My SMC (Structured Media Center)

[Mike44]

Hi guys! Happy New Year!

So I thought that I would share some pictures of my ‘Christmas project’ that I did during my break! To put it simply, I made a patching hub for our house telephone and computer network. In other words, a structured media centre for phone and data!

I will go into some detail here about what I did just in case some of you guys find yourself in a similar situation, and you can learn from my mistakes!! I guess this can sort of be like a guide as well! I’m going to do this over several posts to make it easier to read and split up the pictures and stuff! There’s tons of pictures and tons of info, so enjoy!!

[Mike44]

Background:
So up until now, I had a wireless G network set up in my house with a D-Link DI-524 router servicing 4 computers (1 wired desktop, 1 wireless desktop, 2 wireless laptops). I had the DSL modem and router in my computer room which is at the far side of the house. Because of this, the desktop computer at the other end of the house was just barely receiving a signal and would cut out sometimes (I think the signal had to go through something like 15 walls/doors if you counted the closets too!) The laptops were fine anywhere in the house. I thought that by purchasing a booster antenna for the D-Link router, it might help to boost the signal, but it didn’t help really for some reason. So, that desktop computer was never really used and I kept on saying that I would look into it and try to fix it or make it better…..

The Choice:
……one year later: Then wireless N came out. Increased speed, increased performance!! For 3x the price! Yeah right! You have to buy the router, and 2 desktop cards, and 2 notebook cards to get the full benefit! There had to be another option. I posted a topic on this message board asking about wireless G vs. N and wired networks too: http://www.construction-resource.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6627. After reading Giddonah’s response, I decided that since the previous home owner had run (only a single :() Cat5e wire through the walls to each room when he built the house, I would go for a wired network solution. This way, all the computers could get equally fast transfer speeds and guaranteed network access.

The Products:
I searched around for some patching boards that I could use. This site was amazing and really helped me out a lot: http://www.swhowto.com/index.htm (now he went all out, but it’s also good as a guide for first timers!!) Seeing as how he used Leviton products, and there are some good comments about them on this message board too, I decided to use Leviton as well. Plus the Home Depot has a Leviton section now too in the electrical department, so I could go and see exactly what I would buy instead of ordering off the Internet, ugh. Although their circuit boards and wall jacks can start to get a bit pricy for wiring up an entire house, I think it was well worth it (as you’ll see!).

The Plan:
Even though I planned to create a wired network in the house, I still wanted wireless capability so that I can take my laptop to the garage and listen to the iTunes radio or something when I’m working in there (http://www.construction-resource.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6086) or so that I can sit on the couch and do some work on the laptop, or anything for mobility!! So I need to keep the antenna. As for the wires, all of the cat5e wiring that go to the rooms are home runs (thank goodness they did that!) and they end up in the garage beside the electrical panel. The plan was to have one hub for where the house wires terminate, another hub for the Ethernet ports (which come from the router), and a third hub for the telephone. Since I only have one cat5e cable, I’m limited to using only telephone or Ethernet at one time. Because of this, I have to patch in either telephone or Ethernet to the rooms using patch cables. In the rooms, I will have two jacks; one for Ethernet and one for telephone. Again, only one will be able to be used at one time.

My First Mistake:
Okay, so some of you smart ones out there are saying, “WTF, it IS possible to do telephone and Ethernet over ONE cat5e cable.” Well, as it turns out, yes, you can. But, I found this out half way through the project and practically everything was wired!! Here is the guide I found about how to do it: http://www.mavromatic.com/archives/000458. Like I said, I probably would have done this, but unfortunately I had pretty much wired my entire hub before I found this and really could not go back and make the changes to do that. (Lol, just a disclaimer, I don’t know if it works – I’m just saying that it looks possible based on that guide!!). So for anyone out there that has just started, take a look at that before wiring!!!! I still think it’s better just to run two cables to the rooms though; this guide is probably more for a retrofit.

