The EdisConnect Cable Kit Story

Before Edis AV was formed I owned an IT company that also installed audio visual equipment in schools. We had to buy all the cable components separately at that time and cut and terminate them on site. The biggest problem was returning to site if the installer had made an error in terminating and a real disadvantage was the long time it took to actually complete the installation mostly due to the time taken terminating the cables.

We decided on a cable kit for our own staff since most of the cables were similar lengths, well more than 80% of them were 10 metres long. The connections required were nearly always the same ie a VGA for the projector, a composite video for the DVD player and we settled on mini-jack for speaker connections

We found local steel fabricators in Cheshire to make the faceplates but struggled to get plastic backboxes of the correct depth and buying pre-terminated cables in the UK at the right price was not as easy as we had thought.

Since I had lived in the Far East I decided to visit China with our designs to find a suitable cable company, plastics moulding and faceplate manufacturer. Our quantities for our own use were very small for some of the companies I visited but we found the right combination after a few false starts and a couple of visits.

The first kit was a single gang stainless steel faceplate with 80mm backbox and cables cut to length and terminated. We bought a 20' container load of these and some Chinese projector poles that we had modified to include cable management.

The results with our installation crews was astounding. We were able to install three projectors in two days on average, sometimes two a day with no faults, no testing of cables during install and we found we only needed to performance test the completed installation ie no wire to wire testing at all. The lads were much happier since their work was easier with little or no crouching on the floor terminating cables and their completion bonus was now achievable almost every time instead of somewhat hit and miss.

Things have developed enormously over the years since then. We set up a company to import from China and to sell these products and others to installers and then direct to distributors. We developed a broader range of cable kits including a modular systems, a plug and play system in a box, plastic faceplate versions and even amplifier units to fit into cable kits. Hence our EdisConnect brand was formed.

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