About halfway through just the first of my Saturday projects. Means I’ve left the easy one (pretty easy but tedious and messy plumbing project in the basement) for last. Right now, taking a break. Who’d-a thunk snaking RG6 cabling could generate so much sweat? Yeh, finally getting around to rationalizing the CATV/internet access cabling inside. Have been running off two “not the greatest solution” splitters for several years now. One is a pretty decent splitter “donated” by our cable guy–OK, but not ideal. The other a better one but in the wrong placement in the topology map.
Drilling holes, snaking cables, swapping out splitters: in the end, best splitter a 1-2 with one cable going straight to cable “modem” (via a very nice quad RG6 cable) and other going to a multi-Ghz 1-4 splitter for the TVs (including this computer). Have to build a short quad RG6 cable for that one, but have nice quad RG6s for the four TVs.
Later… (much later) I need to figure the “TV over RJ-45” for using this computer as a media server and the modded (almost finished–cobbler’s kids and all that) XBox as a media director to go to a lil 25″-er in our bedroom.
But after the 2-1/4-1 switch and rerouting of CATV cabling… plumbing gig! Yay! *heh*
Update: I can retire these tasks now. Nice. Means tomorrow evening (after Chuck–*heh*), I can start in on another project.
When I was finishing up my basement / man cave project I had electricians coming out to hook up all the lights and such, so I just had them rewire the house into on of these bad boys while they were here.
http://www.passandseymour.com/news/view.cfm?id=74
Cable filter + Amplifier + 6 way splitter
Cat5E to every room
GigaBit router
Firewall
Cable modem
All neat and tidy in it’s own sealed up wall box. Worth every penny IMHO. Probably will pay for itself at resale, assuming things don’t REALLY REALLY tank. It would suck to just walk away from all the improvements I’ve made at this place.
I have my “final” network closet about half built. The runs I did today will just about do for the CATV portion. I seriously doubt that anything more than the bedrooms and the “media” room will need anything more, apart from one more CAT5e (or CAT6–I’m contemplating using all the existing CAT5e wiring to pull new CAT6 cables to the terminators. We’ll see… would also mean replacing our 100mbit/802.11g MIMO–which offers wireless speeds well in excess of normal 802.11g routers’ nominal 54mbit speeds–with an 802.11n gigabit router/switch combo, but that’d be fine with me *heh*) The only thing that remains, really, at this point is to add a few media directors and actually DO the telco rewiring I have plotted out. *sigh* Cobbler’s kids, etc. But I do think using CAT5e cabling with a 110 punchdown block and all new plugs will make our POTS service a bit nicer. Doing it piecemeal is a pain, but at least I’m getting What I Want.
I like the Pass n Seymour equipment you link, but I had specific goals that splitting things the way I did accomplished (for one, after a long talk with Carl, our cable guy [he left me his home phone number several years ago–nice in some ways living in America’s Third World County], I settled on a plan that maximized the dB to the modem and still minimized as much as possible the dB loss to the TVs. Seems to have paid off in terms of a slight increase in throughput (the RJ6 quad cabling and high end connectors may be helping too–expensive, especially for the crimping tool, but worth it. Now, if I could only talk Carl into replacing our drop line with newer tech… *heh*)
Another nice thing about the DIY approach–for me, at least, YMMV, of course–is the opportunity to buy more tools. 🙂 Nice RG-59/6/6G compression tool for installing Best quality connectors was a Must Buy for completing some RG6Q cables. Sure, I can buy ready-made cables, but this gives me more flexibility and… another tool! (I’d gotten by in the past when I needed to build RG 59/RG6 cables for video only with an old hex compressor and lower quality connectors, but really felt the need for better quality, so… )
After all the communications cabling and network closet is finished, then I can contemplate a todo that’s long overdue: rewiring the whole house with new wiring. Actually, that won’t happen before the end of this year when the house is ours ours (no bank no mo’!), and probably spring of 2010. By then, I’ll have long since acquired all the materials I need and the already firmed plans will drive the install. Since I won’t be reusing ANY of the old wiring, I may just “ghost wire” the whole thing while the old box is driving the old wiring, then have the electric company pull in a new service line. “New service line”?!? Yeh. I did say “America’s Third World County”, didn’t I? When this house was built 40 years ago, 100 amp service was the standard. Now, when I give ’em my new usage requirements and let ’em have my electrician’s survey/certs (yeh, I know an old pro who’ll backstop my work), they’ll be happy to drop me a 200 amp service line. Connect the meter and… that’d be it for cabling/wiring for the next 30 years or so.
Then? Oh, new roof, I guess. One of the local contractors has pledged to order whatever roofing I want and help me plan the work… provided I can have the proper help lined out (nice having a 20-something “hoss” of a son). I’ve only re-roofed one other house–a friend and I–and roofed a few small outbuildings, so I’m studying up on what I’ll do.
Then…
Owning a home is work never finished…