check out, if you are a new user, you won't need to enter your password up front. We'll let you go through the whole process first. You will have to put in a user name and password at the end, but we won't make you re-type all your information. We'll take it from your billing address. Speaking of the billing address, if you want to copy that to the shipping, you can easily do that now, no need to manually type it in.

Is that it? No, there's lots of other little enhancements all over the site. Check it out! Explore the whole line of products, check out the free technical information, and be sure to let us know if you have suggestions or ideas! We maintain our website for you, after all, to make shopping easier for you and more convenient.

L-com Connector Chart

What do you call this connector?(customerservice@L-com.com)

Like any industry, the connectivity industry has its jargon and unique terms. Among the more frustrating is the complicated names of connector types. Do you need a BNC or an RCA? Do you have a DB15 or an HD15? What the heck is the difference between a MD6 and a PS/2?

Fortunately, one of L-com's more popular pages on its web site, www.L-com.com, is the connector chart page. This is a free page that anyone can access to see pictures of connectors next to their names. Need a closeup? Click on any of the pictures and you can get a blown-up version to compare to your own product.

The connector chart is just one of the free educational benefits to L-com's web page, which includes tips, tutorials, video tips, educational newsletters, and white papers. On top of that, you can get CAD models, engineering drawings, and more details on most of our products for free as well! So, even if you're not ready to buy connectivity products, if you have an interest in them our site is worth a visit. Check it out here: www.L-com.com.

Technical Support Help

L-com's Technical Support (customerservice@L-com.com)

I've worked in L-com's Tech Support for a few years now and we've seen a lot of the same questions asked over and over. For that reason, we're creating a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) section of our web site! We're adding questions as they come to us, but please help us out by letting us know your favorite questions about connectivity, signal technology, or L-com itself.

We will keep putting questions up and, soon, modify our site search so you can easily search those questions for answers. That's not to say we don't want you to call us anymore! There's no way we can put down every single question someone might ask, and, truth be told, we really like working with our customers to help them find the answers to their questions.

Did you know we have dedicated tech support reps connected to a phone queue all day long? They answer questions quickly, and if they don't know the answer right off the bat, they'll research and get back to you, usually within a day. You can also email directly to tech support at support@L-com.com, and get a response within 24 hours!

So, with our FAQ and Technical Resources online, and our live tech support resources offline, you can get all the answers you need to make an informed decision.

Surface Mount Boxes and Wall Plates

How Do You Create Modular Ports for Your Users to Plug Into? (customerservice@L-com.com)

Undoubtedly, one of the most important technological advances of our time is the modular network. Networked together, machines throughout an office, a building, a whole country, or all over the world can all communicate. In order to make a network user friendly, it's a good idea to provide easily accessible ports or jacks where your users' machines are.

Traditionally, there are two main ways of mounting modular jacks: in a wall or in a box mounted on a surface. By far, wall plates and face plates are the most popular way to go. With them, the jacks are flush with the wall, out of the way, but still easy to get to. But in some cases there are either no walls close by, or the walls cannot have anything running inside them. In those cases, surface mount boxes provide a perfect solution.

Boxes and face plates often come separate from the jack itself, allowing you to mix and match the correct jack with the correct mounting medium. Make sure you get a plate with the proper hole size already in it so you can easily mount the jack. The most common hole size is called Keystone, and though it is not standardized it is roughly the same from company to company.

DVI Video Standard

Digital Video Interface (DVI) - What is it?

(customerservice@L-com.com)

DVI is one of the video standards for the emerging field of digital video. As you get newer televisions, HDTV boxes, video cards for PCs, and other video equipment, you may see this type of connector more and more.

The connector is shaped vaguely like a D-Sub connector, with screws on either side to hold it mounted. It has up to 24 pins in the middle, plus four pins possibly around a bar to one side. I say "up to 24 pins" and "possibly around a bar" because there are actually several types of DVI connectors possible.

Three DVI signal types

In instruction booklets that reference the DVI cables you need, you may see a letter after DVI, like this: "DVI-D". There are actually three different types of DVI: DVI-A, DVI-I, and DVI-D. The -A is for analog only, the -D is for digital only, and the -I has both analog and digital pins. How can you tell the difference? The easiest way is to look at the bar at one side of the connector. The four pins around it are for analog signals, so if you do not have those pins, the connector is a DVI-D: it only includes digital lines. If you do have pins around the bar, and most of the pins in the center (there may be a strip of pins missing in the middle. More on this in a second), you probably have a DVI-I connector. If you only have 12 of the middle pins, you probably have a DVI-A connector.

