Patch panel - how important for home use

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driller2000

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#974783 26-Jan-2014 19:49

had our house built 5 years ago - ran cat 5 to all brs, office and living rooms (7 in total) using a combined aerial + ph + data panel in each and terminated them all back at 8 port panel in the office wardrobe. (all terminals rj45)

have a media server + wireless router + an unmanaged 8 port gigabit switch connecting the lot up in the same office wardrobe and it does all i want it to do

not a huge amount of cost involved at build time and I struggle to see what a patch panel would have brought to the equation?

overkill

222 posts

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#975380 27-Jan-2014 20:49

driller2000:
not a huge amount of cost involved at build time and I struggle to see what a patch panel would have brought to the equation?

It's really "horses for courses", some residential properties need to have a patch panel installed due to the amount of outlets that go back to the common location, some can just have a basic 4-6port PDL faceplate for data and a blank PDL faceplate with phone wires in behind. If you have a home that has a lot of "Cat" cable installed for Data, Phone, IR (control), Display (HDBaseT), IP Cameras etc, you can easily have 48 outlets before you know it, a patch panel just cleans all the cables up and becomes easier to work on once finished, imagine looking for the front door camera in a bunch of wires coiled up somewhere random. Put it all in a rack and it makes things even cleaner and easier to work on than just "on a shelf".

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spearsniper

133 posts

Master Geek

#975386 27-Jan-2014 21:15

I may have got carried away when we built the house, but there are 48 ports spread across the house. I have found the options of having all of these terminated at a patch panel liberating when I have been setting up AP's, connections to the TV, Tivo, PC's, controller for CNC machine etc.
Telephone distribution is a piece of cake, and the ability to use a POE switch and power the AP's is fantastic. Installing fibre would remove the ability of powering devices from the switch, so was never considered.
As a bonus, the LAN cabinet has room for my NAS, so that is neatly tucked away.
Would I do it again at a new house - YES.

sonyxperiageek

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#975401 27-Jan-2014 21:29

What home distribution boxes do you guys recommend that will have enough room to house:

a 24 patch panel
a 24 switch
modem
PoE injector
NAS
UPS
Telephone module
TV Splitter
and along the bottom a 6-way power point

Thanks.

Sony

driller2000

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#975428 27-Jan-2014 22:40

overkill:
driller2000:
not a huge amount of cost involved at build time and I struggle to see what a patch panel would have brought to the equation?
It's really "horses for courses", some residential properties need to have a patch panel installed due to the amount of outlets that go back to the common location, some can just have a basic 4-6port PDL faceplate for data and a blank PDL faceplate with phone wires in behind. If you have a home that has a lot of "Cat" cable installed for Data, Phone, IR (control), Display (HDBaseT), IP Cameras etc, you can easily have 48 outlets before you know it, a patch panel just cleans all the cables up and becomes easier to work on once finished, imagine looking for the front door camera in a bunch of wires coiled up somewhere random. Put it all in a rack and it makes things even cleaner and easier to work on than just "on a shelf".

fair enough - didn't have the dough or inclination to go into distributed video / full home automation / ip cameras etc on the build - but i understand some do : )

and with a tag like you have - your post makes even more sense :)

Zeon

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#975476 27-Jan-2014 23:46

sonyxperiageek: What home distribution boxes do you guys recommend that will have enough room to house:

a 24 patch panel
a 24 switch
modem
PoE injector
NAS
UPS
Telephone module
TV Splitter
and along the bottom a 6-way power point

Thanks.

You could get either 2 side by side and connect them together, I did this using plastic spouting pipe. Dynamix make 1 that is 1m high which could be an option too.

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Zeon

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#975477 27-Jan-2014 23:48

And as for picking a "winner" of wiring standards, Is it feasible to run conduit and raw wire or is it just taking too much out of the structural support of the house ? That would be the ultimate flexibility.

