by Matthew T. Mitchell, Ph.D.
Published on winasm.net December 7th-11th, 2008
Installation Tips...
Never ever run Telephone, CATV, A/V, or LAN cabling in parallel with hi-voltage AC Romex power cables! You will create EMF problems and serious safety issues in the event the Romex fails.
Not to mention you run the risk of frying out your LAN equipment, TV, or phone equipment if the Romex actually did fail. Likewise getting a 60hz dose of 120volt AC current is no fun either and can result in serious injury or even death!
So always keep your low voltage communication/control and A/V cabling at least six inches, preferably further if possible, away from any AC power source!
Tip #2.
Try to locate your Patch Panels & SMC Enclosures in a central location if at all possible. My view is that it keeps all cable runs under one maximum length, roughly 35 feet per run here, and makes it faster to pre-measure and cut out the cables before installation.
Tip #3.
No matter what, make sure you have a good foot of wire at the end of each cable to make your final connections with. When in doubt, add five extra feet of wire. You can always use the scraps to make custom length patch cables later on.
As a reminder… It is definitely not a morale builder when you have to re-pull a run of cable between three stories of building because the damn thing was 8 inches too short. Especially if you are the only guy pulling the cable runs.
Also be sure to keep things neat and use plastic cable ties. No kinks or twists in your cables either as they will cause problems later on. Cable staples come in handy too, but should never pinch or pierce the cabling. So be very careful when using staples of any kind.
Tip #4.
If you are running different cabling for different applications, you should, if at all possible, see to it that each cable type is a different color. For example...
For low voltage DC applications, I now use blue CAT6 for LAN, dark grey CAT5e for telephone, light brown for security systems, dark brown for heating/cooling controls, light grey for water meters, black for CATV & A/V applications, and either white, yellow, or orange for hi & low AC voltages.
Typically white for lower AC voltages and amperage, yellow for hi-voltage and high to medium amperage, and orange cabling for heating and cooling regardless of amperage.
No matter what you choose, just come up with a standard and stick to it!
Tip #5.
Never rush the job and always have the right safety equipment where practical and possible. The same applies to the tools you will be using. Always make sure you use wire labels on your cables too, plus take the time to make notes on your work.
By doing these things you will wind up with a better-finished product, make life easier later on, and be able to stand by your work by performing the work safely with precision.
Aside from that…
I upgraded the old RG59 coax CATV wire from the early 1980's to RG6 quad shielded coax for future Satellite or Cable services. Plus ran an extra whip of new RG6 coax for a roof mount antenna later on as well.
Now since I was stuck doing all this extra work I also decided to take things one step further and installed an SMC enclosure, Structured Media Center, to pipe all the new telephone and CATV cabling into. No more splitters, splices, or bridge blocks in the attic or hard to get to crawl places.
The Telephone Company or Cable Company guys are going love the fact I made life super easy here for fieldwork. Especially the FIOS installation technician seeing as how I already ran the NIB and patch port for fiber optic services.
Had I not already had a router… I could have even went with a larger SMC enclosure and piped all the CAT6 LAN cabling into the SMC as well, plus used a router designed for SMC. For other reasons though I wanted the LAN separate.
Incidentally SMC technology also fully supports the inclusion of home theater with surround sound and whole home audio, something else that may interest you?
As if there was not enough work already…
For the nominal cost of 14-3 15amp Romex wire, about 150 feet for this size home. I also decided to bring the place up to current building code and ran a dedicated 120 volt 15amp AC circuit for interconnecting Smoke/C02/Heat sensors from the breaker panel throughout the house.
I even ran a cable for a 15amp 120volt AC receptacle with surge protection for powering any future router, switch, dedicated file/telephony servers, and NAS devices right at the new patch panels.
Basically I made sure everything was up to date and offered the most flexibility with any method for Internet service, digital phone & TV, or a centralized digital library.
Money saving tips...
Look around for deals and never be afraid to get more wire than you need. It's usually cheaper in longer lengths. CAT5e was $25.97 for 100' feet or $57.00 for 500' feet. The same for 15amp 14-3 indoor cable which was $50.97 for 100' feet or $57.98 for 250' feet.
The home center wanted almost $7.00 for 3 per package, low voltage single gang old workboxes. I used standard $0.98 enclosed hi-voltage boxes after using a 10" inch chop saw to cut the backs off the boxes. Technical aspects aside, this really is the only difference between these two types of boxes.
The CAT6 LAN jacks were almost $10.00 each and were not offered in discounted lots of 10 or 25, so instead CAT5e were used. Packs of 25 were $25.99, or $4.47 each. One 25 pack did the job with spares for repairs or any additions later on.
Aside from the huge difference in cost for CAT6 jacks, I don't expect any trouble with cross talk, EMF, or signal degradation when migrating to CAT6 switches and peripherals in the distant future.
The main reasons being that each cable run is roughly 11 meters, 1/5th of the maximum cabling distance allowed which is 55 meters. More importantly... great care was taken to keep any cabling from being in contact, or too close a proximity to high-voltage AC electrical cabling.
If there are any problems later on, changing the jacks should be cheaper then anyhow. Not to mention way easier than updating the entire wiring scheme too.
Since a new smoke detector circuit was included in the project… costs were kept to that of just the wire and 5" round old workboxes with cover plates. The new breaker and the actual sensors can be installed when the war chest has more funds.
Click here to continue reading Part IV of Wiring your own LAN
