Patch Panel or not...

[brathnach]

I have to agree with the above guys.

I did my own place for around 40 Cat5e cables back to a cabinet. Labelling is a bit annoying and really it should be done by the contractor as he runs them. I really wouldnt waste my time crimping one plugs to these as it may be come unreliable over time and these plugs are a pain to be honest. I actually avoid them like the plague if I can - I prefer if someone gave me a 8 terminal strip connector!

My advice. Get him to label them. Get a small 4U or 6U cabinet with a 1U 24 port patch panel for yourself with the cables popped in the back. Only punch down the cables as you use them would be my advice. It is a tedious job but way way quicker than crimping on RJ45s. The only reason I say punch them on as you make use of them is that I did our place with atleast 1 cat5 in every room for internet etc. However a year later I put in a Wireless Access point which sort of made alot of the cables I had installed absolutely defunct. They might come in to use for something again but i doubt it!

One last thing i will say if you have a more than couple of cables. Make sure theres some sort of cable management on the patch panel you get. Its alot better/neater/reliable when there are slots at the back of the patch panel to cable tie the sheathed part of the cable to the panel. The first time I got panel the only thing holding the cables to the patch panel were the actual punch downs themselves. Get something that provides a bit of a strain relief behind the punch downs.

Good luck!

 

[tmbrown97]

You've gotten a lot of info on this post so far... this topic seems to get people going. Some believe in patch panels and cross-connecting everything; others just direct-wire everything.

I have been known to do either one, depending on the scenario. At work, I wouldn't dream of doing anything but a patch panel (I run a large IT shop covering many offices across the US); at home though, since my neck of the woods doesn't have basements, it would depend entirely of how much room I had to work. So, lets start there - how roomy is your cabinet? What sort of space is your wiring terminating in?

If you had a basement, I'd suggest throwing a cabinet on the wall, put a patch panel in it - put a wire manager below that, and the switch below that... it'd be very neat. In an in-wal cabinet, on the other hand, i'd be tempted to do the RJ45 ends as well if I needed to conserve space.

Regardless - a few points to chime in on... +1 for not bothering with color coding; that's a pointless concept; the beauty of Cat5/6 is that it can be used for all kinds of things... any attempt to color code will result in inconsistencies in no time.

Whichever way you go - tools matter... don't use the POS that comes with the leviton stuff (no offense at all to others here), and don't buy the $15 radio shack RJ11/45 crimper. Spending the $50-70 on a good quality RJ45 ratcheting crimper or a good punchdown tool makes a big difference in the quality of your connections and is a totally different (and more enjoyable) experience. Also, the cheapo LAN testers - it doesn't make sense to buy an expensive one since you'd have to spend $1000+ for one that makes a difference, but just know that it is very possible that those $30 ones will give you a pass and the wire won't work; they test continuity only, and not performance. Crosstalk/interference/attenuation cost a lot to test for. Unfortunately, there's no good answer there - so the cheap ones are far better than nothing; they'll point out crossed pairs or bad connections - but they don't guarantee a good run.

Let us know how much room you have to work with and how many terminations - that may guide a more specific answer. If you've got the room, I do personally like patch panels - but if there's no room, you'd be fine direct terminating. You can always use RJ45 couplers to convert to weird wiring if needed without altering the original wire.

Last - a lot of LV wiring guys really don't have a clue... out here, one of the biggest builder partners is an HVAC company that took on LV a while back.. for someone with an IT background, it's very sub-par. You're doing the right thing doing your research.

 

[FaderJockey]

Another vote for the patch panel.

You need to strip back the covering make all the strands the same length and get them in the right order and then slide them into the crimp.

Have you seen these?

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Another vote for the patch panel.

You need to strip back the covering make all the strands the same length and get them in the right order and then slide them into the crimp.

Have you seen these?

These are a godsend. But if you go cheaper make sure whatever you get has the little separating tunnels or half-tunnels inside to keep the wires lined up with the pins as you push them in... I've seen some so cheap they don't even have that... practically impossible to get a successful crimp.

 

[Neurorad]

Another vote for the patch panel.

You need to strip back the covering make all the strands the same length and get them in the right order and then slide them into the crimp.

Have you seen these?

I've only used EZRJ45s - you still need to strip back the jacket, get them in the right order, and then slide them in. It's tedious, especially since I push in each conductor 1 at a time - reduces frustration, but increases time.

I've had 1 bad EZRJ45 male connector - one of the shiny conductor contacts inside the connector was located in the slot next to it. Pretty easy to catch, with a LAN tester.

Great point Mav - I suggest you have the LV installer terminate all the cables, and test them - the pro installers often have the more expensive testing equipment, to confirm speeds, and not just pairs. You can then cut off his RJ45 male connectors, and punch down into a patch panel or female RJ45 keystone jacks.

How many 'home run' cables are we talking about?

 

[Steve]

On tools, the EZ-RJ45 is the only way to go if you are starting from scratch. Trust me, unless you have years of experience with the 'old fashioned' way and are set in your ways, the EZRJ will save you time and frustration.

