BT Master Socket - wiring advice

slipd

slipd

slipd

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Guys,

A friend has just moved into a new place and has inherited a bit of a wiring mess... for one, he doesn't have a new style bt master socket as you can see from the first pic, he just has a double connection which someone has thrown together!

image.jpg


The 'master' socket works but the attached extension wiring doesn't although we're not worried about that because he's going to run in some new stuff. Wiring up some blue/blue-white, we can handle.

What I want to be able to do is to fit him with a per-filtered faceplate (adslnation) but I'm a bit concerned about the bt cable? Yes, I know your not allowed to do this but I don't think the last owners has bt and I'm pretty sure my mates not going to go with them, so who's to know :D

image.jpg


Looking at picture 1, would I be right in thinking that the solid blue wire going to 2 would go to B on the filtered faceplate and the solid orange wire, going to 5 would go to A on the filtered faceplate? What's the worst case scenario for getting this bit wrong :confused:

Existing master sockets are so much easier to work with...

Thanks.
 
The BT Drop Cable (The cable coming from the outside world)

This often has Orange, White, Green and Black wires.* Usually (but not always) Orange and White are the active pair and go to connections 2 and 5.* In some master boxes (such as the type with a removable front section) they go to two connectors marked A and B.*
Click to expand...

If you do get it wrong an connect up the wrong way around then I don't think it really matters. Also that orange blue does look like a nice twisted pair so is probably you drop wire.

Looks like you have two extensions running off that socket.
 
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Worst case scenario it just won't work. You are not meant to touch it officially it belongs to BT but if anything gets said just tell them it was like that when your friend moved in.

As it appears it looks like A/B is for extension boxes. Does your friend require the extensions in the house at all? I would be tempted to remove them cables + extensions of he chooses not to use them. Other than that I am unsure which pins would go to the new faceplate phone/adsl connections (I guess 2/5? on phone/adsl).
 
Phone extension use 2 Blue with Narrow White & 5 White with Narrow Blue , 3 is for bell you don't need it.

ADSL the two outside connections.
 
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HI there:

BT internal cable is the white pvc with the blue/white +white/blue pair 2 and orange/white+white/orange pair 2 (potential green and brown pairs as well if its 2 3 or 4 wire internal)

REALLY old internal is a faded blue and orange

Those are the types of cable I can see

HERES THE DEAL WITH BT: Find the OH wire or the UG wire that comes in, easy to do just keep going back :). That internal should HOPEFULLY go into a box of somekind and be crimped to DW or UG concentric/upet cable.

For these the pairs are Orange+White and Green + black as pairs 1 and 2 respectivley.

You may have AREIAL cable where the pairs are Orange white Green black Blue brown Red slate or
5pair UG feed where the pairs are White blue White orange White green White brown White slate

FOR A and B legs: It does not matter for polarity (which way round) for data or telephony. It DOES matter that you use a PAIR and not LEG and LEG else the AC balance (the property that determines the interference the cable receives) is lower.

For BT charging and stuff: Find the FEED WIRE and identify which PAIR you are on, make sure if this changes by the time it gets to the socket that the junction box it goes through its the same pair to pair and it is crimped (small plastic connectors) and does not have a blue connector is on a screw terminal.

When an engineer shows up they want to find the first socket on the line in your house (the master). If it does not have an NTE on it then they will put one on. If the cable that feeds it is not good then they will replace it. They can fit an NTE2000 on there which is an ADSL microfilter that ceases DSL signals from that socket which: A) reduces the copper length and thus increases the signal strength since it is not carrying on down yor whole house (think of the wire like a tunnel and the DSL is a voice, why make the tunnel longer). B: Any star wiring after this point will not divide your DSL signals as much


(awfully written post I apologise)
 
Thanks for the comments everyone ;)

In summary then, as it stands the plain (dull) blue wire on the left (which is the first on the plate) and the solid orange wire on the right are my BT wires. And they can be either A or B on my new plate (if they don't work one way, they will the other).

