Ducati Monster Forum

About 3 years ago I ran Cat6 to each room in the house.  I've been unsucessful in getting the ends correctly terminated/tested in the 3 or 4 times I've screwed with it.

I have good plugs, the correct crimper, and punchdown-toolless female jacks.  I'm not sure where I'm going wrong, but I'm so tired of make the beast with two backsing with it I'd rather just pay someone to come out.

What can I expect a job like that to cost? 

There are 8 cables that need to be made up.

I'm in Atlanta (just south of it)

I hear data guys are more expensive than electricians.

They also require bananas.  ;D

1236
3612

really that hard?

I know the order
I have the tools
For some reason I cannot get a reliable connection.  I do not know why.  Everything looks like it should, I've followed the directions 100% each time.

 ???

i bet the wires are simply not reaching the crimps in the plugs.  if you are doing it manually, you have to push them in perfectly and crimp perfectly.  half the time when i started doing it, they would miss.  do you have a wire tester so you can figure out which one is not hitting?

Could it be line noise?

Did you keep the low voltage at least a foot away from line except where they needed to cross?

Got the tester.  I'll try/trying it again....

No idea on the line noise...the cable isn't making a good connection so I havn't tried using it at all.  When I ran the cabling I kept it away from any 120v lines, not sure if that is what you are referring to. 

Yes. It needs to be a foot away by code...farther is actually better in real life.

The cat5/6 cable is unshielded and prone to interference from line voltage.

unless he got shielded type.  we used that for the house.  shielded, plenum cat 6.

of course, now we have wireless.   [laugh] 

i've been toying with the idea of running DC over the unused wires.  there is a spec for DC over ethernet.  I think they most they get thru it is 48v

He may have. I can't imagine the price.

48v on that stuff?

All the DC I did as a wire monkey used 10 awg and that was just 12v emergency lighting.

Not shielded, was just confused as I didn't think 120v was low :)

We have wireless too....but trying to stream anything like a BluRay or play PS3 is futile via wireless (at least the BR streaming doesn't work worth a shit).

I'm going to try and find some punch down jacks locally.  I just tried to re-reinstall one (as the plug looks PERFECT).  Now 3 out of the 4 pairs are a no-connect, and with the way this make the beast with two backsing plug is made you cannot actually see the connections after you snap it down.

I've got a punch-down tool, so I might as well get some punch down jacks and try that.  Or just get a quote, write a check, and go work one something else.


Any ideas?  $20 a cable maybe?

The network cable is considered the low voltage in this case.

120v is line voltage. Line workers laugh at 120. They consider 120 low voltage.

I guess when you work with 480v and up it is.

Gotcha :D

In any case, I ran it away from any 120/240 lines...

Gotta be these damn sockets....

Keep Cat-ANYTHING away from power.  I've had no problems running the cat 3 (yeah, ancient, I know) for basic internet all over the house.  I also stay away from the electric wiring.  Some are punched, some are crimped, some are screwed into a jack piece.  All work as expected.  Just don't expect Windows 7, Vista and XP to play nice.

JM

How are you setting it up? When I helped my dad run cables for an office one summer we made a bunch of cables w/ the regular ends and the just ran them through the ceiling and whatnot and plugged them into the back of the outlets. If you're doing this, did you make sure to test all the cables before you installed them? If you did and they worked before you ran them through the walls, you might have crimped it somewhere.

Dp-  yep 48vo same as what comes in over your 24awg pots wires.  No more than about 1A@48vdc.  Just enough to power a small device such as a usb charger or laptop.  Most are 1A@12vdc or thereabouts.

10awg for 12vdc?  Wtf?

I ran wiring in my garage 220v and 50A over 10awg (2phase).

12vdc on 10g is wasteful

That's what I said when I was trying to make connections.

It's not if you consider that amperage rises as voltage drops and this was a parallel system with remote batteries. P=IE...E=IR

You under wired your garage. 10 awg is for a 30 amp circuit. By code it should have been 8 awg.

I'll notify your code enforcement officer for you. :P

25A over each wire.

15ft of wire.

It'll do

That isn't the way 240 works.

If your breaker is a double pole...each leg is capable of 50 amps.

You have his number? [laugh]

Its running of two separate breakers.  I split out one 110 outlet off each hot wire. And its not 50 it is 40 or 20 each.  I rarely run more than one tool at a time and only the welder is 220v and that's only 25A.  I want to put in a bigger air comp but ill run another 220 for that

I've done reverse. A 120 circuit off of one leg of a 2 pole breaker. It works.

