wallplates and keystone jacks

[Red Squirrel]

Are these pretty much standard? Wallplates just have a square hole in them, while keystones are all designed to snap in? Or should I be buying a specific type of keystone for a specific type of plate? I'm planning to wire all my house. Due to low budget I'm just going to do the office with a double, 1 phone 1 ethernet, but later on I want to have different combinations, like where my TV will be I want to have 2 ethernet, 1 cable TV and 1 phone, etc. Is this easily done? I never did this before. Any tools I should buy?

I know I'll need a long bit with a hole in it ("installers bit") and a 110 punch down tool. Anything else?

Also should I avoid the cheap cabling or is there even a difference? I can get a roll for 300 bucks or for like 1400 bucks. Is the 1400 really worth it? Planning to go gigabit and I want the best performance possible. Maybe even 10gbit in future when that becomes more mainstream. (that's just a wishlist though, 10gbit would probably stay within the server room, gigabit is more then enough for rest of house).

 

[nickbits]

Just go to home depot and look at all the stuff they have. Should be able to figure out what you want by seeing everything first hand.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yea was thinking of checking there first, or ordering from tigerdirect. I'll probably just go with what they got there. If the cabling is not too expensive I may just buy the sizes I need and do it right first hand. Later on I'll buy a patch panel to terminate it all nicely where the server room will be. I plan to do this for even phone and cable TV, then just patch from there to splitters. Just so it's all nice and tidy in one spot instead of splitters everywhere throughout the house.

 

[Crusty]

Just make sure you buy the same brand from wallplate -> keystone -> cabling. You might be able to fudge a bit on the wallplate , but definitely make sure you get teh same brand of keystone and cable.

 

[Lifted]

$300 for 1,000' roll? You can get it for less than 1/3 of that. $1,400? No idea that could be. "Government" spec cable? LOL

 

[imagoon]

Go to Home depot and take a look at how it all hooks together. Then order it all from some place like monoprice.com. Monoprice tends to sell "decent Chinese grade" cable. Loosely translated, most cases it is fine for in house use as long as it is installed right. If you are worried about brand, pick up boxed cable from mohawk or belkin.

Just make sure to get the proper keystones for the cable. CAT6 cable requires CAT6 Keystones. The wire gauges are different on CAT5 so trying to save a few $ now with plans to "upgrade" to CAT6 will often result in physical layer hell.

You don't need $1400 cable, I highly doubt you are doing something that would required a sleeved and gelled cable.

http://www.monoprice.com/produ...p?c_id=105&cp_id=10234

They also sell rolls of coax. I would recommend quad shield. You will need the end and crimper because in wall coax terminations are F connectors. Do your self a favor and get compression connectors:

http://www.monoprice.com/produ...Connector&keyword=coax

These require a "special" tool that is available at home depot. They rarely if ever come undone. The fittings are different for quadshield/single shield/RG6/RG59. RG6 quadshield recommended.

Phone is easy, just use CAT6 cables. The RJ11 jack will seat fine in the RJ45 connector. Some will say this breaks the RJ45 connectors, I personally have not seen a broken one yet. Besides if it was broken, it takes 5 minutes to replace it.

PS: For your "anything else" question. Pullers string! Pull a pullers string in all of your pulls. That way you can pull more cables with little or no tools. HD sells 1000 feet for $20. You pull it with your cables and leave there tied off in the wall. When you need to pull another cable, untie it attach the new cable (and a new pullers string) to the string and pull the cable through with the string.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: Crusty
Just make sure you buy the same brand from wallplate -> keystone -> cabling. You might be able to fudge a bit on the wallplate , but definitely make sure you get teh same brand of keystone and cable.

Even cable has to be same brand? I thought it was just punch down. I do know I need to get CAT6 cable for CAT6 keystone, but same brand cable?

I'll check out home depot and see what they got.

And this is what I was looking at in terms of cable.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/appl...pNo=1905413&CatId=1612
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/appl...pNo=3923695&CatId=1612
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/appl...pNo=3620621&CatId=1612

Not sure what the code says but pretty sure I need to use either the 2nd or 3rd one. I'd probably go with the 2nd as i'm guessing/hoping it's shielded, and I might be running near electrical lines.

I don't plan to run through ducts so I can probably skip out on plenum, though is that a requirement anyway for fire code?

 

[Crusty]

Not on patch cables, only on your keystones and cabling that attach to them.

 

[imagoon]

The markup on those is insane...

You only need plenum if the cables are going to running though "air space" IE ducts / raised floor forced air.

This:
http://www.monoprice.com/produ...id=2270&seq=1&format=2

Works fine in house. You do not want or need shielded. It takes tons of extra work to setup and install properly.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I thought of monoprice but since it's US the price is too unpredictable after you tack on exchange rate, border fees and shipping. Those prices do look nice though and it's tempting...

I still don't get how the cabling that attaches to the keystone can make a difference though. Is it the gauge of wire that is the issue or the thickness of the jacket and how it fits in?

I went to home depot, they did not have any cat6 cable so did not buy that. in fact they did not have cat6 keystones but did have cat5e. Now when it comes to a keystone is there really such a big difference between cat 5e and cat6 as far as performance goes? It's such a small path that the data will go through so I'm wondering if the difference is that big. The stuff I ended up getting is from Leviton.

 

[spidey07]

Yes, the difference is huge in the jacks from a performance perspective in addition to different in wire size.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Good to know, guess I'll stick with what I bought for now and later on upgrade. If I go CAT6 cabling I should at least get 100mbps speeds right? I just need to keep this in mind for the rest of the drops. Only starting with this basic one due to lack of funds.

Now when a keystone says "snap in" is this a standard? Or is there different styles of snap in? Like say I buy a patch panel or plates with square blank slots does any snap in keystone fit? I see all sorts of brands from CablesToGo to Startech. They seem to look the same as far as how they connect. Ex:

http://www.directdial.com/R6D026-AB6-WHT.html
http://www.directdial.com/C6KEY2BL.html

When I get more money and do the jacks properly with a patch panel I'll buy a bunch and run all the cables. Never bought anything from directdial but they seem to have the best stock for this type of stuff so been looking mostly there, tigerdirect and NCIX arn't too too bad either. If I'm overlooking a Canadian vendor let me know.

Also as for shielded, if I go unshielded will I get issues if I pass wires along electrical lines? I don't like putting too many holes in my joists for structural reasons, so I try to reuse holes, though I'm debating on just putting hooks on the joists and just hang them. Most of the runs will be in the crawlspace which will never get a finished ceiling. If panduit was not so expensive I'd setup conduits but holy crap that plastic is overpriced.

 

[spidey07]

quick answer as already mentioned. you do not want shielded twisted pair, EVER. You're fine within running alongside parallel of residential power lines. I forget the spec, but it's something like 1 inch. There's a reason why it's twisted pair, to deal with noise.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ah ok good to know. I've dealt with shielded before and it was pretty cubersome. I'm also having trouble actually finding STP.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Moved in to my new house, realized all the wire i had is cat5! Ended up ordering from Monoprice hopefully I get it soon. It came out fairly cheap though hopefully I don't get nailed too hard by the exchange rate and border fees. The border fees are what scare me the most, may be a couple hundred for all I know.