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spearsniper

133 posts

Master Geek

#975506 28-Jan-2014 07:20

The conduit will cost more per meter than the cable that will run inside it. Better just to run the cables, and put blank plates on the wall if you do not want to splash out for the RJ45 sockets.

overkill

222 posts

Master Geek

#975521 28-Jan-2014 08:03

sonyxperiageek: What home distribution boxes do you guys recommend that will have enough room to house:

a 24 patch panel
a 24 switch
modem
PoE injector
NAS
UPS
Telephone module
TV Splitter
and along the bottom a 6-way power point

Thanks.

You could look at going to a basic in-wall enclosure for your Coax and Phone cables (see first link) and then finish it off with a small wall mounted cabinet next door. You would be able to fit the 24 port switch (maybe look into a switch that has POE built in) into the cabinet with the NAS and UPS. I am a big fan of the cabinets, keeps everything tidy and gives a little room for upgrading.....like installing the Sky box in there and having that routed through the house and then using a "control system" for ease of use.

http://www.dynamix.co.nz/index.html?do=viewproduct&code=HWS-1403&ID=72057591

http://www.dynamix.co.nz/index.html?do=viewproduct&code=RWM12&ID=72057557

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Jase2985

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#976139 28-Jan-2014 19:12

those dynamix links dont work

andrewNZ

2487 posts

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#976149 28-Jan-2014 19:21

Jase2985: those dynamix links dont work

No they don't. It looks like it's hard to link products from them...

searching the codes gets you there though.
HWS-1403
RWM12

sonyxperiageek

2958 posts

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#976270 28-Jan-2014 21:44

Thanks for those links.

I think the white one will look nice on the wall, but is limited in features and size.
The black one may not look as appealing but does have additional features (like the tray which I can put the router on top etc.) and is slightly larger..

Decisions decisions! :) As of yet, the features (the black one) is slightly higher on my want list.

Sony

sonyxperiageek

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#976272 28-Jan-2014 21:48

By the way, for the black one, how do the fans work? I'm guessing they need additional power?

Sony

overkill

222 posts

Master Geek

#976277 28-Jan-2014 22:01

sonyxperiageek: By the way, for the black one, how do the fans work? I'm guessing they need additional power?

Yes they do need power, they are wired with a plug ready for connection to a power point.

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webwat

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#978474 1-Feb-2014 11:09

Buzz Bumble:
Zeon:
That's quite incorrect. CAT style cables will be the mainstay of home and office wiring for a long time yet.

More and more big companies, universities, etc. have been installing internal fibre networks for a while now. It's only a matter of time before it reaches smaller businesses and homes ... assuming of course it doesn't get over-taken by wireless connections in those places.

In networks where there are distances over 100m then yeah they need either fibre backbones (eg OM3) or fibre to the desk (SM fibre with very expensive lasers), and it will change back to copper before it gets to computer/device. Fibre is very expensive for short runs and doesn't support PoE or various analogue signals like phones, so these things are really aimed at corporate/campus environments.

"CAT" isn't a style anyway, but Cat.6A supports 10G ethernet over 100m which should meet average applications for many years to come, and in a home Cat6 cables will handle 10G over 30 to 50 metres if installed properly. So you just need to decide which cable to install, but most homes are only installing up to Gigabit speeds with no requirement for 10G.

I would expect a patch panel to be installed inside a cabinet that hides the whole thing, so I think you just need to decide if you want to do the job properly or do it as a temporary thing. If temporary then leave enough cable length for the next guy to install a cabinet later, and make sure each cable is labled with a number that matches a lable at the outlet (maybe put the lable inside the faceplate cover). Probably you would need a metre of cable at the patch panel, assuming the cabinet fits in the same place as the temporary dogs breakfast.

If you decide to do it properly from the beginning then it allows you to mount the various devices in a self contained space with its own power outlet and easily identified connections, where you can install other centralised equipment such as sound or network equipment. There is a quite nice Signet in-wall audio system that uses structured cabling too.

Time to find a new industry!

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