Completely illegal. :P

Good thing we don't have electricians licenses.

We don need no steenkeeng badgers

Just look at the connectors and make sure the wires are all the way up in the connector. Triple check this. You can pick up a basic tester real cheap. Just to test continuity of the pairs for like $10.

You would have been fine running cat 5e you're not going to see a benefit from 6. The tolerances are so tight that you will not be able to punch it down correctly. You can still run Gigabit off of it and its a hell of a lot cheaper. I've had plenty of electricians run wires next to our huge bundles of cat5e and never had a noise problem. We always yell at them and tell them to keep a foot away but that never happens.

friggen electricians. :P

Yeh and they have the nerve to charge almost as much as us low voltage guys.  :)

Can't tell them anything either.

Smartest guy on the jobsite...just ask him. ;D

NEMA definitions:

5, 12, 24, 48, 120, 240, 277, 440, 480, 500, 600, 690, 1000V AC or DC is all "low voltage" in our business.  1kV to ~40kV is "medium voltage".  ~40kV to MV is "high voltage".


Cable size (AWG) is based on CURRENT, not voltage, and conductor material (aluminum or copper), and the method for terminating (lugs, clamps, ring terminals, etc).  Cable insulation is based on VOLTAGE and application temperature (60C, 75C, 90C etc).  Each AWG diameter size step is based on a ratio of current squared due to Ohmic heating (I^2*R*time).  


48V DC is the max for voltage you can run in a DC application that is considered low enough to be touch safe.  I have heard that 48v is even too high for some working standards, and more like 40Vdc is the max considered that people can work around without PPE.  Most DC devices run at 12 or 24VDC, so I am not sure why you would run 48Vdc on any wires inside your house.

Isn't more always better ? :D

Talked with a cool dude at a computer shop today.  Gonna come out and check it out.  $80 an hour seems "reasonable" to me, as long as it doesn't take him an hour to make one cable up  [laugh]

You should have a small patch panel at the head end and a wall plate with keystone jacks at the room side. You really cant miss punching these down just don't untwist the wires more than 1/2 in. Then you could have just used patch cords. That would be the proper way to do it.

(http://assets.twacomm.com/assets/2226439907/product_images/8204.jpg)
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I just threw 48vdc out there becaise that's the v over tp standard and the same as pots voltage.

Point would be to have a common low vdc source for charging my phone or laptop. 12vdc would prob be better.

you shoulda had him make you a few 1ft "test" cables while you were in the shop and checked 'em with your cable tester. if they don't pass, you're just gonna pay him $80/hr to tell you what you already know.

I was trying to use tool-less keystone jacks in the walls....which is where I think the problem is.  I already have a switch and rack setup in the basement to plug into. I'll see what the guy says in an hour.

What do you mean derby?  That the jacks I was using are shut, or something is wrong with the cabling itself?

I think he was implying that you should test the guys work before you hire him. Otherwise he could be doing as bad a job as you have been :D

[pedantic]
I think the minimum distance for cat5e is a three feet
[/pedantic]  But one foot should definitely work  ;D

You might also just try testing the runs themselves, i.e. terminate with relatively foolproof rj45 connectors on both ends and test the cable.  If this is non-plenum cable, and you did some yanking to get the cables run, there may be issues.  Any weird angles or anything?  The bend radius on cat5 is something like 90 degrees over two feet, but again, I would be astounded to learn that it didn't work even if you didn't follow the specification to the letter.
As far as interference, the only issues I have ever personally witnessed have been from florescent lights - just be sure to run cables perpendicular and not parallel to power and lighting.

Just a thought. If You have a patch panel at one end and keystones at the other are they both punched down A standard or B. Most times the patchpanels are A. They say B for residential I believe. We just use A all the time so there is no confusion.

if your cables don't "test," assuming you've got the order correct, it's most likely an issue w/ your wires not touching the contacts.



 [thumbsup]

Well, with new plugs "MOST" of the other ones work.  The one I NEED to work of course doesn't.....probably a nail through it somewhere but I'm not sure. 

I'm now after a fishtape so I can run a new cable up through the wall, across the entire house in the attic, then down the far wall, then across the entire basement ceiling......all for some make the beast with two backsing streaming video lol...

At least it's my friday :D