I’ve attached my wiring plan here so that you guys can see what I’m doing. The first page is the technical plan and layout of all the components (excluding the power cables or the router antenna). The second page is more of an abstract plan just showing the basic Leviton boards and what the room jacks will look like.

Here is the link for the wiring plan: http://www.mediafire.com/?7ixxdyek2h3

[Mike44]

Whew! Well, after all the boring text, I’ll get to the good stuff and show you some pictures!

Image 01 – Before:
This is the initial wiring that was done when the house was built. It was wired strictly for telephone using the cat5e wiring. You can see the blue cabling to the right of electrical panel and the left of the mirror. I don’t know why, but for some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to use staples to attach the wire to the board. Plus, they did it so tight that the blue insulation jacket became deformed! Not a good idea to staple it that tight if you want to run Ethernet along the cable because it will deform the twist and compromise data transfer speeds!

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/5779/02telephonewiringbeforenh0.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 02 – Before:
In this image, you can see the black cable (the incoming telephone service) which was just tacked up and run under the electrical panel. It always bothered me – just so messy. I think that any incoming service to the house should be in a conduit, and then any building wiring can be run without conduit – so that’s what I planned to do.

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/1711/01telephonewiringbeforexg4.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 03 – Locating and Labelling Wires:
Before starting, I had to figure out which wire ran to which room. To make things even more complicated, I sort of had to keep the phone and Internet going for that night. Ahh, what a nightmare it was. I thought I’d do it by process of elimination by taking off one wire at a time and then run into the house and see which phone outlet did not work. The problem was, for some reason, I have 9 outlets in the house, but only 8 lines coming into the panel!?!?%^%&@#@. I don’t really know how I ended up figuring them out, but let’s just say that it took more than a few hours and about 100 trips up and down the stairs!

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/91/03locatingandlabellingrxi8.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 04 and 05 – Incoming Telephone Service Cable (Before):
This picture shows where the telephone cable enters the garage. Of course it has to be in the corner and under a cabinet. Now I’m a pretty small guy and I still found it rather difficult to work!! Anyways, once I get in there and go to test fit the LB that I’m going to use, I see that there is an in-line connector that has been PVC glued onto the end of pipe!!! And to make it worse, half of the connector is in the wall and the other half is sticking out!! So I can't just cut it off. I’m thinking what genius did this? So I eventually removed it (I can make a new thread about how to do that if you guys want?? Because it’ll take more than a sentence to say here) and then an hour later am ready for the test fit.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1544/06incomingtelephoneservfe9.jpg

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4895/07incomingtelephoneservmg7.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 06, 07, 08, and 09 – Incoming Telephone Service Cable (After):
In order to bring the telephone service into the demarcation box (you can see it in picture 09) I wanted to use ½” conduit. 1-¼” conduit was used from the outside however, so I used 3 reducers within each other in the LB in order to get from 1-¼” to ½” right away. Here’s a small tip, only the Kraloy brand of reducers can fit inside each other. For some reason, Carlon brand reducers won’t fit inside each other and need PVC pipe of their respective sizes in order to be used. I’ve tried them both and the Kraloy way looks much neater. You will have to cut about ½” off the end of the 1-¼” to 1” reducer though in order to make it fit flush in the LB. Picture 09 shows the conduit coming up above the cabinets and into the demarcation box in a much neater way that it was before. Now I’m happy!

If you're paying close attention to the plan, I just used a 90 degree sweep elbow to enter the demarcation box as opposed to and LR fitting. That's pretty much because no store has LR fittings!!! I don't know why, but they all have LB and LL, no LR's! So just a slight change, but it probably looks better this way.

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/8194/08incomingtelephoneservqt6.jpg

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[Mike44]

Image 10 and 11 – All Units Mounted:
Once the demarcation box was mounted, I drew a pencil line up from the left side of it and mounted all the Leviton boards, modem and router in line with it. The result? A nice neat setup! Note that Leviton sells some kind of enclosure to mount your units in (http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10345&minisite=10026). I didn’t really want that, plus I didn’t really have the space for it (need minimum 16” width). Picture 11 shows the mounted Leviton circuit boards. I used #4 5/8” screws here with 2 rubber washers on either side of the board and a regular metal washer against the wood. I guess the rubber washers aren’t necessary, but it just looks cool, lol. Plus I can afford the extra $1.50 that all 32 of them cost!

