Let the terminating begin!!!

ph0n33z

Active Member
Alright,

Well guys, things are finally starting to take off. The drywall is mudded, taped, and now sprayed. So I no longer have any excuse for not starting to terminate the drops.

I am going to start with the "common" drops throughout the house. These are the non-tv areas, and just the basic room drops of 2 rg6 and 2 cat5. My questions are these:

What brand/type of tools do you recommend?
What types of connectors?
Compression vs. Crimping?
What do you think of the leviton quickport stuff?

I really do not know anything about terminating, so I have a lot to learn in this process. Is there a good resource you guys would recommend?

Thanks so much!
 
I personally like the whole Leviton collection of tools, connectors and quickports. I have used the push and seals and yanked on the connection as hard as I could (F-Connector) and was not able to rip the cable out of the connector.

The crimping tool comes with connectors for RCA and RF as well as the RF and RCA quickport connectors.

Leviton Compression Tool
Leviton F-Connector Compression Quickport Fitting
Leviton RCA Compression Quickport Fitting
Leviton RCA Field Configurable Compression Fittings
Leviton F-Connector Compression Fitting

You can see the complete selection of Quickport connectors, faceplates and all other accessories here:
Leviton Quickport Selection


As always, our site offers a 10% coupon to all Cocoon members, simply enter the word Cocoon as a coupon code when completing your offer, or on the phone with our sales staff.
 
Are the walls of your project painted yet? If not you would be best not to start terminating things. The painters will just come in and spray over everything including your outlets. I just did this on my house and had as much time terminating the outlets as I did pulling the wire. The one tool that helped make the cat5 connections was the small "puck " looking item. The quick port cat5 plug locks into this "puck" and makes working with the plug easier. I will try to find a link for you.
 
betrickey said:
Are the walls of your project painted yet? If not you would be best not to start terminating things. The painters will just come in and spray over everything including your outlets. I just did this on my house and had as much time terminating the outlets as I did pulling the wire. The one tool that helped make the cat5 connections was the small "puck " looking item. The quick port cat5 plug locks into this "puck" and makes working with the plug easier. I will try to find a link for you.
That is a very good thing to know. I was wondering myself about whether I should wait until after painting or not. The spray on drywall coevered up all of the wire, so I imagine the paint would do the same.

Nice to know that you guys have had a good experience with the quickports.
 
You can terminate the cable prior to paint and install the face plate after paint. Once you have the cables terminated just put them into a sandwich bag to keep the paint off of them.
 
Two of my most used test items (other than my multimeter) are:

An inductive cable tracer something like this (couldn't find a link):
http://cocoontech.com/images/howto/security/LanTracker.JPG

And a Cat5e cable checker (checked continuity and also placed a hub to make sure it was registering bandwidth properly):

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_in...6217&pfp=SEARCH

Also, make sure you test your RG6's F connections for continuity AND leakage (to make sure you didn't get any shield foil/braid touching the center conductor). :D
 
If you do any terminating before paint I would place the connections in a plastic sandwich baggie and tape the end closed very well and tuck the ends back into the box. If you don't at least do this you will have paint all over your ends including the face that will show through the face plate. Try these guys for your quick ports, I bought all of the quick ports from them that I installed in my home

http://stores.ebay.com/K-D-Surplus_Surplus...4QQftidZ2QQtZkm

They have some of the best deals that I could find. OnQ quick ports will also fit into Leviton jack plates.
 
Also, remember you don't have to terminate everything at this point . . . just the points you know you'll be using . . . I put blank covers over more than half of the drops I wired . . . I'll terminate when I need them . . .


Pete C
 
If you are getting cable TV, there is a chance your cable installer will terminate your RG6. Mine terminated both ends of over 40 cables. Just a thought.

Also, compression is my recommendation for RG6. Liberty Wire and Cable makes the ConnecTec set that is excellent. We use these at work and they are very nice.

lz
 
Mine terminated both ends of over 40> cables. Just a thought.


I see... Thats why they call you the "Lazyone" ;-)


Frank
 
But "Lazyone" still fits............. :( :D :D

Actually if he can get a cable guy to do al of that (for free I assume here) he would make a great salesman.
 
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