[mythtv-users] Decisions, decisions

[Carl]

I just obliterated my house with cat5e, it wasn't that hard!

Home Depot has some structured wiring stuff, although I'm sure you could do 
better. I ran two cables each from my upstairs office to four different 
locations. I didn't bother with a fancy punchdown block, just used 6-gang 
outlets (2) in the office and 2-gang in the four rooms. 500' of cable in a 
nice box that cleanly feeds out cable for $35, and a bunch of little 
terminators/plugs that were a snap to wire up. The faceplates and jacks are 
modular, you you can mix in telephone, coax and speaker wires if you want. 
Standard electrical boxes designed for existing construction worked great 
(little flaps flip up behind the drywall and clamp against it as you tighten 
the screws).

Fortunately, I had good access through an existing raceway into the garage, 
all the rooms I needed to wire were reasonably convenient from there. The 
longest run was 60' (the cable was marked with feet remaining, so running a 
loop from the office to a room gave me a full measurement just by subtracting 
the numbers on the wires left sticking out).

If I had better access to my attic, I would have run a lot of it up that way. 
You can generally find easy routes from above, and stacks that go from 
basement to attic. Although for all I know, you live on the 80th floor of a 
Manhatten high-rise...

By the way, all of this may be massive violation of building and fire code in 
your location. Best to check with someone wise about such things.

The biggest pain was making the 12 patch cables to run between the 6-gangers 
and the 24-port switch, which now doesn't seem all that out of place in my 
home. And, of course, I haven't tested all the connections yet, I may yet be 
ripping wires from the walls...

And a word to the wise, mark *everything* as you go. A Sharpie is your best 
friend. Nothing worse than sitting there looking at two wires, wondering 
which is which. You want to have a marking system and use it on the 
faceplates, so when you go to patch something in later, you know which is 
which. I use 'A' for the top and 'B' for the bottom in a 2-gang, and made up 
a single letter abbreviation for each room. That gave every outlet an 
easily-recognized name ("BA" = top outlet in the bedroom).

Also, when I pulled the wire, I would feed a loop through the hole in the 
office wall, and anchor the free end of wire, so I was pulling a loop from 
the box to the destination. It helped me keep track of things also (A = 
anchored, B = box, pulling each would give away which was the free one, B).

Sorry this got a little long...

Carl


On Monday December 22 2003 20:36, Bishop wrote:
> > Well, I never thought I'd be asking a 'what hardware should I buy'
> > question ('cause I didn't think I'd have the budget), but I got a bonus
> > this year, so...
>
> We REALLY need a compatibility database.  And a wiki.
>
> > PS- Anyone want to give me tips on how I can run CAT-5 cable from my top
> > (2nd) floor to my basement with minimal wall damage?  I'd really like
> > to get rid of my wlan dependency.
>
> Yeah.  I ran some cable a bit back, but it depends on how you feel about
> running a crossover cable via the internal telephone wiring of your home.
> It's either cat3 (6Mbit rated) or cat5, so one can get decent throughput.
> In my case, I crossed two pair that ran from the upstairs to the
> downstairs via the external, unlocked junction box, Cooked up some trivial
> rj11-to-rj45 connectors, and it was a thing of beauty.  The dually face
> plates even made the Boss (She Who Must Be Obeyed) pleased.
>
> I cruised past one of the few radio shacks in the world that still do more
> than sell phones (you've got questions, we've got cellphones and blank
> stares), and noticed CATV/RJ11 dually faceplates.  I think I've just
> solved my own "Do I go Wireless or run cable through the house to get
> around this wall?" problem.
>
> This was about 6, maybe 7 years back, and America may not use cat3.  Thus,
> your mileage (kilometrage?) may vary.
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Howard Dean for America
http://www.DeanForAmerica.com