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/2475/15allunitsmounted02uw4.jpg

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7749/17allunitsmounted04xd6.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 – Telephone Demarcation Box Hook Up:
Lots of pictures here! This is a neat little box that the Telephone Service provides here as a transition from their outside wiring to the house wiring. The home owner has access to the lower part of the box when you open it up. The upper part says ‘Telco Access Only.’ Luckily I have the exclusive tool that opens up the top part!! Lol, just a regular socket wrench! In the fourth picture, you can see the upper part where the service comes in on the left, and the blue and white wires hook up to the Tip and Ring outlets. Note that if I had a second telephone line, I could get a second module up here for the orange and red wires to attach into! Plus the whole thing is grounded (I don’t really know what is grounded, but it was there before, so I made sure I put it back when I was done!) Then the Tip/Ring wires go down to the customer access part where they can hook up to 4 rooms into that one module. I’ve only got one wire hooked in since I’ve got my telephone patching board which can supply 7 rooms. You can also add an additional 2 modules into this lower part of the demarcation box too which is pretty neat! Very nice and tidy, just how I like it! And a zip tie on the door lock part prevents anyone from “inadvertent” access, but still allows me to get in without having to remember a combination or anything!

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6913/18telcodemarcationbox01uo7.jpg

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[Mike44]

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[Mike44]

Image 18 – Incoming Service to Telephone Patching Board:
Here is the lowest board on the hub. The Leviton Telephone Patching Board can take up to 4 telephone lines and distribute them. I’m only using 1 though (the Blue/White and Blue wires), but I still hook up all the wires so that any future additions require minimal work. If I’m going to do the work, I would rather do it all now, rather than have to go back and have to redo stuff later.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4993/30telphoneboardlineindy8.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 19 – The Patching Hub:
The best part! Here’s where all the wires terminate! It’s also the most complicated part! One stray wire or one mixed up pair and you could have no signal on the other end! Luckily though these boards makes it a little easier to identify what goes to what. I took this picture with all the patch cords hooked up, but what I want to show more here is the termination of the building wiring. The small beige wire on the lower left is the telephone cable for the modem (which you’ll see later). I’ve made it permanent there by not making it a patching cable, but rather including it in with the building wiring cable drop.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3990/31patchboardhubyz1.jpg

One very important thing to note here before I go on!! If you are going to do something like this using Leviton products, the most important thing to do is to follow the T568A wiring standard! This is the one that they use exclusively in their products! There are currently two standards: T568A and T568B. B is the older one and is starting to be phased out (am I correct there?) and A is the more current one. If you’re doing telephone or networking in your house, once you pick a standard to use, stick with it!! Don’t switch. If you’re not completely re-doing your house networking but rather just adding on, use the standard that is existing in your house. Here’s a link to the colour coding: http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=13753&subsection=13825&minisite=10028. Leviton has tried to make it easy for us. They do this by putting a colour scheme on their punch down blocks. Follow those exact colours (just like how they say in the instructions :)) when punching down the lines on their blocks. Then, when making your own cable end connectors, always use the T568A standard.

In addition, when making your own cable end connectors, hold the connector so that the little push pin is on the bottom – this will make Pin 1 on the left and Pin 8 on the right.

I only stress this really important thing because I made this mistake! Basically, I thought Leviton just used the Blue/Orange/Green/White order for all their terminations. So I did that everywhere – on their punch down blocks, the end connectors, room jacks, etc. I did not follow the T568A standard. And because of that, I was getting no signal to the rooms, or “limited connectivity” was showing up on the computer. When I finally got frustrated enough I went onto the Internet and read up about this, and slowly pieced together that I needed to terminate the lines according to the T568A standard. And then it was a Godly moment when it all just….worked!

