Russound Wire Terminations

[Sacedog]

I am trying to decide if it would be a good idea to punch down all of the Cat5 runs to my Russound Uno keypads and Compoint Intercom keypads, on a traditional patch panel. I would then run a patch cord from the patch panel to the actual equipment.

I am just trying to keep the wiring clean, and also wanted to make it easier to switch around the equipment in the future.

Has anyone done this? Can anyone think of a reason why I shouldn't?

 

[felixrosbergen]

I am trying to decide if it would be a good idea to punch down all of the Cat5 runs to my Russound Uno keypads and Compoint Intercom keypads, on a traditional patch panel. I would then run a patch cord from the patch panel to the actual equipment.

I am just trying to keep the wiring clean, and also wanted to make it easier to switch around the equipment in the future.

Has anyone done this? Can anyone think of a reason why I shouldn't?

I was considering the same thing, but how often do you really expect to change this since i assume the keypayds are in the wall?

On top of that the connections to the CAV/CAM (whatever you have) are plugin type.

Seems like a waste of time to me to create a patch panel between.

 

[Sacedog]

I was considering the same thing, but how often do you really expect to change this since i assume the keypayds are in the wall?

On top of that the connections to the CAV/CAM (whatever you have) are plugin type.

Seems like a waste of time to me to create a patch panel between.

Well, I never plan to change out the keypads. I was looking at it more from the point of rearranging the equipment in my rack. For example, if I have the CAV at the bottom of the rack, and later decide to move it up in the rack, it would be easier from a cabling standpoint to have the connections to the CAV come through a patch panel first. It would also just keep all of the wiring cleaner. It's the same concept as punching down all of your security contacts to a 66 block before you run them to the input expanders.

As far as time is concerned, I only have about 20 wires to punch down for my Russound stuff, so that would be less than 30 minutes for me to complete. Also, if you compare the time it takes to punch down to a patch panel vs. terminating RJ45s on the end of all of the home runs, I though you would be even. With terminating to the patch panel, you would simply use a pre-made patch cable in between.

My question really is, would this affect the performance of the audio keypads or audio quality for the intercom keypads. I can't imagine it would, but wanted to see if anyone else had done it.

 

[sic0048]

I personally would NOT do this. I say this for two reasons.

1) It brings in one more point of failure into the system. Probably not a big chance of failure, but certainly adds to the chance of something failing and then being harder to track down the problem.
2) If someone mistakenly changed the wiring and plugged something else into the CAV or the keypad, it could damage your equipment. This is much more likely to occur than #1. I speak from experience here. I fried a USB extender because I accidentally plugged it into the network switch instead of the patch panel when I was cleaning up some wiring. I would have been really pissed if I did that to a $2,000 CAV.

 

[pkoslow]

I've connected Russound UNO and A-Bus keypads through patch panels for a few installations and it worked fine, but my preference is to connect these devices directly.

As Brian mentioned, this just adds complexity and another point of failure as well as the possibility of someone in the future mis-using the port for Ethernet.

 

[kgingerich]

I did this in my home and it's working fine. I've already changed my mind twice now on the location of equipment within the rack and without the patch panel it would be very dificult to make these changes.

it's more work, more complex, and another point of failure. Personally I think it's worth it.

Kyle

 

[Sacedog]

Well, thanks for the replies. Considering that a couple of you have done it, and it works, I will be doing it in my install too. All of my russound cabling is a different color, as are the keyston jacks on the patch panel for those runs. I will also have different color patch cables for those items, so I shouldn't have a problem with plugging something into somewhere it should not be.

Thanks for all of the info and opinions!