110 and 66 block purpose...

[NetWareHead]

Maybe some cabling gurus can answer, but what are these used for? I've done a quite a few structured cabling jobs for customers, nothing more than wiring up houses/offices with cat5e terminating into wall-plates and patch panels. But where do these blocks (or wiring frames) fit in? I've seen them already installed described to me merely as the "phone system", but one client of mine had his 100baseT LAN on these blocks too. Someone quickly described them as an alternative to patch panels. Which I can see, one pair goes in one side, another pair comes in the other and they are connected...but what are the advantages in using blocks instead of patch panels? Any other uses for them?

 

[Garion]

110/66 blocks are should only be used for voice or other non-data wiring like alarms. The specifications for network cabling are far too exact to allow for a length of untwisted, questionably-terminated cables and will likely be a source of significant problems on their network. A block is definitely NOT a replacement for a patch panel. CAN you do it? Sure. Will it work? Maybe. Will it cause problems? Probably. Is it the right thing to do. Absolutely not.

The best way to think of these kind of jacks is a patch panel for phones. They don't move around nearly as much, and their signal requirements are far lesser, so it's acceptable to leave a bunch of loose wiring hanging around, which is punched down into these blocks.

- G

 

[rabidpenguin]

Garion is absolutely correct. 66/110 blocks are for phone networks and not data. Do not use these in place of a patch panel!

 

[NetWareHead]

I was told they usually end up getting used in lans when a wiring closet gets moved and you need to splice the cat5 to another segment of cat5. So your saying instead of a 110 block, to wire it into a patch panel instead?

 

[Soybomb]

Originally posted by: NetWareHead
I was told they usually end up getting used in lans when a wiring closet gets moved and you need to splice the cat5 to another segment of cat5. So your saying instead of a 110 block, to wire it into a patch panel instead?

As Garion said, 66/110 blocks would only be used in a rigged data application. I've never seen anyone use them for anything other than voice, although I'm sure it happens.

 

[Garion]

Yes. Still bad mojo, but much better than a 66 block..

Network cables (CAT5/5E/6) have very exact specifications on how much cable can be bare (not in the plastic cover), how much cable can be unwisted, etc. Generally these lengths should be less than an inch - Just enough to get into the patch panel or the jack. Punching down with 66/110 blocks will give you at least an inch of untwisted, bare cable on each end, plus the distance within the block, not to mention the electrical changes of the block itself on the data signals. Bad news.

- G

 

[ScottMac]

First off: the above is true, standard patch panels are the way to go for data (and they work pretty good for voice too). There actually ARE Category-rated 110 blocks (I believe most 110s are Cat5 rated), and at least one Cat5 66 block (Siemon, I believe). 110 is the better of the two, and support "110 Jumpers" for cross-connect (field <--> resource).

These days, there is no good reason (IMHO) for using a punch block (exclusively) on a data line. There are circumstances where a closet-to-closet connection must be patched on a punch block, but they're pretty scarce.

There are worse things you could do to a data link, but not many....

JM.02

Scott