[Mike44]

Image 20 and 21 – The D-Link DI-524 Router:
Okay, so now that I got that out of the way, lets move on! According to the plan, above the patching boards is the D-Link router. Yeah, I know, not the latest one out, but it still works great! I’ll tell you about the wiring between the modem and the router in the next 2 images.

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/9808/32dlinkrouter01no4.jpg

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/736/33dlinkrouter02zh3.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 22 – The Speedstream 6520 Modem:
This is what Aliant (the local telephone company here in the Canadian Maritimes!) provides when you get their high-speed DSL service. It’s actually a modem/router combination, but I just turned off the router capabilities. I like the D-Link better for that. So, I’m just using it as a regular plain old DSL modem!

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9007/35speedstreammodemhn4.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 23 – Modem and Router Wiring:
Okay, I know, even though practically everyone knows how to do this, I’ll just go over the connections between the modem and the router. So the telephone line comes in (the beige cable – remember image 19?) to the modem. Then the WAN signal comes out of the modem and into the router. Then I’ve got my four LAN connections that go down and terminate on the Leviton patching board. Finally, the brass connection you see on the right is for the D-Link antenna (which is in the next picture!).

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3410/34routerandmodemwiringyu8.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 24 – D-Link Ranger Booster Antenna:
I purchased this a while ago as a solution to try to get a stronger signal from my computer room down to the other end of the house. I’m still using it here because it looks way cooler than the small little antenna that plugs onto the router itself! Plus, according to the laptop, I can still get “Signal Strength: Excellent” in the detached garage, which is on the other side of the house and across the lawn, about 250ft away!!! And I don’t have any repeaters at all! I guess it works better when there is more or less direct line of sight. It has to be mounted at least 1ft away from electronic devices because there is a magnet in the base – beware any hard drives!!

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/6872/36dlinkantenna01pl1.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 25 – Power Connection:
And what would the modem and router be without power? Useless! Here’s a neat way to hide the power cord from a transformer if you have to mount it upside down. Just loop the cable up and then down the back between the prongs of the transformer. That way, it looks nice from the top and you don’t really see the wire hanging off the side. Luckily for me here, I just had enough for some slack, but not too much that I needed to coil it up, and not too little that I needed and extension cord!!

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4198/39modemandrouterpowertrpd2.jpg

[Mike44]

Image 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 - Labels:
Well, I got the labels all made up and printed for the jacks so I know what jack belongs to what room! I was thinking about just making a diagram and tacking it onto the wall (on the computer of course, not hand drawn!), but this way worked out fine as well and looks just as, or even more, professional. Damn, those are small though to cut out and glue on. I’d like to say that I don’t have beefy fingers, but even still, I had to use tweezers. And by the end my fingers started to get all gluey and stuff, lol. It still looks good though! There’s some close up shots showing the labels – at this distance, it makes it look like my printer is horrible! But it is 4.5pt font! In my opinion, I think that labelling anything can be the most important part for the future! If you don’t know what something is, you end up spending double the amount of time it would have taken you to make a label just trying to figure out where that wire goes! Err, well, maybe not in this case, but still!!

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/4961/40labels01jj7.jpg

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Here’s the Microsoft Word label document in case any of you guys are planning on doing this project or want to label up any existing Leviton boards that you have! All I can say is, have fun cutting them out and even more fun gluing them on!!

Here's the link for the labels: http://www.mediafire.com/?2m5mh0daydz

[Mike44]

Image 31, 32, 33 and 34 – Ahh, the finished Product!:
Well, here’s the final product! A nice, neat, organized, and labelled structured media centre! I’ve pretty much explained each portion, except the patch cords, so I’ll talk about them here! Take a look at the first picture here. Basically, I’ve got the Ethernet hub on the top, and the phone hub on the bottom, with the house terminations hub in the centre. So all I need to do to get telephone into a room is to take a patch cable (terminated in the exact same way on both ends!) and plug one end into the phone hub, and the other end into the room port. Same goes for patching Ethernet into a room. I’ve patched all four Ethernet connections to where the desktop computers are and where the laptops are most of the time, and patched in phone to the rest of the rooms. I can only use one port at a time though in the room, so I can’t have Ethernet and telephone in a room at the same time. Good thing they have cordless phones, lol!

