Pre-Wiring (Structured wiring cat5e) vs wireless (Micro: house, crawl space)

[vmaxnc]

Originally Posted by yantosh22

Indeed, but we are not talking about the space shuttle maintenance here. A few hours on the internet and this stuff is pretty trivial. I would rank it at the bottom of skilled work as compared to something like plumbing, electrical, or for that matter anything else in building a home.

Yes, it's simple work, but there are numerous ways it can be done poorly that will affect the eventual performance. I still see low-voltage wiring run alongside electrical wiring, Cat5 yanked tightly around corners, coax wiring being hammered flat under heavy staples, etc. Yes, all those drops will work, but they probably won't ever work to the highest standard they could have. Once the damage is done it can't be fixed.

And there is design to be considered. The builder in question calls their setup "structured wiring" when in fact it's not even as comprehensive as what electricians usually pull in more basic homes. There's nothing structured about it.

I've provided my professional viewpoint, based on 20+ years of building systems at a much higher than "the bare minimum" level. If OP chooses to use some of it to his advantage, great. If not, that's fine too.

[peanutsdad]

vmaxnc is right. I have my own home automation company as well. I have been in the business for several years and with today's technology, yes it could be done by a DIY, HOWEVER, it is highly unlikely that the DIY person would know how to program some of the products, or even get it to work the way it is supose to work. I have a client that is the co-creater of Watson, the computer for Jeopardy, and even he tried this once and never succeeded to the full potential of the wiring or systems. Thats why I have him as a client. There is more to it then just running wires. And by the way, monoprice is a joke. The wire they use is in their HDMI cables are poor quality and are made with too small of wire for true signal strength. Besides the added benifits of having a professional do the wiring, it will should actually work right the first time if done right. The OP needs to let who ever is doing the wiring know what he is looking for out of the whole process. Does he want whole house audio, a theater, or just enought to get the basics in his house, i.e. phone lines in every room and 1 coax in the main rooms? There is a lot more involved in the wiring of the house than most realize.

[peanutsdad]

yantosh22.......I realize that you might think that it is just running wires and simple things like that. But I hate to tell you that if it was easy, everyone would have their own business doing it. If I give you a RTI remote and Vantage lighting panels, with a Media Max server and tell you to make a simple programed scene with it, it bet you couldnt as that information is not available online on the net. It takes experience and classes to know what to do with this type of equipment. This industry changes everyday, unlike plumbing and such. Unless you work the field, please do not make the assumption that it is easy and anyone can do it. Besides, most builders do not let the home owner do anything to the house other than make changes because of the insurance regulations. And for most states now, you have to be certified in the field in order to write off for the CO. Even low-voltage.....i.e security systems.

[validmailer]

Originally Posted by yantosh22

Valid, you will want to do the following. This assumes you won't know what devices might come around in the future.

• You will want to have a cable pulled from each outlet to this central location.
• At the central location each cable should be terminated into a "patch panel". This is basically a panel of RJ-45 jacks.
• The purpose of the patch panel is to allow you to connect any outlet in the house to any other outlet in the house, or to a device that you have at the central connection point. This will give you the flexibility to make changes as the technology changes.

Thank you very Yantosh22 and everybody else for a detailed explanation. I will note down all these points. I am not sure about Patch panel, is it something called canister, hmm totally lost but I would definitely ask builder about it. Not sure about highlighted items (in bold) above, as I am ignorant of these.

I was told there is 110v to canister, so I believe power is taken care, but I would ask for extra outlet as I am planning to make laundry room (in upstairs) as central location for canister.

Is it a good idea to have an extra 2 inch empty PVC pipe ran from the attic down to the downstairs (no crawlspace in this house) before the drywall goes up for future use to run new cables if necessary.

And also builder is charging $500 for Audio/Video link w/ chase pipe (with extra TV and phone at component location and not part of 8 points offered in structured wiring).

Thanks.

