Ugh, crosstalk issues?

[MrOlaf]

Hi, just discovered this forum.

So I bought a bunch of tools and pieces to change my phone lines into network jacks

The house is relatively new, built in 2007 and cat5e is ran throughout the house and the lines terminate in the basement. I went to start the process of changing out the telephone jacks to ethernet and I noticed that the cables have been stripped far back. I tried tugging on them to pull more cable up but they seem pretty stuck.

I assume this will have a cross talk issue if I punch these cables into an ethernet jack, am I right?

Are there any other fixes? For example maybe heat shrinking the twisted pairs?

Please let me know

 

[ColinTaylor]

I assume this will have a cross talk issue if I punch these cables into an ethernet jack, am I right?

I doubt it will cause a problem. I can't see much from your photo but the wires seem pretty short. I've seen a lot worse.

 

[CaptainSTX]

I doubt it will cause a problem. I can't see much from your photo but the wires seem pretty short. I've seen a lot worse.

I would try terminating a couple of the runs on both ends and see if when they are connected the LINK rate comes up as 1000 Mbps or just 100 Mbps. If you can't live with the results then you will have to remove the plastic wall boxes, reach into the wall and free up some additional slack (without pulling so hard on the cable that you risk damaging the individual conductors by pulling the cable through a cable clamp or staple). Then you will have to replace the boxes with old work boxes.

If you can't free up some slack then the options get messier. Depending if the cable runs from the top of the wall down or up from the bottom you cut a new outlet location six inches above or below the present location, install an old work electrical box, terminate the Ethernet correctly on a keystone jack and then cover up the old box with a blank wall plate. Installing old work boxes in drywall is straight forward and should not take more than fifteen minutes and a few bucks for the box. You simply mark the location of the box, trace its outline on the wall, take your drywall dagger saw and cut the hole. Box slides into the hole and locking wings pop out and hold the box in place when the screws are tightened down.

 

[MrOlaf]

Thank you,

Is it the rate of twist on the twisted pairs that keeps the cross talk low? Should I bother maybe gathering the wires all together and putting a single length of heat shrink tubing on them?

I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic about the length of the wires, about 6 inches of the jacked is removed. I thought anything over a 1/2" might incur problems


thank you again

 

[thiggins]

I agree with CaptainSTX' advice to try terminating a few and check the link rate and try some large file transfers.

It's the twist in each pair that's the most important. So you only want to untwist what's necessary to do the punchdown on the jack. For Gigabit, you should be fine.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@MrOlaf No I wasn't being sarcastic (I can't see how much is twisted vs. untwisted). Yes, ideally you'd only want about 1/2" unsheathed, especially if you're a professional installing hundreds of these.

But +1 for CaptainSTX' suggestion of testing the link for yourself.

If you've got a similar piece of Cat5e cable spare, perhaps you could strip off the outer sheath and then try to recreate the direction and number of twists per inch? And then, as you said, put some heat-shrink around it. It might not be necessary but it would probably look a lot neater.

 

[MrOlaf]

i have large roll of cat6 cable, it has a + shaped piece of plastic running down the center and there are 2 sets of twisted wires in each section of the + shape.

the twist in the wires seems to be fairly in tact, it looks as if they just stripped a lot of the jacket back to work on the phone line aspect easier. I could just sacrifice a few feet of the cat6 cable i bought and pull the jacked off of it and apply it to whats in the wall to keep the twists in tact.

 

[MrOlaf]

Also, the other question I had was...

Naturally we don't use the standard phone jacks. We hardly use our house phone and we simply have a wireless base setup that communicates with the rest of the phones

But I don't know if the current phone line coming into my home is active. I'm worried that the voltage coming from that line would mess up the network. I assume the first line coming into the bridge would be the outside line but it's only partially labeled

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PDjg_zQPIA76frQ7qGeJ5JxLZsHE6_rhpw

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RIYfg2i1911f_QCiLzdocPfPKSNE9nx-6g/view?usp=sharing

 

[thiggins]

If you are in the U.S. you have a demarc box outside your home. All you need to do is open the user-accessible side and pull the RJ-11 plugs out of the sockets.

 

[CaptainSTX]

In addition to disconnecting at the demarc just disconnect the wires running to the various rooms from the 66 Block.

You then have several options:

1. Terminate the cables with mail Jacks and plug them in to a simple unmanaged switch for distribution to all locations.
2. Terminate all the cables with female keystone jacks and mount the the keystone jacks in a multi gang switch box. This creates in effect a home rolled patch panel.
3. Go all the way and buy a patch panel and have a setup that will be very functional and impress all your friends. You will still need a switch if you want to have multiple locations functional.

What ever you do don't use the 66 block for data connections

 

[MrOlaf]

Yes, my plan was to terminate with male ethernet jacks. Then place them in a switch. I thought of a patch panel but it just seemed like an extra step that wasn't necessary.

 

[sfx2000]

If you are in the U.S. you have a demarc box outside your home. All you need to do is open the user-accessible side and pull the RJ-11 plugs out of the sockets.