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/1904/50finishedsmc02ig6.jpg

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/1714/51finishedsmc03zy2.jpg

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3985/52finishedsmc04ny1.jpg

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Well, that’s about it for the SMC! Onto the room jacks!

[Mike44]

Image 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, and 06 – the Wall Jacks:
As I mentioned before in the second post, I’m using 2 jacks in the wall plates; one for telephone and one for Ethernet. Although I really only needed one Ethernet jack (since you can plug a telephone and Ethernet cable into it), I thought I would still use two separate jacks. I just hope it doesn’t make it look like you can use both together. Here are views of the Ethernet jack and then the telephone jack.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7259/01ethernetjackdisplay01du1.jpg

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/3945/02ethernetjackdisplay02zx9.jpg

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[Mike44]

Image 07-17 – Jack Wiring:
I’ll explain how I’m going to wire this, and then just show the series of pictures. It’ll be easier that way. From the cat5e wire, I’ll hook up the Ethernet jack, and then piggy back the telephone jack off from it. Here’s how I did it. Leviton suggests keeping the insulation as close as possible to the jack. In other words, try to maintain the pair twists as much as possible before splitting them and terminating each individual wire. You can see that in the first picture. The second and third picture just shows the side of the jack with the wires. Be sure to follow the T568A (or B if that’s what you need, or follow the pin designations if you’re doing your own system). Then I re-established the twists, coiled up the excess brown pair (since it will not be used in the phone jack), and brought the blue, orange, and green pairs down together to get ready to terminate on the phone jack. Don’t forget to add the black dust caps to hold the wires in place in the channel and keep out debris! Wiring up the telephone jack is just like the Ethernet jack. Follow the correct wiring scheme and then snap on the dust cover. And there’s the two jacks all wired up! You sort of wire them upside down, because the telephone jack will actually end up on top (as you see in the next pictures).

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9741/10ethernetjackwired04ht7.jpg

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[Mike44]

Image 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 – Wall Plate Mounting:
The jacks get snapped into the holes on the wall plate. I bought the wall plates with 2 holes, although you can buy single, triple, quad, and six holed plates as well. Once the jack is screwed in and mounted, you can plug in your cables and begin testing! In the last picture, you’ll see that my ‘assistant’ found a nice cozy spot instead of helping me!!! No wonder it took so long!

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2582/24jacksmountedonwallplawx7.jpg

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[Mike44]

Well, that’s it! I hope you guys liked it and maybe have learned a little something from it! If not, any constructive (:)) criticism is also alright! I hope you haven’t maxed out your bandwidth from all those pictures!! Lol, sorry! Well, it’s back to school for me, so have a great new year and happy wiring, or, networking!!

Also, if you have any questions about this or if the links to the downloads don't work, just type a message and I'll see what I can do!! I check the board about once a week, so you should get your questions answered! And thanks to all the people on this board who helped me out (maybe not directly, but I've read some of your posts) about how to do some this!! Thanks a lot!

If you guys want to use any pictures for anything, go ahead. I've got the original sizes still on my computer, so if you would like good resolution, I can e-mail them to you.

Okay, well now that it!

Mike

[giddonah]

Wow. I would have used a 66 block for the phones, but that system works very well and the nice thing is that you can move phone lines around very easily.

Mike, you should do that professionally. That is some of the best work I've seen outside of my company. If you want to move to SLC, I can get you a job!;)

Do a couple of those jobs for some builders and you'll not have to advertise. The only thing that would make that better (matter of opinion) is putting it all in a box. When I walk into a mechanical room, that's what I want to see, but customers want a nice clean white panel to cover up the artwork.:rolleyes:

If I were you, I'd get an ad out and start wiring homes like that and charge a premium. I do have to say though, that the original wiring was pretty neat.

