Hi Folks,

 

Over the coming months I will be renovating my parents house, basically putting another level on top so they can live upstairs and my family(myself, wife, 2 kids) will be downstairs.

 

The house will end up as follows,

 

Bedrooms x 5

Living/TV areas x 3

Office x 1

Seperate flat in backyard x 1 (hoping this will become home theatre room )

Shed in backyard(attached to flat) x 1

 

Would like to use shielded Cat6 cable, so my thinking is from the office have a 24 port switch and patch panel(if necessary?) and run the following:

 

2 cables to each bedroom

4 cables to each of the living/tv areas

4 cables to flat

2 cables to shed

 

This would basically mean(instead of running just one cable to each location) I wouldn't have to have another switch and associated power supply at each location, and potentially minimizing routing conflicts etc.

 

I will also be running quad shielded RG6 coax(for FTA TV) to each location, more than likely from a central location like the office, and use a splitter to fan it out to each room.

 

Eg bedrooms/shed: 1 cable for TV, 1 cable for media player or htpc or pc

 

TV/living areas: 1 cable to each of the following- TV,PS3,htpc,amplifier

 

I will need to buy the following,

 

Cable, can purchase in Aus for A$200 for 300m(1000ft) or the US,  http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?spcDB=10234&spcWord=Cat+6+Network+Cables+-+1000ft+Bulk+Cable&keyword=cat6 but not sure if that would be legal, am sure it would have to meet some Australian standard.

 

Switch, think the HP 1410-24G will be sufficient for my needs, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833316226

 

Patch panel, http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=105&cp_id=10514&cs_id=1051401&p_id=7253&seq=1&format=2

 

Cables( for between the switch, patch panel, wall socket and component( could get cable installer to custom make? expensive option I think)

 

Wall plates and accessories, looking for good suppliers?

 

I already have,

 

FRITZBox 7390 ADSL2+ Wireless Modem Router, http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=200_1296&products_id=17317

 

Unraid server, of course! see sig below

 

Desktop, various old laptops, WD TVLive, PS3.

 

I can purchase items in the US(as I go there often) so long as they are multi-voltage, or compatible, the switch is I believe, not sure how the warranty would work though, will have to look into that.

 

I need to be able to do the following,

 

Access the internet from all locations, stream Bluray rips(some 3D), DVD rips, music(flac. mp3) to media players, htpc''s, PS3.

 

Thoughts, experience?

 

What would you do?

 

Cheers, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It may be worthwhile to add an extra cable to each location for phones. Better off running all cables in one go while your renovating.

 

A patch pannel is essential in this scenario to avoid a cabling nightmare.

 

I assume your getting an approved cableer to do the work. The Australian communications authority is anal about comms cabling.

 

Options for wholesale suppliers include:

- www.rexel.com.au

- www.idealelectrical.com

- www.middys.com.au

 

Amongst many others...

 

Thanks for the links,

 

Re phones, if I have the home phone base station in the office and use wireless handsets, I dont need cable for phones to each location, right?

 

What advantages does having the extra phone cable have? flexability of phone base station is about the only thing I can think of, however we will be using VOIP, so the base station needs to be near the router/modem no?

 

Have a mate who is a cable installer, just haven't asked him if he's interested yet.

 

ta

Sounds like a great idea. I would get the electrician doing the work to quote running the cat xable while he/she is there. Not sure how it is in Australia but in canada they usually do it for a resonable additional fee.

 

Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk 2

Also. Id run all the cable to a central space in the basement rather than office (unless office is in the basement)  easier to hide the patch pannel etc.

 

Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk 2

Re phones, if I have the home phone base station in the office and use wireless handsets, I dont need cable for phones to each location, right?

 

What advantages does having the extra phone cable have? flexability of phone base station is about the only thing I can think of, however we will be using VOIP, so the base station needs to be near the router/modem no?

 

If using wireless VoIP handsets throughout your large (?) property I suspect you may need either multiple wireless relays or multiple wired access points which will need a nearby network socket.

