[luau] Home Networking questions...

MonMotha monmotha at indy.rr.com
Sun Jul 21 13:58:01 PDT 2002


Warren Togami wrote:
> I want to wire my house with cat5 cable going to RJ45 jacks in several rooms
> of my house.  Does anyone have any recommendations of where I should buy the
> following:
> 
> Box of Cat5 cable
> Box of Cat5 cord
> high quality crimping tool
> high quality tester with remote
> RJ45 ends
> RJ45 jacks
> 
> Thanks,
> Warren
> 

Just a few suggestions:

Make sure you get CAT5E (or even CAT6 now that it's standardized).  This 
is a requirement should you ever want to tinker with GigE unless you 
want to rerun everythign with fiber.

Buy PLENUM jacketed cable.  Plenum jacketing doesn't emit noxious fumes 
and smolder as readily as PCV jacketing.  In fact, many areas require 
plenum jacketing for in-wall installations (or just about anything other 
than a simple patch cable).

Buy about 1.5x the number of ends you need.  You WILL mess a few of them 
up and have to re-crimp, especially if you've never done it before.

Follow EIA/TIA whatever it is standard on color coding 
(OW,O,GW,BL,BLW,G,BRW,BR).  It will help you with your patch panels 
(read on).

Use a patch panel at your "MDF" (where all the wires come together and 
you have your hub/switch).  This will save you headaches later when you 
start breaking ends as you move stuff around, trust me.

Run more wires than you need.  I certainly wish I had run about 4 wires 
to my bedroom instead of the 1 that's there!

Don't overdo the distances.  If the distance is longer than 100m (max 
for ethernet), run fiber.  The fiber itself isn't that much more 
expensive (though they'll get you in the interducting).  Unfortunately 
the fiber transceivers (in the media converters, etc) are.  However, 
this is better than going over the spec.  If you can't afford the fiber 
stuff and are willing to settle for 10Mbit, you can run thin coax as it 
has slightly longer distance specs than UTP for ethernet.

Stay away from flourescent lights with the UTP.  If you must run near 
things with horrible EMI patterns (flourescent lights, transformers, AC 
motors, etc), use coax, STP (Shielded Twisted Pair), or fiber (best). 
If you do use STP, MAKE SURE YOU TERMINATE IT RIGHT.  If you don't, the 
shield will act as an antenna rather than a shield, and you definately 
don't want that.


Hope these suggestions help.

--MonMotha




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