Where do I need to go

Chickcatcher

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
SG9
Please not the obvious!
This week moved into the house that has taken 30 odd months to get sorted for inhabitance by me and the Wife.
Electrician got well carried away with sticking wires around the place and I have what I understand as Data wires coming back from various points to a central cupboard (4 pairs in each cable) and on the walls a 2 socket Ethernet box (I think)
How do I go about and what hardware will I need? or should I just find an expert to sort it?
 
So you have some "raw" category 5 or perhaps 6 that needs "termination" (not that sort of termination)? How many individual cables?

You need an RJ45 patch panel - either Category 5 or 6 (to match your cabling). Your fixed cabling is terminated onto the rear of the patch panel using the IDC (insulation displacement contacts). From the front you connect up using some stranded copper Cat 5 or Cat 6 'fly leads' that will connect into your equipment - your switch / router / whatever...

About £20 or so for a 19" RJ45 patch panel. Get from anywhere really - electrical wholesaler, online.

Don't go all 'farmer' on me and go the bodge route and crimp on RJ45 plugs to your fixed cabling - big no no long term. I can explain why but it will bore your senseless.

F0166787-01.jpg

If you don't know what your doing get a data cabling specialist (not a general sparky!!!) to terminate and TEST all the cabling from the patch panel to each outlet - this is called a (permanent) link test, and tests all the obvious stuff like continuity, cross-overs in the wires and the performance of the cabling which should meet the standard. Again I can bore you silly with this nonsense. But suffice to say just get it done as its a nightmare when your cabling is duff.
 
Maybe best to get an expert to sort it of you don't know what you're doing or look up tutorials online :)
There is a way to go about doing it properly, for sure. Most folks in domestic setting, will just get their spark to do it. That's OK if the spark is properly trained to install data cabling and can test it properly. Many can't though.

In an office/commercial setting, data cabling (or "structured cabling" to use its correct name) is almost always installed by certified installers (rather than sparkies). This is usually because the data guys just do this for a living and are therefore properly geared up for it (data cabling certified test units for example can run to £10K per set) and can also offer manufacturers warranties on the entire "installation".

These warranties are sometimes up to 25 years, but there are lots of conditions like the components and cabling must all come from the one manufacturer, it has to be installed by a certified installer and then it has to be fully performance tested (and if its a really big job, witnessed by the structured cabling manufacturer rep at various intervals).

I was heavily involved in structured cabling in a former life.
 

Timbo

Member
Location
Gods County
Recently re-wired this farmhouse. 2 runs of cat5 to each and every room, and 4 to each "living room". A central coms cupboard where the switch and router lives. The phone line can be distributed how we like from here also since one wireless phone wont span the whole house.

Have run several lines to the main living room for the TV / media centre / Netflix etc etc as my pet hate is wifi for these devices. Hard wire them. You can always use a small switch if you find you've run out of data cabling to any point.


We have gone a little further and run cat5 outside out for IP cameras and access points, so we have excellent wifi in the garden for BBQs and the like, and an access point "raining" down from the attic.

The phone line entering the house is now internal from a weatherproof box and has a spare couple of pairs incase of needing an extra line or two in the future.

There are two cat5's to the office from the coms cupboard and at this point a dedicated gigabit switch handles the PCs, server, printer and office access point, so is separate from the rest of the network.

I cant emphasise enough using commercial grade switches and routers (not the ISP supplied rubbish) and doing the wiring properly when you are running a business and data is a necessity of todays living.

Realise this may sound overkill for the majority, but we didn't want to miss anything and reliance on data in the future is only getting greater.
 
Just for the benefit of the OP in getting his head around how all this works.

These photos I just googled, show a standard 19" wide Category 6 patch panel with RJ45 jacks on the front. You can see the fixed cabling entering from the back and then terminated onto the IDC blocks for each jack. This is a typical way to terminate either Category 5(e) or 6 cabling. You would then either mount the panel in a small rack or on a 19" open frame - many, many sizes are available.

It is vitally important to maintain the twists in the cable right up to the back of the jack. Not to over-twist them either, as in both cases you will ruin the characteristic of the twisted pairs, that inhibits/cancels electrical noise and performance of the cabling.

hellermann-tyton-24-port-cat6-unshielded-patch-panel-19-inch-1u-rj-45-rackmount-[4]-43544-p.jpg
hellermann-tyton-24-port-cat6-unshielded-patch-panel-19-inch-1u-rj-45-rackmount-43544-p.jpg
 
Couple of pics showing the "pairs" being terminated into a standard RJ45 wall jack. In general you can either use a punch down tool or some manufacturers use plastic blocks to push (and secure) the wires as they pass through the IDC contacts. See below.