Couple thoughts:

 

1. I would use CAT 6a as it is rated for longer distances for 10gbe

2. HP has a POE powered 8 port gigabit switch, put one of those in the outside flat and have a POE switch or POE power injector in the house and you don't need a power supply on the one in the flat.

3. Run twice as many cables as you forsee needing, including running two coax.  Chances are that eventually either you will need more or one will go bad.

4. Consider having a couple network cables ran for WAP's in central locations.

5. Crimping network cables is not too hard to learn to do (as long as you are not colorblind)

I would run conduit to each location back to a central closet.  That way you can upgrade/replace cabling as necessary.

Re phones, if I have the home phone base station in the office and use wireless handsets, I dont need cable for phones to each location, right?

 

What advantages does having the extra phone cable have? flexability of phone base station is about the only thing I can think of, however we will be using VOIP, so the base station needs to be near the router/modem no?

 

If using wireless VoIP handsets throughout your large (?) property I suspect you may need either multiple wireless relays or multiple wired access points which will need a nearby network socket.

 

My phone is similar to this, http://panasonic.com.au/Products/Cordless+phones/DECT/KX-TG6563ALT/Overview

 

It plugs into my Fritxbox which gives me this, http://www.internode.on.net/residential/phone_and_voip/nodephone_voip/

 

This is why I dont think I need phone cabling to all rooms, I currently live in a 2 story townhouse now, works great, I can actually walk about 50m down the road, still works!

 

Keep the advice coming though.

 

cheers

I would run conduit to each location back to a central closet.  That way you can upgrade/replace cabling as necessary.

 

^^^This - If you can run conduit then your cabling is always upgradeable.

Like mentioned if you are doing an outside run I would go with conduit vs direct bury cable. You can always upgrade opposed to digging it up later. Here in the US conduit is pretty cheap. Of course we are talking low voltage so it should really cheap.

 

I would make sure you have all conduits with at a minimum a pull string secured at both ends so you can easily pull wire if you don't fill it up front. Where I work we have put in miles of underground conduits and vaults for future fiber and luckly we have always insisted on at a minimum a few pull strings in each conduit for a pull and future pulls.

 

Sure a house is a lot smaller project, but a pull string, which is cheap will save you work if/when you have to use it.

Any recommendations on a appropriate switch?  Minimum 28 ports if I'm to go with the number of cables from my OP, so I'm guessing a 48 port. 

HP 1910-48G

HP 1910-48G

 

Thanks Brian, do you have one of these? If so, hows the noise level? It will be in my home office dont forget.

 

Do you think it would be overkill for my needs?

 

Cant seem to find any quality fanless 48 port models.

 

This one below seems to be up my alley, but only 24 port, can you just daisy chain them together? might actually work better, one for upstairs, one for downstairs,

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=33-316-158&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo

 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

I would run conduit to each location back to a central closet.  That way you can upgrade/replace cabling as necessary.

 

I would also recommend you do somthing like this.

I do not, but it is a common model for webhosting providers to use.  48 active ports is a lot for a house.

 

Yes, you can hook one switch to another switch.

 

 

This one below seems to be up my alley, but only 24 port, can you just daisy chain them together? might actually work better, one for upstairs, one for downstairs,

Yes, they can be daisy-chained.

 

Personally, I'd use inexpensive 8 port switches.  You'll wince less when one suffers from an outage  (the rest of your LAN will still be functional), they will be a fraction of the price, and other than having to mount them differently, you'll probably use way less power, and can expand as needed.

 

the router can feed the first switch, and it can feed two or three others.  You'll have 5 ports free on the first switch and 7 free on each of the others.  19 wired ports in a single house is probably going to handle your needs for a long time (one third the connections to my home LAN are wireless) AND by the time you outgrow them, lan speeds might have increased to where your old 48 port would be obsolete.  (I think I've got a wonderful 24 port 10 Mb/s switch downstairs... nearly useless, and definitely obsolete)

 

I consider my home a bit more wired than most... I have three 8 port 1000Mb/s switches plus a 5 port 100Mb/s switch on one LAN and another 8 port switch on an entirely separate LAN feeding AT&T U-verse set-top-boxes for IP-TV.  The switches are located one per floor, and the 5 port on the back of my theater equipment rack.  (nothing there needs 1000Mb/s, so I'm using an old cast-off 100Mb/s switch there)

 

Looking at my main router it is currently showing 14 DHCP clients.  There are 4 additional devices that have static IP addresses  (two unRAID servers, printers).

