Talk:Vampire tap

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Drilling cables before tapping

My dim memory remembers a need to drill the cable (with a hand-turned gadget) before inserting the vampire itself. The purpose of this was to open a hole in the shield braid, otherwise there was a risk of it shorting to the centre fang of the vampire.

Was this common practice? Always / Never / Best practice, but not essential?
Andy Dingley (talk) 12:32, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do not really know but it sounds like that would be necessary. 193.11.215.37 (talk) 09:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the picture of various Ethernet hardware there is an orange tapping tool at the bottom. It has a drill on one end and a socket wrench for screwing in the tap on the other. You could just screw in the tap, but it was not reliable. The drill cut through the shielding and inner insulation. It stopped just short of the wire. This allowed for a much more reliable tap Robert.Harker (talk) 05:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fiber optic cable vampire taps

Any more info on this? 193.11.215.37 (talk) 09:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Never heard of this in relationship to Ethernet. I heard stories about the spooks being able to slightly bend a fiber and shave off the side and get an optical tap that way. Don't know if it is true. Not really a vampire tap. Robert.Harker (talk) 05:49, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having read the article I am deleting the optical vampire tap. Only restore it if you can site a reference Robert.Harker (talk) 05:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fix or merge?

Obviously needs to be referenced. I thought this was already a technology in use by the cable TV industry? Perhaps the Ethernet application was the best known, but it was short-lived anyway. Maybe it should be merged into 10BASE5 unless we talk about it more generally. W Nowicki (talk) 00:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks to be sourceable [1] but this article is also related to Medium Attachment Unit. CATV doesn't use a "vampire tap" system. I think you may be thinking of coring tools [2] [3] used for the hardline coax which is used for CATV distribution. The ends of the coax are cored before compression connectors are installed. --Tothwolf (talk) 00:42, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]