how to wire up cat5?

Bremen1874.

You mentioned 'only one wall plate'
I only bought one wall plate for the time being as not 100% sure what I will do yet.

At the moment the Cat5e runs from Master socket -> outside -> into attached garage -> into understairs cupboard then through a small hole to the back of all my AV gear in the lounge. (I actually ran x2 cables) one for in case of any future problems. Plus I can in effect stick a RJ45 on each end and use it as a long patch lead.

Lounge comprises of: router / ps3 / squeezebox / + in the future a HTPC


I don't know what next is best. Perhaps a patch panel in understairs cupboard?
or just plug everything into back of router and job done. But that means a lot of messy wires.

I don't understand patch panels. Don't understand what gets wired into the back of them. Do you have 2 patch panels? 16, 24, 48 port? guidance on this would be lovely.

In time I also want to send 1 or 2 cat5e cables upstairs into the small bedroom which houses a desktop pc as well.


I also have a Wi-Fi enabled network printer which is currently using wi-fi for connection.

Ideally it maybe nice to have a lot of the back bones of the computer stuff in this cupboard.


Perhaps you would all like a pretty photo of the cupboard then you can all help tidy it up for me via this forum.......?
 
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A Patch panel is basically just a row of RJ45 connectors on the front, and the rear is 8 standard punchdown slots per jack, exactly the same as a wall socket. Comes in a couple of sizes, most common is 19".
 
So I would connect router as normal then RJ45 ports on router would go to front of patch panel and on the back of the patch panel would be, for arguments sake, cables from bedroom 1, bedroom 2, lounge, office etc.


where would I then plug say the network printer, ps3, htpc, squeezebox into on the patch panel?

I do not understand why I cannot get my head around patch panels. I just can't understand how, where etc you connect things up to them.

Completely foxing me and I don't like it.
 
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Patch panels contain no electronics. They just allow you to terminate each of your installed cables in a nice neat RJ45 socket.

When you want to use one of your installed cables you use a patch cord with a RJ45 plug on each end to connect from the patch panel to the equipment. At the other end of the cable you use another patch cord to connect from the wall plate.
 
All your wall sockets connect to the patch pannel
The patch pannel then connects to the switch/router
This gives all sockets connectivity.
You then plug your devices into the wall sockets.
 
jellybeard999 said:
All your wall sockets connect to the patch pannel
The back of it?
The patch pannel then connects to the switch/router
Just one patch lead from front of patch panel to any of the ports on the router?
This gives all sockets connectivity.
You then plug your devices into the wall sockets.
Click to expand...

So on a patch panel.

Every input on the front has a IDC punch down for EACH on the rear? that is what I could not get my head around.

So I just need to write on them, label them for whatever they are then. Can you mix them. ie, data as well as voice. Or would you buy another patch panel for if using voice?
 
Magic_x_uk said:
So on a patch panel.

Every input on the front has a IDC punch down for EACH on the rear? that is what I could not get my head around.

So I just need to write on them, label them for whatever they are then. Can you mix them. ie, data as well as voice. Or would you buy another patch panel for if using voice?
Click to expand...

Yes, you just label them so you know which socket is at the other end.

You can use them for what you want. They are easy to use for voice because you can plug a RJ11 into a RJ45 socket (at both ends of the run) to create a telephone extension.

If you've ever heard of structured cabling, this is it.
 
Right. Solid cable has arrived and I took the old cable out and put the new solid cables in.

Solid seems a little harden to work with. One problem I did get was when I had routed the 2 cables I didn't know which one was which. It didn't matter as both were in the same place. I just needed one to go on the ADSL Nation punchdowns and then at the other end a RJ11 socket.


Took me a while to find the correct one. Which leads me to a question.

When professional people route lots of cables. How do they know which is which. Or do they just wait until they have plugs on the end and then check them?

Anyhow seems fine now. Just have to tidy up the wires.

also I don't know if it was me or not but the bundle of 100M cat5e cable. I unwrapped it (wasn't on a reel, just wound up) and it unraveled itself. So I have about 60M of tangles Cat5e cable to tidy up now. Any tips on how to store it so it does not unwind again?
 
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I wait until the testing phase to worry about the order of the ports within each faceplate. The sockets can then be unclipped and rearranged as necessary. Having a tester with multiple remote dongles makes life much easier.

I store spare cable coiled up in a suitably sized plastic bag.
 
When I run cable I run in batches. So a bulk of cable taped together in a number that will fill a faceplate. For example:

4 cables into Room X Section 1
4 cables into Room X Section 2
4 cables into Room Y Section 1
4 cables into Room Z Section 1

Punch them in the patch panel, punch them in the face plates. Re-arrange as required when testing - Only have to move UP TO 4 as the groups will be in the right place in their respective block.

I am a total perfectionist when it comes to cabling. I use lots of cable ties/cable tie anchors on patch panels so it's as neat as possible. Do a job properly if it's going to be done at all, those anchors are there for a reason! :D
 
@sin Chase (and anyone else involved with cabling)

Off topic, but you might know the answer.

You used to be able to get U shaped white plastic extrusion that Cat5 cable would just clip into. It was self-adhesive and made dropping a single cable down a wall quick and neat job. You could still see the cable but is was in an exact straight line and for a single drop it was less intrusive than mini trunking.

Do you recognise what I’m referring to, and do you know if it’s still available?
 
bremen1874 said:
@Sin Chase (and anyone else involved with cabling)

Off topic, but you might know the answer.

You used to be able to get U shaped white plastic extrusion that Cat5 cable would just clip into. It was self-adhesive and made dropping a single cable down a wall quick and neat job. You could still see the cable but is was in an exact straight line and for a single drop it was less intrusive than mini trunking.

Do you recognise what I’m referring to, and do you know if it’s still available?
Click to expand...

A company called D-Line have a range of trunking that sort of sounds like you are talking about.

Self adesive, snap shut trunks that are "nice looking" :D It's still trunking, and the cable is not visible, but it's small and unobtrusive.
 
The stuff I'm referring to didn't have a lid.

If you imagine self-adhesive mini trunking but without a lid and shrunk down so that it was just big enough to take a single cable. The cable was just a nice snug fit into the trunking so that it stayed in place without any additional fixings.
 
Cannot say I have ever work with that but it just sounds like self adhesive cable clips? If you Google for that there are 10s and 10s of different types.
 
I've just had a good search and all I can find is other people looking for the same thing and failing.

It was U section white plastic about 8mm square and 2m long with self-adhesive on the rear face. You attached it to the wall where the cable was going to go in a continual run, like you would with mini-trunking. This resulted in a neat U shaped slot facing out from the wall. One it was attached you could just press the cable into the slot and it stayed there. There was no need for any sort of lid.
 
I have a question about RJ11 connected to cat5 (or cat5e) and rather than create another thread I thought I'd post it here (sorry for hijacking your thread mate :) ).

An engineer is coming today to sort out my master socket and once that's done I'll be able to move my router downstairs and plug it directly into the master socket. The socket will have an adsl nation xte-2005 faceplate on it. Will there be much difference between using the normal rj11 cable you get with the router to connect it to the socket or can you use cat5(e) cable with rj11 connectors? I've been reading that this might give me better speeds and every little helps!!
 
I don't think it would make much difference. You can attach directly to the back of the adsl nation faceplate onto the punchdowns as well if you want enabling you to route the cat5e cable wherever you want.
 
Wont make any discernible difference to be honest, not over such a short distance anyway. I have used RJ11 "telephone style" cables, CAT5e full 4 pair and single pair and it made not a decimal point of difference to any stat.
 
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