^ That will give us a phone line on the new plate, correct? After that I'm going to add the new extension cable to the blue part of the adslnation filtered faceplate - how does that sound :D
 
Sumarise: You are replacing the dual old style master socket with a new IDC NTE (IDC krone A+b) This is standard practice and what I would do by default for the master socket so no worries here

Now we talk buisness, what you have done is given yourself the demarcation point, that test socket that comes BEFORE the rectangle filter socket is the point BT will get a working PSTN phone line and a sin 349 data line to. if you ever call up stop the guy on the phone and say you have your phone (and a 2nd phone) plugged into a micro filter on the test socket and your router is in sync, trying to sync, not in sync. Then they just run 3 tests and book what needs to be done.

After this point this all counts as INTERNAL WIRING: If i could see a photo of your faceplate that would be great, the NTE 200 which provides a phone jack and rj11 jack for pstn and dsl with 3 krone extensions for further PSTN sockets only.

The faceplate you have i imagine has a phone jack and a rj11 jack lable phone and data/dsl/adsl ect. I would also imagine the white extensions are for making more phone sockets (and this means its OK to star wire/parralel extensions) and the blue are for extending the data socket to a new room. NEVER use paralel wiring on data lines, must be series. If you use the blue extension be aware you should A) not have anything pluged in the data port of the NTE and B) not use a filter on the extension since its only going to have data on it (though if you use a filter your only going to add some tiny amounts of loss)

TLDR: BT feed on AB. The faceplate has phone and data sockets and individual IDCs for extensions. Use blue if your router needs to be in a different room, use cat5 cable (single/two pair cat 5 is cheap and fine for this) DO NOT staple cat5 cable.
 
Hi there,

Thanks for the input!

The new face plate is bellow >

xte2005.jpg


That will end up looking (from the back) as picture 2 from my original post.

What I really need to know is, is which way round the light blue wire and the plain orange wire go on the new setup; which one is A and which one is B :p
 
I'd bear this text below in mind. BT probably check the pair before attaching so if you have a multimeter then it's worth testing.

There's also some contradictory information regarding which is the A and which is the B so what I stated in my post above may or may not be true.

Which way around they are connected usually doesn't matter but as Rick Hughes kindly pointed out some modems (especially older USA sourced ones) and some answering machines are fussy about polarity, so it's wise if possible to check the voltage on the line and connect -48V to the B leg (J2) and 0V to the A leg (J5).
Click to expand...
 
Ha, I didn't realise it could be this complicated to just 'swap' some wires over from one connection/plate to another :D

I'll give it a try later, what's the worst that can happen...
 
Isn't the orange one the bell wire? i.e not required unless you have an old style phone. Some people advise to disconnect it and tape it out of the way to rid of noise.
 
Rossi~ said:
Isn't the orange one the bell wire? i.e not required unless you have an old style phone. Some people advise to disconnect it and tape it out of the way to rid of noise.
Click to expand...
No, that would be the internal wiring - the plain orange wire in picture 1 is the drop line from outside afaik?
 
Probably different faceplates/connections maybe?

This is what i was on about

A telephone line has only two wires (one pair) and these are carried on pins 2 and 5 of the BT sockets. A third wire is used to send the bell signal around the office/home (the current which drives the phone's ringer or bell). Many phones don't need this extra wire, and several users have reported increased ADSL performance by removing the pin 3 wire at the master socket. Doing this may prevent your extension phones from ringing, so test carefully and ensure you have a push down tool to reconnect the bell wire connection if you have a problem.
Click to expand...
http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/kb_vigor_linefaults.html

and

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/tutorials/how_to_remove_the_ring_wire_from_your_master_socket.html

Orange / White is connected to pin 3 of the bottom section of the faceplate - This is the ring wire
Click to expand...
 
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