[yantosh22]

This is examples of various sized patch panels. The cables are connected to the backside (punched down) and the panel is mounted on a rack, wall, any number of ways.

HDMI Cable, Home Theater Accessories, HDMI Products, Cables, Adapters, Video/Audio Switch, Networking, USB, Firewire, Printer Toner, and more!

Don't let people intimidate you with this stuff who might want you to think this is beyond your ability to understand. This stuff is pretty simple to deal with. You may wish to just have the builder pull the cables and do all the terminations at the ends yourself. Make sure the cable they are using is pure copper as some will cheap out on you and put in steel cable that has been plated with copper.

[vmaxnc]

Originally Posted by validmailer

Thank you very Yantosh22 and everybody else for a detailed explanation. I will note down all these points. I am not sure about Patch panel, is it something called canister, hmm totally lost but I would definitely ask builder about it. Not sure about highlighted items (in bold) above, as I am ignorant of these. A (can)ister is the inwall box that houses the hardware for structured wiring system. It is the central point for that system, and all the wiring terminates here, including the service feeds from outside. A patch panel could describe that box, or more correctly the modules in it that allow for distribution of various signals.

I was told there is 110v to canister, so I believe power is taken care, but I would ask for extra outlet as I am planning to make laundry room (in upstairs) as central location for canister. 1 110v duplex outlet at the can is plenty. A simple power strip or surge suppressor plugged into that will provide the extra outlets you need. I prefer to have it inside the (appropriately sized) can, so I can put the router and modem inside. Much neater, but you need a plastic can if you want to put your wireless router in it.

*I've had many people say "smaller cans are fine, why bother with a bigger can? You can just put the modem, router, CCTV module, antenna control, satellite TV 'splitters', etc., outside the box on a shelf." To which I respond, "then why bother with a can at all, if much of the hardware has to end up outside of it?" I've been in numerous homes with great structured wiring, but a huge jumble of power supplies and hardware dangling out of the can. It's ugly, and just begs for something to fall out or off, causing a failure. It defeats the whole point of installing a can. It's like buying a compact pickup truck, but having to pull a trailer all the time because you bought a truck too small to carry your everyday load. That's just shortsighted planning.

Is it a good idea to have an extra 2 inch empty PVC pipe ran from the attic down to the downstairs (no crawlspace in this house) before the drywall goes up for future use to run new cables if necessary. Not really, since you don't have a crawl space. Consider this-where would you locate the end of the conduit that's on the first floor? You'd need access to it, but more importantly you'd need to run wiring away from it, which you can't really do without using a crawl space, which you don't have.

And also builder is charging $500 for Audio/Video link w/ chase pipe (with extra TV and phone at component location and not part of 8 points offered in structured wiring). That depends entirely on what it includes. Complete details of wires used, locations, etc., are necessary to assign any value to this.

Thanks.

I think what you need is an overview. You're asking specific questions about a concept you're not familiar with, but you're not able to piece together the answers to form a coherent picture. You're "totally lost" about what a canister is, based on your post above, and that is the simplest and most easily understood part of the whole concept. You need a basic understanding of the concept before you can make intelligent decisions about it:

http://www.hheneveld.com/PDF%20files/ch05.pdf

Not everything in it applies to you, and the article goes beyond anything you've said you want to do, but it will give a good overview of what real structured wiring is. It was written 7 years ago. The ideas are the same now, but the options and technology have advanced a little bit.

My responses to your questions are in bold.

[Sepulgeek]

Here is my setup. I have voice, data, and coax lines run to the three bedrooms in my house and to the living room.

In there picture you can see how they built out my canister. The only thing that I had to connect were the network cables. I didn't need a patch panel for the four runs. To me that is overkill. The can is big enough to fit a small hub. I setup an existing router that I had laying around to act as a hub only and used that. I am going to be switching that out soon for a gigabit Ethernet hub. There is power inside the can, you just can't see it do to the hub.

This is a basic setup. I am sure you can get more elaborate if you want.