There are also two conventions for which order the pair colours are presented onto the respective terminals (pins) on the RJ45. These are called the TIA/EIA 568 A or TIA/EIA 568 B standards.

So its either a choice of whether an installation will be 568A or 568B. Just make sure you are consistent with how the spark or whoever has terminated the wall jacks. Bother ends of the cable need to be A or both ends must be B. You can't mix and match both conventions, or nothing will work.

224551_2.jpg
1x6portcat6-8101r04-in-cat6-wiring-diagram-wall-plate.jpeg
images.jpg
 

Chickcatcher

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
SG9
Thanks "Boys"
8 cables some Cat 5 some Cat 6
Looking as though going to be best to go down the "Profesional" route.
Now to find the "right" one, unless anybody that knows what to do wants a Tour to the middle of nowhere but center of the universe in North Herts new post code SG90RG
 
Hmm ok. For only eight cables (and no more in future), I’d dispense with the idea of getting a patch panel and just put in two double back boxes and a quad RJ45 faceplate on each.

If you're careful, you can terminate those eight cables yourself. Just leave enough slack cable coiled up somewhere so that you can pull more through if you need to re-terminate them.

72AF220B-8B5E-4EBC-9458-096750E169D6.jpeg
 

JonL

Member
Location
East Yorks
Out of interest why not just terminate fixed cabling with RJ45 and plug straight into a switch/router? This is how my fixed cabling is wired (blame the sparky) and it works just fine. Simplest solution for OP surely?
 
Out of interest why not just terminate fixed cabling with RJ45 and plug straight into a switch/router? This is how my fixed cabling is wired (blame the sparky) and it works just fine. Simplest solution for OP surely?
It works, seen plenty and done it myself but it’s the Heath Robinson way of going about it....

Firstly RJ45 plugs are designed to crimp to stranded cable (flyleads/patchleads), not solid core cable (fixed install cable). This is especially noticeable trying to get solid core Cat 6 into an RJ45 plug, the jacket and former makes it just about impossible. You can usually get away with it with Cat5e as it’s a smaller cable.

Secondly fixed cable is designed to stay in one place and not flex about. Enough flexing about and it will eventually fail. That’s why it’s solid core and not stranded.
 

Mur Huwcun

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North West Wales
Out of interest why not just terminate fixed cabling with RJ45 and plug straight into a switch/router? This is how my fixed cabling is wired (blame the sparky) and it works just fine. Simplest solution for OP surely?

We did something similar but only one cable to each room, maybe should of run two and just terminated one for now, god knows the coil was long enough to run down to the village and back!!! Up to now we have nothing hard wired but I’ve managed to rig up repeater wifi hubs around the house to maintain a strong wifi signal. Just can’t 100% crack the auto switchover on all devices as you roam around the house!!
 

Chickcatcher

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
SG9
You need this ..... but posh me on a smaller scale

View attachment 802644
posh = ?

Is this the TFF "HUB"?
I thought it would at least have filled the "snooker room"
If I get a similar set up would I then become the "TFF" back up centre?
Now for the Q you might not answer was the cost more or less than the new Drill (no not the battery one on the floor) the.
 

Timbo

Member
Location
Gods County
We did something similar but only one cable to each room, maybe should of run two and just terminated one for now, god knows the coil was long enough to run down to the village and back!!! Up to now we have nothing hard wired but I’ve managed to rig up repeater wifi hubs around the house to maintain a strong wifi signal. Just can’t 100% crack the auto switchover on all devices as you roam around the house!!

You need to step up a grade to less domestic ap's that will operate in mesh mode, e.g. ubiquitti or cisco. Engenius also do a nice system. These will be centrally managed.

Ime you can mess about with ssid and channels and it still never properly works on lesser brands
 
You need to step up a grade to less domestic ap's that will operate in mesh mode, e.g. ubiquitti or cisco. Engenius also do a nice system. These will be centrally managed.

Ime you can mess about with ssid and channels and it still never properly works on lesser brands
Agreed. For proper (seamless) roaming the access points need to support native “mesh” mode or just don’t bother.

You can kind of wing it if you have two AP in a manual setup, but any more than that and it’s just a headache.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top