Neurorad: 1 conductor at a time, really? I've never heard of that. Seems like that would be harder or you'd need to strip back alot more to avoid a kink. I just strip back around 2" and then straighten and line them up just like the old method but then you just slide the whole thing through and check. anyway - whatever works I guess...

For coax, a compression crimper is a must. Don't waste your time with a standard cheap crimper and connectors.

On testing - think of how much extra money you are going to spend on the testing, if no other reason than paying the LV guy to terminate only for you to cut his stuff off. And its actually pretty rare to get an actual bad physical cable run. Most testing catches bad terminations on one side or the other. You can check a cable for damage pretty easily with a regular meter or very cheap cable tester. If you want a good high speed certification type test done than you MUST do your final terminations first. If you certify then cut the RJ then reterminate to panel you just killed/wasted your certification and will need to redo. Will probably be cheaper anyway to have him come do the runs, then you terminate how you want then get him to come back and test/certify.

 

[Steve]

Steve, how are the terminal blocks working out for you? Would you use different terminal blocks if you had to do it all over? I'm pretty sure that I'll be patching my speaker cables in the enclosure, now that I've bought a server rack cabinet (that will be located 4 feet from the enclosure).

I have mixed feelings on them. They took a bit to get used to. Overall I think I am happy with them. I don't know a better, more reliable way to use both solid and stranded wire. But I would only use them for security and power type stuff - not data/networking/av etc.

 

[Swancoat]

Wow, tons of great responses (pretty much what I wanted to hear too...). Sorry for the long delay - I was moving out of my current house into my temporary apartment yesterday.

I hope I'm answering all of the right questions, if I leave something out, let me know.

1. There should be about 30ish home runs of cable.

2. As for the contractor's current plan, I think he wants to leave a bunch of service loop (basically enough to 'loop around the inside' of the can. Assuming a put a 36" can in, that shoudl be ~6' of service loop). He just wants to crimp the ends, and at this point, I'll let him do it. That way, he can test the cable (and 'field' terminations), and I can cut off the crimps and punch down after he's gone.

-I'm more sure than I was before that a patch panel is the way to go.
-Seems like getting a quality punch-down tool is key. No problem there.
-Doing some practice with some cheap cable/spare punchdowns seems like a good idea.
-I'm glad to hear that it's practical to push the slack back up into the wall cavity. Being able to punch these things down on a table or some other work surface makes it seem like the whole thing will be a bit simpler.

I got the estimate from the LV contractor last night. It seems the only problem at this point is that they (for some reason) have sprinkled a mix of Cat5 and Cat6 wiring around depending on what they 'think' I'm going to use it for... so I'll basically have them run Cat6 regardless.

Here's some other 'thoughts' on my project in case anyone wants to comment...

-As far as cans go, it seemed like the kind of thing where running out of room would suck, and having too much is no big deal, so I've basically specced out 3, 36" cans, (Alarm, Cat6 networking and stuff, and RG6 drops/telephone/sat demarc).
-I'm making sure the cans are connected with conduit to 1) each other 2) a 90 degree bend that opens to the room, so I can pass a cable into or out of the cans.
-These cans are located in a 'wiring closet' that is also going to hold the back end of my media room's equipment rack (hence the desire to pass cables in and out of the cans). It should be the defacto nerve center of the house, if it's done correctly.

Any thoughts?

Again, a great set of advice and responses... Thank you!

 

[rickgd]

As someone who installs CAT5e/6 cable for a living, I always recommend a patch pannel. The flexibility it provides is probably the biggest benefit. I just installed a 48 port cat6 pannel in my new construction home. I have 32 physical drops throughout the house and I'm using them for a multitude of devices including HDMI over Cat6, phone, Computers, av equimpent, IR over TCP/IP and so on. I got all the keystones, patch pannel, wire, and faceplates from monoprice.com

I installed most of this into a 20u Network rack that I picked up locally.

overall I am very pleased with the results.

 

[Neurorad]

Neurorad: 1 conductor at a time, really? I've never heard of that. Seems like that would be harder or you'd need to strip back alot more to avoid a kink. I just strip back around 2" and then straighten and line them up just like the old method but then you just slide the whole thing through and check. anyway - whatever works I guess...

On testing - think of how much extra money you are going to spend on the testing, if no other reason than paying the LV guy to terminate only for you to cut his stuff off. And its actually pretty rare to get an actual bad physical cable run. Most testing catches bad terminations on one side or the other. You can check a cable for damage pretty easily with a regular meter or very cheap cable tester. If you want a good high speed certification type test done than you MUST do your final terminations first. If you certify then cut the RJ then reterminate to panel you just killed/wasted your certification and will need to redo. Will probably be cheaper anyway to have him come do the runs, then you terminate how you want then get him to come back and test/certify.