[vmaxnc]

Originally Posted by yantosh22

This is examples of various sized patch panels. The cables are connected to the backside (punched down) and the panel is mounted on a rack, wall, any number of ways.

HDMI Cable, Home Theater Accessories, HDMI Products, Cables, Adapters, Video/Audio Switch, Networking, USB, Firewire, Printer Toner, and more!

Don't let people intimidate you with this stuff who might want you to think this is beyond your ability to understand. This stuff is pretty simple to deal with. You may wish to just have the builder pull the cables and do all the terminations at the ends yourself. Make sure the cable they are using is pure copper as some will cheap out on you and put in steel cable that has been plated with copper.

You want the guy who is "totally lost" about what a canister is to figure out what he needs, buy the widgets, modules, and tools, and trim out the whole thing? Come on man, pay attention to his posts. Maybe OP could figure that out, but some things are best left to others to do. It's not worth his time, effort, and expense to become an expert on this stuff just to put a couple dozen ends on. No disrespect to OP, but this obviously isn't his thing.

As for the cable, copper jacketed steel is what some of the most commonly used cables are made of. You're splitting very tiny hairs by suggesting that pure copper is necessary, and raising the price dramatically. The vast majority of cable being run is jacketed steel, so most people and businesses are "cheaping out", since there's little advantage except in extreme circumstances. It's much more important to get quadshield cable, to protect the signal (in and out), and premium ends.

To someone who deals with this (or any simple part of a bigger picture) daily it is fairly simple. OP doesn't, nor does it appear he has much interest in it besides not screwing up his new home, and that's fine. But so is a two-stroke engine, to a two stroke mechanic. When a friend of mine and I rebuilt my waverunner engine last summer, it seemed simple. But our ignorance cost me some money, and a lot of wasted time, because we didn't know what we didn't know. Who knew there were 4 different OEM pistons available for my block? There was no single source for that info, but lots of (many ignorant) opinions, just like in this thread. After reading for hours, calling numerous companies, and buying the wrong piston twice, I knew. Until then, I was (actually ahead of, because I understand engine basics) where OP is now, trying to piece together fragments of info about something I had only a rudimentary knowledge of. That's just one of many examples I experienced during that project.

[MikeyKid]

Originally Posted by vmaxnc

Anyone running Cat5 for non-powered speakers is a hack, and their work should be refused. In 20+ years of being involved in the custom end of the A/V industry, I've only seen that a handful of times. In all occasions I reported it to the homeowner or builder I was working with, along with supporting documentation. 16 gauge stranded speaker wire is the absolute minimum standard for speaker runs, without exception. Anything less is unacceptable and unprofessional.

Putting RJ-11 ends on Cat5 wiring is also a standard. There's no reason to not run C5 for phones. Doing otherwise means another inventory SKU. Plus, if the homeowner wants to turn a phone jack into a data port, all that needs to be done is to replace the ends. Although it's overkill for phone lines, it's very practical and only slightly more expensive.

things like using the copper from your electrical terminating everything near your electric panel <<< What does this mean?

There's nothing wrong with using a CAT5 wire for speakers, but that's a debate for another thread. I agree the RJ-11 works and is smart to use the same wire... It just seems so archaic now.

Copper is copper... like your electrical wires throughout the house. You can use those existing wires to network.

Power line communication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[vmaxnc]

Originally Posted by Sepulgeek

Here is my setup. I have voice, data, and coax lines run to the three bedrooms in my house and to the living room.

In there picture you can see how they built out my canister. The only thing that I had to connect were the network cables. I didn't need a patch panel for the four runs. To me that is overkill. The can is big enough to fit a small hub. I setup an existing router that I had laying around to act as a hub only and used that. I am going to be switching that out soon for a gigabit Ethernet hub. There is power inside the can, you just can't see it do to the hub.

This is a basic setup. I am sure you can get more elaborate if you want.

Where is your modem?