The way you wired the jacks is a little inventive! Too bad you didn't have another cat5 so you could use both at the same time. You actually only need 4 wires for ethernet unless you're doing gigabit. If there are no other options, and both are needed, you can use 4 for ethernet and 4 for phone, but you get interfearance from the phone which messes with the ethernet. Some people get it to work, and others have too much trouble with it. You might want to try that to see how it works for you.

[Mike44]

Mike, you should do that professionally. That is some of the best work I've seen outside of my company. If you want to move to SLC, I can get you a job!

Lol, thanks! I think I'll have to pass though :). Just a little too far of a comute from Halifax each day!! Speaking of that though, I actually do want to apply for a summer job to work as an electrcian (or maybe just like an 'electrician's helper' or something since I don't have any formal training) down in town. What do you think, should I mention that I've done some of this work or show some pictures or something? I don't know, I've never really applied for something like that before. :confused: I've also wired up plugs and switches with line voltage and worked with one of the electricians from that company several times when they came to wire up our garage. Should I use him as a reference maybe? :confused:

The only thing that would make that better (matter of opinion) is putting it all in a box. When I walk into a mechanical room, that's what I want to see, but customers want a nice clean white panel to cover up the artwork.:rolleyes:

You bet! That's actually next on my list. I didn't really have any time yet to make it, but I'm thinking of a wood frame with a plexiglass cover and some routered slits on the side for ventilation. That way there's still air flow but no dust gets onto the electronics. Plus, our vaccuum cleaner is right beside it, so I've got to make it soon before it gets too dusty!!

In my dream house, ideally I would have all the "brains" of the house in 2 rooms by themselves in the basement, not in the garage. Put the electrical panel, phone, network, etc. in one and then the plumbing and water tank, furnace, etc. in the other. I think it would be more contained that way.

I do have to say though, that the original wiring was pretty neat.

It certainly was - at least the electrical panel is neat (the neatest one I've seen in my time!); I guess the telephone was also pretty good except for the fact that they stapled it down and practically squished the wire in the process. But oh well!

The way you wired the jacks is a little inventive! Too bad you didn't have another cat5 so you could use both at the same time. You actually only need 4 wires for ethernet unless you're doing gigabit. If there are no other options, and both are needed, you can use 4 for ethernet and 4 for phone, but you get interfearance from the phone which messes with the ethernet. Some people get it to work, and others have too much trouble with it. You might want to try that to see how it works for you.

Sweet, thanks for the tips - yeah I had read about doing this about half way through my project after all the rough wiring had been done!! Argh! I was a little mad, but what I have still works for now. When I've got a free weekend or something, I might give it a go on one of the outlets and see how it works!

Thanks for the feedback! And hey, I'll keep that job offering in mind, just in case, ya know.....! Lol!

Mike

[giddonah]

I actually do want to apply for a summer job to work as an electrcian (or maybe just like an 'electrician's helper' or something since I don't have any formal training) down in town.

Forget that. Put an ad out that you can do structured wiring for phone/network. Talk to some builders and see how hapy they are with their low voltage guy. All you'll need to get started is a truck, a ladder and a drill. You can make so much more actually using what you know than being someone's helper. There are so many guys out there doing this poorly that as soon as some builders know what you can do they'll have you booked solid.

[Mike44]

Ohh, seriously?? I think I'd be a little nervous going into it like that, but you know, it might not be such a bad idea! There is actually a new development of about 100 homes that will be built over the summer here, so......who knows? I think I might just do exactly what you said! I suppose wording would be key, since every electrician says they do neat, tidy jobs, and then you go down and take a look and you're like, "uh, no comment!"

But hey, thanks again for the advice - I'll let you know if anything happens with it!! I'll get some stuff out early so that by the summer, hopefully there'll be a job waiting for me!!

Mike

[Mike44]

PM'd you Giddonah. Just a few questions - don't want to tie up the threads with my lack of knowledge of getting a job!! Lol.

Mike

[zeeshan66]

i'm pretty lost in this thread but an interesting read. what camera are you using btw?