CAT6 Cables where and why

B-D-P--

Hi all,

So coming to wiring a new build.
I like the thought of a few smart ideas.

1 of the main things I'll be getting, is the harmony remote.

Boards have been saying to run cat6 cables all over the shop and sometimes 2 cables.

This concept confuses this boards.ie member.
I'll attach a picture of my layout for reference.

Putting all consoles and hubs into Study room and hoping to use hdmi splitter and send signal to rooms via cat6.

But, how many cat6 cables do I need to run?

Thanks all..

B-D-P--

Pic attached

mike_2009

Looks like 10 rooms so 10-20 cables terminating in the study? It's as easy to run multiple cables as it is just one and future proof.....

B-D-P--

mike_2009 wrote: »

Looks like 10 rooms so 10-20 cables terminating in the study? It's as easy to run multiple cables as it is just one and future proof.....

Yea ok, But can you explain the reason for second cable?
And do i just put a load of these in the study to accomadate it?

gctest50

B-D-P-- wrote: »

And do i just put a load of these in the study to accomadate it?

one of these in the study :




and that fits into a cabinet or a rack to keep it tidy n safe :

Aka Ishur

B-D-P-- wrote: »

Yea ok, But can you explain the reason for second cable?
And do i just put a load of these in the study to accomadate it?

You cannot just run one cable and split it up to 6 terminals, it would need to go through a switch first. Ie 1 cable-switch-6 cables-6 terminals

Personally would run 4 cables down to main media Centre, 2 to all other rooms, 1 to beside whereever your Internet enters the house.

BoardsMember

I'm not too knowledgeable about this, but my understanding of why people recommend to run two to each room is that you can run HDMI over one of the cables, and internet (or whatever else) over the other. You can't "switch" between running HDMI and internet (for example) over the same cable, HDMI over ethernet needs baluns which convert the HDMI signal. I'm probably using terrible terminology here. Long HDMI cables don't work well and/or are expensive.

The non-HDMI can then be used for wired internet, always preferable to WiFi, or for streaming to a television, or whatever, including future proofing.

B-D-P--

Ok I get ye thanks.

So is 2 enough to go to the living room?

The main EIR line will be brought into the livingroom (Acording to electrician it needs to be direcly on the wall of the ESB meter)
But I'm going to run it straight to study and put a router on it there and have all hubs there. Main reason being not having any hubs or boxes in view in living room and have a wall mounted TV.

So at that I'll have 1 CAT6 Port behind TV and one beside a socket in corner.

Opinions on how to do it better?

Aka Ishur

i put router, patch panel and switch in the attic, along with wireless AP in the center of the attic. Gets great signal throughout a 100m2 3 bed. Cannot recommend enough. Out of sight so you cant get cleaner.

Like many before me and plenty afterwards, I flood-wired the house with CAT5e, at least 2 double sockets in each room going back to a cabinet in a void behind the flat screen TV (I originally intended putting in a rear projection screen, but prices fell).
I have used the cables in the study and one to the son's bedroom for his playstation, the rest are unused!
WiFi is used extensively these days.

drunkmonkey

3 for the main TV room or Kitchen depending on where your going to hang out.
Why 3, Smart TV box, sky box, Xbox, basically run in as many as you think you'll connect to it.
Bedroom I think one is enough, for smart box under TV. Can't really think of anything else, have wifi at one end of house upstairs and wifi extender down the other end all upstairs. Should give you good wifi.

Don't forget about TV cable for sky magic eye if your going that route no harm run a tv point to each room might never be used or possibly out of date by the time you want it but it's cheap and easy now.

Have a think about music as well, might be no harm run 2 speaker cables to main rooms then you can fit a single stereo speaker in the main rooms, you'll need 2 cables to power 1 stereo speaker. Don't go left and right with 2 speakers I've made that mistake. If you can pick up some sonos amps cheap it would be a good route to go, I paid €700 for 3 second hand, there all hard wired with cat 6 cable as well. (cat 6 makes no odds for them).

Where the Telephone connection comes into house use shielded cat 5 or 6 from there to where ever your putting the main phone point.

All the above wiring id say your talking €200 or less for all the cable tv,cat and speaker. Well worth doing now.

Put in plugs with USB chargers as well when your wiring. Like these https://m.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/5586220/Trail/searchtext%3EUSB+double+gang.htm I've used these ones ok for €6 each and they have the little white bits that go over the screws so look pretty smart for the money.

Adding to the above, POE (Power over Ethernet) is coming on a big way now, so soon it may be possible to have remote speakers and other devices that are powered by the same cat6 cable that carries the data to it.
Something for the future as there is not much POE domestic kit out there at the moment.

newacc2015

I have CAT6 all over my house and we dont use a single one(our Virgin Media cabling comes at the back of our house and the CAT6 box is at the front). Wifi is just easier.

Aka Ishur

newacc2015 wrote: »

I have CAT6 all over my house and we dont use a single one(our Virgin Media cabling comes at the back of our house and the CAT6 box is at the front). Wifi is just easier.

Sure - for your needs. Everyone is different. You didn't plan you're wiring well so therefore it's too hard? I have cat6 all over my house and it's very heavily used. Anecdotes work both ways.

jh79

gctest50 wrote: »

one of these in the study :




and that fits into a cabinet or a rack to keep it tidy n safe :

I have these on my landing, what is it for?

Aka Ishur

jh79 wrote: »

I have these on my landing, what is it for?

That's a patch panel to make the termination of the cat 6 lines easier. Fits in as follows: outside internet-modem(router)-switch-patchpanel-ethernet sockets

jh79

Aka Ishur wrote: »

That's a patch panel to make the termination of the cat 6 lines easier. Fits in as follows: outside internet-modem(router)-switch-patchpanel-ethernet sockets

Sorry i 've no clue, is it for my internet or tv? Is it worth me getting someone in to set it up?

drunkmonkey

It's worth learning yourself how to terminate a cable it's easy once you get 1 right. Just a bit of wire stripping and put the right colours in the right place.
Everything everyone has mentioned above can't kill you, network cable, speaker cable, tv cable it's all harmless stuff and easy learn.
Even running all the cable just roll it out.

Electrician might not charge much either way.

seamus

jh79 wrote: »

Sorry i 've no clue, is it for my internet or tv? Is it worth me getting someone in to set it up?

Every socket (with a cable running into the back) in the patch panel corresponds to a socket elsewhere in the house. It should be labelled, but if it's a new build in an estate the sparks may not have bothered.

Basically if you want to have one or more rooms hard-wired to the internet or a home network, you will need to use the patch panel to connect those rooms to your internet router.

If you don't want anything hardwired and you're happy with your existing setup, then you can leave it alone. Why hard-wire over WiFi? Because wired networks are faster and don't suffer from interference or range problems.

So it's useful if you're planning on setting up one room as an office with a laptop/PC, or you plan on using a console or a TV streaming device in another room. In that case it would be no harm to find someone, even a friend or neighbour's kid, who knows something about this stuff to do it for you.

murphaph

I wired my house so that anywhere I know for sure a static device will be located I ran CAT6 to that point. I ran a few to the odd random corner.

WiFi is great but the air is a shared medium so it will never be able to compete with copper. I chose to relieve the WiFi network for actual mobile devices that need it by wiring everything I could.

One thing I am extremely glad I did: CAT6 to a point on the ceiling in the centre of the house on each floor. We get very poor signal between floors (UFH...presume the water and foil insulation presents a good barrier, especially to 5GHz).

You can then mount a wireless access point on each floor if you need to. In our cellar for example there is no signal from the ground floor (UFH as above + reinforced concrete ground floor).