Depends on the age of the home...

Old-school - one would get four wires coming in - going into a cross connect..

If it looks like this...

This will likely be in the garage, or outside in a small weatherproof connector...

Newer stuff you'll see a demarc box, usually mounted on an outside wall, typically near the power meter (they do this for grounding purposes) - one side will be the household side (unregulated), and the other will be the carrier side (regulated) - the carrier side typically will have a security screw...

Anyways... most RJ11 isn't going to be very useful for ethernet directly...

 

[MrOlaf]

I checked the box outside, it looks as if everything was already cut off?

https://goo.gl/photos/Js8xVS4QWTZq61zx8

 

[thiggins]

I checked the box outside, it looks as if everything was already cut off?

https://goo.gl/photos/Js8xVS4QWTZq61zx8

Sure looks like it. I should have caught CaptainSTX's point about not using the 66 blocks.

Male RJ45 is fine. I just find terminating in jacks is a LOT easier than crimping plugs. But that's just me....

 

[CaptainSTX]

Sure looks like it. I should have caught CaptainSTX's point about not using the 66 blocks.

Male RJ45 is fine. I just find terminating in jacks is a LOT easier than crimping plugs. But that's just me....

I would agree that terminating Male jacks is much more tedious and more difficult to get it just right so the strain releif is crimped onto the cable's jacket.

Since you are going to have cables that are far from optimum at the far end do yourself a favor and buy a Platinum crimping tool and Platinum clam shell jacks to make near perfect terminations. Also buy an inexpensive cable tester to insure you have continuity on all connectors and the pinning order is correct.

 

[MrOlaf]

I've gotten luckier on some of the cables in other parts of the house, more slack to chop the ends off.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DUdZbd4Kq4QtS1Bx1sWoc1bWqY-Q4XjWOA/view?usp=sharing

Although, I made a small piece of cable to test the run and I don't know if there's a problem or i'm expecting the tester to do something it wasnt made for.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Oa0Bp_m__AiyejR-HKzq8aCVUyFlOURhgQ

I tried putting the remote and tester on opposite ends of the "loft" room but it doesn't get any lights lit up when I did this as seen.


https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MEbGvWHLcdMLWaiQA4yU8-VIeInjA2uizw

 

[MrOlaf]

I was going to purchase a cheap kit on amazon but they said that the tools aren't the best. So i ended buying individual parts. I have a crimpswell crimper and a nice punch down tool.

the only thing that may be on the cheaper side is the actual male jacks, they are the ones that are hard to do, but i test them and they come up as testing good.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Not sure how your tester works. Mine cycles through each pair sequentially and gives it a green light if it is correct. Works best on 568 B pinning. What does your tester do when you plug it into a store bought cable with factory installed ends?

If you are getting nothing on a particular cable run it may have gotten cut during finish construction by drywallers, carpenters, electricians, etc. Unless you have access to a TDR cable checker you probably won't be able to locate the break . The fix is to pull a new cable which may be difficult.

 

[MrOlaf]

yes my cable checker works the same way, I made a couple ethernet wires and they checked out okay. Also should be note worth mentioning that the cat5e ran in through the walls and into the phone bridge are setup as 568 b. as I am making my way through gettting rid of that bridge and terminating ends and installing rj45 jacks im switching them to 568b as that's the new standard. I honestly don't think there's a break in the wire. My theory is that either the labels are mislabeled or possibly for example there are 2 jacks in the loft area, and if for some reason they decided to tie those 2 lines together before going down into the bridge in the basement I guess that could mess things up. maybe mess that up in general or is there a way to tie to 2 lines together as 568a? I don't think so though because you still got to tie all the lines of similiar color togther just the termination matters, unless im wrong?

Right now the plan is to keep on progressing and change all the keystones to rj45 and terminate all the jacks in the basement and put them into the switch and see whats up. if it doesn't work, it's not like I was going to use the cables for phone anyways.

 

[degrub]

yes my cable checker works the same way, I made a couple ethernet wires and they checked out okay. Also should be note worth mentioning that the cat5e ran in through the walls and into the phone bridge are setup as 568 b. as I am making my way through gettting rid of that bridge and terminating ends and installing rj45 jacks im switching them to 568b as that's the new standard. I honestly don't think there's a break in the wire. My theory is that either the labels are mislabeled or possibly for example there are 2 jacks in the loft area, and if for some reason they decided to tie those 2 lines together before going down into the bridge in the basement I guess that could mess things up. maybe mess that up in general or is there a way to tie to 2 lines together as 568a? I don't think so though because you still got to tie all the lines of similiar color togther just the termination matters, unless im wrong?

Right now the plan is to keep on progressing and change all the keystones to rj45 and terminate all the jacks in the basement and put them into the switch and see whats up. if it doesn't work, it's not like I was going to use the cables for phone anyways.

Most likely they daisy chained them since phone service is a current loop setup. All you need is one pair to do a small house with 3-4 devices. Pull the plates and look for two cables on one termination.