On a male connector, usually on a DVI cable, it is important to know which type it is because if you try to plug a connector into a female port that doesn't have enough holes for the pins, then some of the pins may bend, destroying the cable. On the other hand, female DVI-I connectors can accommodate both DVI-D and DVI-A connectors because they have holes for all of the pins. Most newer DVI equipment is coming with DVI-I connectors standard for that reason.

Single Link and Dual Link DVI

Single Link and Dual Link has to do with how many channels of transmission are available in a cable assembly. You can visually tell a single link male connector from a dual link by the centermost vertical strip of pins. If they are missing, then the cable is single link only. If they are there (meaning all 24 pins are present), then the cable is dual link.

Contrary to many beliefs, dual link isn't really "better", in that the picture quality is the same. Dual link is primarily for getting up to very high resolutions, usually too high for most TVs to get to. Dual link DVI can reach a resolution of 2048 x 1536 at 60 Hz Refresh Rate, sometimes called QXGA or Quad Extended Graphics Array. In most commercial cases, this isn't necessary.

Coaxial cable

What is Coaxial Cable? (customerservice@L-com.com)

Coaxial or Coax cable is so named because the signal inside the cable runs on two (co-) axies: the center conductor and the shield. This is a relatively old cabling technology that was originally developed for military use. Coax cables were found to be so durable and efficient at carrying all sorts of signal types from data, video, audio, and more, that the standard soon became commercialized. Today, coax remains a very popular cable assembly type for cable TV, antennas, high-end audio/video equipment, and security equipment.

Though there are a few standards of coax cable available on the market, L-com only really carries the "RG" styles. RG stands for radio guide, and each cable type is generally called by RG followed by a number indicating the standard number of the cable. That is sometimes followed by a letter to indicate a sub-standard, and then the letter "U" to indicate that the standard is universal. But all this doesn't help you figure out what kind of cable you need!

With coax, the application generally dictates the kind of cable. Video cables nearly always use 75 Ohm styles of cable. Data and antennas usually use 50 Ohm styles. The different styles may have different flexibilities, diameters, attenuation, jacket types, and other factors that make one cable the ideal fit.

If you have an application but don't know what cable you need, try giving us a call or emailing directly to our tech support group at support@L-com.com. You may also find our Coaxial Cabling Tutorial helpful, available free on our web site.

The holidays are drawing to a close, but L-com sales are still on!

Plenum Patch Cables (Fiber Optic and Ethernet UTP) Sell-Off (customerservice@L-com.com)

As the year ends, we took a look around our massive warehouse and noticed many boxes of custom Plenum rated cable products built for one of our customers who didn't end up needing them. Well, we don't need them either, so we've decided to sell them at incredible prices just to give us more space!

The link to the items on sale is here:

http://www.L-com.com/PlenCloseout

Among the items are a variety of multimode and singlemode fiber optic patch cables, OFNP or Plenum rated, and various colors and lengths of Cat 5e and Cat 6 rated Plenum Ethernet cables. And the prices are so low, some of them are even cheaper than our PVC cables!

Along with that, the Overstock Sale that we started a couple of weeks ago is still going on, so check that out as well.

Hope your New Years is a happy and prosperous one!

L-com closed for Christmas

L-com Connectivity Products

Hope your holiday is bright and merry! We will be closed on Monday, December 25th, in observation of the Christmas holiday. Then there is one week left to the year and to the End Of Year sale that is still going on!

Merry Christmas

PS. If you haven't gotten your 2007 L-com Calendar FREE from us, yet, call your inside sales rep and ask them to send you one!

L-com's End of Year 2006 Sale!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS (customerservice@L-com.com)

Happy holidays to our blog readers and L-com customers! As a token of appreciation, our sales reps sent out the below email on Wednesday:

Hi,

Happy Holidays and thank you for being an L-com customer! 2006 was a very successful year for me here at L-com, and I’m hoping it was a good year for you too.

Because I appreciate your business, I want to make sure you know about a special End Of Year Sale going on here. I picked a couple of items I thought might interest you, but if you want to see a complete list of many more items click here.

You can’t access this special sale list from our home page, so I’m sending you the link specifically by email. Copy and paste it into your browser:

http://www.L-com.com/2006EOYsale

If you want to discuss your projects or connectivity needs, please give me a call or send me an email! I look forward to working with you in the year to come. Have a happy and prosperous New Year!

Thanks,

L-com Sales Department

TRD855BL-7 $0.99 69% Off Regular Price!

DGBH15F $3.25 60% Off Regular Price!

CC58C-5 $4.00 53% Off Regular Price!

I want to extend the same invitation to our blog readers! If there is anything we can do for you, let us know!