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June 28, 2008
Cat 6 for Gigabit Ethernet
I'm certain I've mentioned that I work for the best company in the world. It is very family friendly. My co-workers are brilliant.
To top it off, I have the best job ever. And I love everything about my job.
Except running cable. And I'm not even sure what I don't like about it. It could be all the ladder work. Or the crap falling out of the ceiling onto me (insulation and chunks of ceiling tile) and how it sticks to me as I invariably work up a sweat. Or all the shit in the ceiling area I have to work around.
The job itself is really rather simple. Well, sometimes feeding the drops down the wall can be a bitch.
Anyway, I spent part of today running Cat 6 cable (for gigabit Ethernet) to some of the Engineering stations. I'm very happy with the way everything went except for the hole I put in the wall for the jacks. I ran four drops and bought a four-jack faceplate. I also purchased mounting rings (I've seen them called mud rings and they give you something easy to mount a faceplate to) in standard size (like a regular wall outlet) and double size. Since I had a four-jack faceplate I made a hole — the perfect frikkin' size, I might add — for a double-size wall plate.
Naturally, the four-jack faceplate is the size of a regular wall switch.
Poop.
Technorati Tags: Cat 6, Networking, Sweating
Posted by delmer at June 28, 2008 10:41 PM
Comments
Don't cuss- it's a blessing! Make a frame to go around the four jack faceplate that fits the double size hole. Maybe walnut- that would look elegant.
Posted by: Bill at June 29, 2008 10:54 AM
I wish I had the skills to make something out of wood. It would be a nice look.
In any case, to keep the jacks sort of hidden (and safe from getting banged into) I became a contortionist when I cut the hole. It's sort of down and around a dry-walled-over I-beam in an area that will be hard to see ... so my nice wall plate would go unseen.
Actually, the gaping, big, hole will not be seen by anybody. But *I'll* know it's there.
Posted by: delmer at June 30, 2008 8:20 AM
That's a good looking hole.....
Posted by: Mikeo at June 30, 2008 11:15 AM
Back in the mid-90's, I ran my own company, which was networking small offices in parts of Orange County, San Diego, Las Vegas and Provo, UT. Most of the work was running cables in offices that had never had cable before. As business grew, I eventually handed my duties of getting messy with the sheet rock to others.
The last cable I ran was a CAT5 for a company I did some consulting for. Not much has changed in the actual running part. Only the cable has been more modern.
Posted by: martymankins at June 30, 2008 5:50 PM
Better cement the hole when the cables are in... Its easier to keep the fire in one area then and who knows what those engineering guys will do to your nice network...
Posted by: Jack at July 2, 2008 6:30 AM
MikeO: As holes go, I gotta say it's a 10.
Marty: The Cat6 has a plastic separater in it that makes it a bit stiff. I think this was part of the reason I was able to get such good distance on a couple of my throws.
Jack: It sounds like your experience with engineers is the same as mine ... they can't be trusted with new toys.
Posted by: delmer at July 2, 2008 8:59 PM