I got frustrated trying to jam all 8 conductors in at once - 1 conductor at a time has worked very well, but it is more time consuming. I strip about 5 inches of jacket off, and firmly slide the connector up to the level of the jacket, slip on the EZRJ45 compression tool, twist the conductors together, and then crimp/cut. The twisting prevents a pile of tiny wires on the floor.

I think testing is commonly included in the price of the install. They must terminate in order to test. There are no additional fees for standard testing.

I'm concerned that a lot of pro ethernet cable install may suck. Most are top notch, though, done by people who try to do good work. How does a homeowner know there wasn't more than 25 pounds of pull force on the cable, there are no sharp bends or kinds, no staples, no line voltage wires nearby - especially if it's a retrofit, with the cables hidden. Formal testing is the only way to know for sure. A 'pro' installed my first 2 ethernet cables in my home - they're stapled, with sharp bends. Unsurprisingly, I've had no trouble with those 2 cables yet, for internet surfing.

With a prewire, during new construction, testing may not be necessary - you can visually inspect the cables to confirm gentle sweeps and no proximity to line voltage cables. In a retrofit, I'd pay to have formal, advanced testing done, if it's not included in the cost of the professional install (again, I'd be surprised if it's not, for a reputable company).

Edit - that 'pro installs may suck' sounded harsh, sorry, most installers I'm sure do a superb, professional job.

 

[Neurorad]

As someone who installs CAT5e/6 cable for a living, I always recommend a patch pannel. The flexibility it provides is probably the biggest benefit. I just installed a 48 port cat6 pannel in my new construction home. I have 32 physical drops throughout the house and I'm using them for a multitude of devices including HDMI over Cat6, phone, Computers, av equimpent, IR over TCP/IP and so on. I got all the keystones, patch pannel, wire, and faceplates from monoprice.com

I installed most of this into a 20u Network rack that I picked up locally.

overall I am very pleased with the results.

What tool do you use to test the ethernet cable, after installation? A pair tester, or something more advanced?

Do you do commercial and residential ethernet cable installs? Where are you located?

 

[rickgd]

As someone who installs CAT5e/6 cable for a living, I always recommend a patch pannel. The flexibility it provides is probably the biggest benefit. I just installed a 48 port cat6 pannel in my new construction home. I have 32 physical drops throughout the house and I'm using them for a multitude of devices including HDMI over Cat6, phone, Computers, av equimpent, IR over TCP/IP and so on. I got all the keystones, patch pannel, wire, and faceplates from monoprice.com

I installed most of this into a 20u Network rack that I picked up locally.

overall I am very pleased with the results.

What tool do you use to test the ethernet cable, after installation? A pair tester, or something more advanced?

Do you do commercial and residential ethernet cable installs? Where are you located?

I have a Pair tester that I used for this install. I have used more advanced testers as well for some of our clients.

I am located in Northern California and work for an IT consultancy. The work involves planning and installing IT networks and the realated servers and workstations. Cabling is done if necessary, but usually most of the businesses we support have some form of infrastructure in place already. All work is commercial.

 

[tmbrown97]

Not to :unsure:

A lot depends on location; it sounds like you're not running a rack in a basement or server room; you want to use cans.

So: Feelings based on commercial use are biased in the wrong direction. Household connections will be changed once or twice each year at most; the space and money wasted on a patch panel is kinda pointless. If you have the space and money to waste, have a ball with the patch panel; but don't feel like it's a must - that's my only point. That said, in commercial space, I'd laugh you out of the building if you proposed anything *other* than a patch panel on a nice wallmount or A-Frame bracket.

So - look at the cost and time involved - you're probably looking at $200 difference for a patch panel; your flexibility is unchanged.

I can't speak for the EZ connectors - I know a lot of newbies love them (don't take that the wrong way) - I don't know a pro in the world who uses them, but that's probably more habit than anything; I have an awesome RJ45 crimper and more experience than I'd like so it's a quick process for me. I've never heard anything bad about the EZ connectors though, so if you find yourself fumbling with the wires, I'd suggest trying it!

Either way - if you have the wires where you need them and some slack in the walls, relax - you'll be able to do whatever you need.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Great point Mav - I suggest you have the LV installer terminate all the cables, and test them - the pro installers often have the more expensive testing equipment, to confirm speeds, and not just pairs. You can then cut off his RJ45 male connectors, and punch down into a patch panel or female RJ45 keystone jacks.

Actually i wasn't suggesting that approach...just pointing out it is an potential issue. I am not sure what the real changes are of an LV contractor messing up the wire. I didnt have too many LV runs done by the LV guy since I had a lot of conduit installed (this fixed ALL the discussed issues ) but the ones that were done all turned out fine...no idea if they are 'performing' right...but they seems to work just fine.

I would like to hear from some people to see if these potential problems we talk about actually occur.

Having the TV terminating with RJ45 plugs, test the cable and then cut them off really seems wasteful to me. If you get a guy professional enough to have his own $1000+ tester I imagine he wont have any issue terminating it all properly on a patch panel for you either.