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Hey Hope I can get some advise here. I am building a new home. I have wired it with Belden 1872a Cat 6 wire. I got the wire for free (7000 feet of it). So I pulled six runs to each of the four bed rooms, kitchen, study... Etc... Not all in the same drops in each room. Lots of Quad shielded R-G6 too. One of my questions is should I terminate the network runs in T568a or T568b? I have read the difference between A and B, but as a home owner what should I do? Second, I will be using some of the runs for component (Y/C) video and stereo audio. Any one out there used this type of wire for this? Leviton as well as ONQ TECH sells Y/C connectors and other peripherals for this application. They say that there is no loss of signal quality.
Lookin for some feed back…

Thanks

It makes no difference, as far the operation of the network is concerned, which standard you use. I would suggest being consistent about which standard you use. The 586A standard is the preferred standard.

Do not use ordinary staples secure any of these cables. You will ruin them if you do. There are however specialized staples and staples used by the cable TV installers that should be OK for both.
RG-6/RG-8/RG-11 Coax Cable Clips are OK for CAT 5 and 5e (and probably CAT 6, which I have not used yet)

And work fine for small jobs. They are widely available at Radio Shack, hardware stores, etc. Bring cable samples when you go to buy them to be sure you get the right size.

See http://duxcw.com/digest/Howto/network/cable/cable9.htm for other cabling rules. Be sure the cable meets your local building codes. Some may require plenum cable. I would not mix audio/telephone wires with network wires on the same cable or split cables. I would not install them on the same stud with electric power cables.

For other readers, there are all in one cables that have two CAT 5e cables and two RG-6 cables in them. The last price I saw was $.67/foot. There also cables that have these cables plus a fiber optic cable for somewhere in the neighborhood of three times that price. There are probably other cables with “CAT 6” cables. I use “” around CAT 6 because as far as I know there is no CAT 6 standard yet (but I have not checked in a couple of months or so). CAT 5e will work for the Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-TX) , but CAT 6 is supposed to provide more headroom (call it room for error).

I have not used network cable for audio other than telephones. Here are some references:

"In a recent article, Steve Lampen, a senior audio video specialist for Beldin Wire & Cable writes, "Digital audio cables make the absolute best analog cables. You can go farther with flatter frequency response than with any cable designed for analog". This is because due to it's characteristic low capacitance, data cable is designed to transmit data at high velocity and wide bandwidths. At audio frequencies, these characteristics will yield exceptionally flat frequency response, even over very long cable lengths."

http://www.studiohub.com/questions.html
http://www.rwonline.com/reference-room/wired-4-sound/rwf-lampen2.shtml
http://www.hometech.com/audio/tpaudio.html
http://www.audioreview.com/Cables/Network+Cable+Category-5+UTP+Data+Grade/PRD_116550_1584crx.aspx

If anyone has hands-on experience using CAT 5/5e/6 cable for audio (and video) we would very much appreciate you thoughts. Larry

Larry,
Thanks for the quick reply. Some of the phone systems I have been looking at specify 568b as the preferred wiring. So I think if I wire all in the 568b and keep it all the same I should be in business.

As for the staples, No hold downs or ties of any kind were used. I made a “cable tray” in my attic from 4 inch ABS drain pipe. I used my sawzall to cut it in half, and sanded the edges to remove the burs. To connect the peaces together I used the standard 4 inch ABS 90s, slip connectors and tees. (They keep the cables from coming out of the tray during the pull). Anyplace I needed to make a drop in to a wall I drilled a one inch hole to run the cables down. (YES it was time consuming) But it came out clean. None of the cable bends at a “sharp” angle. Much cheaper than buying standard cable tray.

I am also doing a “self install” of a Crestron home automation system. It will have wall mounted touch screens. Four zone audio, and possibly control my HVAC system that I have installed from Aprilaire. The HVAC system has eight different zones. The thermostats are remotely located into my “machine room”. The remotes are one inch discs that mount flush to the wall and can be painted to match the wall.

More updates to come as we go long.

Again thanks for the help,

Skip

Actually, the telephone equipment manufactures are wrong (outdated). And if they want to install their equipment under a U.S. Federal contract, they have to use 568A. Some background on this is at http://duxcw.com/faq/network/colorcode.htm. However, as I stated before, it makes no difference to the operation of the network which standard you use and you should be consistent. If the telephones are wired 568B then I would tend to wire the network 568B.
Two things I omitted. Before putting the drywall-up, I would label and document all of the cables. I use ZipTape wire markers (http://www.ziptape.com/wire_markers/mity_dispensers.htm ) to put numbers on the wires throughout the run. If possible/practical, would also test all of the cables at Ethernet frequencies (http://duxcw.com/faq/network/testnic.htm) before that drywall goes on.

That is quite an imaginative cable trey, but a leak in the roof of dust may be problem in years to come (I wouldn't loose any sleep over it). Where I have network cables in the attic of our house, they just lay on the insulation. However, our attic is insulated with fiberglass bats. Blown-in insulation, I would think, would eventually make the cables hard to find, and very hard to find if the cables are installed before the insulation. Larry

Larry,,

Drywall is up! Final paint is happening! My wife is happy. NO DRYWALL RIPING OUT! I think I have pulled most of what a normal person needs. LOL. I did leave lots of room for improvement… ¾ inch or 1 inch conduit to all boxes. I did a practice run today.

I backed up my wifes lap-top from the garage to the main house. Via the cat-6 in about 35 seconds. ( 98MB) of word, profit, Lotus and such. And played a mp3 at the same time! It took me longer to walk it. 200 feet!

More to come…

Skip

What kind of conduit did you use? Metal or plastic? Larry

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