 

There are 7 wireless devices... connected via one of two different access points. (one on the router connected to the cable-modem, the other on the router connected to at&t U-Verse.)  I expect, over time, the number of wireless devices to increase.

 

I guess my point is nothing you install today is likely to be correct at some point in the future.  (And that time may not be that far off)  When I upgraded to 1000Mb/s, I did it first on the PCs that had1000MB/s network interfaces.  The remainder worked fine at 100Mb/s.  (and some still do, as several media players only have 100Mb/s network interfaces)

 

Joe L.

This one below seems to be up my alley, but only 24 port, can you just daisy chain them together? might actually work better, one for upstairs, one for downstairs,

Yes, they can be daisy-chained.

 

Personally, I'd use inexpensive 8 port switches.  You'll wince less when one suffers from an outage  (the rest of your LAN will still be functional), they will be a fraction of the price, and other than having to mount them differently, you'll probably use way less power, and can expand as needed.

 

the router can feed the first switch, and it can feed two or three others.  You'll have 5 ports free on the first switch and 7 free on each of the others.  19 wired ports in a single house is probably going to handle your needs for a long time (one third the connections to my home LAN are wireless) AND by the time you outgrow them, lan speeds might have increased to where your old 48 port would be obsolete.  (I think I've got a wonderful 24 port 10 Mb/s switch downstairs... nearly useless, and definitely obsolete)

 

I consider my home a bit more wired than most... I have three 8 port 1000Mb/s switches plus a 5 port 100Mb/s switch on one LAN and another 8 port switch on an entirely separate LAN feeding AT&T U-verse set-top-boxes for IP-TV.  The switches are located one per floor, and the 5 port on the back of my theater equipment rack.  (nothing there needs 1000Mb/s, so I'm using an old cast-off 100Mb/s switch there)

 

Looking at my main router it is currently showing 14 DHCP clients.  There are 4 additional devices that have static IP addresses  (two unRAID servers, printers).

 

There are 7 wireless devices... connected via one of two different access points. (one on the router connected to the cable-modem, the other on the router connected to at&t U-Verse.)  I expect, over time, the number of wireless devices to increase.

 

I guess my point is nothing you install today is likely to be correct at some point in the future.  (And that time may not be that far off)  When I upgraded to 1000Mb/s, I did it first on the PCs that had1000MB/s network interfaces.  The remainder worked fine at 100Mb/s.  (and some still do, as several media players only have 100Mb/s network interfaces)

 

Joe L.

 

Thanks Joe, I hate wincing

 

Couple of these maybe?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251

Couple of these maybe?

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251

it would work perfectly fine.  Metal case, apparently does not run hot (does not waste power as heat) and fast.  Can't ask for much more.  Two or three would be far less than a 24 port router.  (And, as I mentioned earlier, if one should die, you can swap them around as needed to keep most of your LAN operational)

 

As alternatives... (these switches are mostly commodity items, so just going by what is on sale. i did not look in depth at the reviews of each, but for the most part, they should be about the same.  Do your own homework for specific  models and user-reviews.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704042 - 5 port - $19.99, free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156259 - 5 port (green) $25.99 free shipping

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704043 - 8 port $29.99, free shipping

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166062 - 8 port (green) $29.99 + $4.95 shipping

 

 

As BrianGP said, I would run more than what I need. The pull-string method works fine, but make sure your conduit is big enough for what you running, and atleast 1/4 empty after all the wires are run, preferrably 1/2 empty. A buddy of mine ran conduit to his garage/theatre room/man cave, and ran a pull string in it, but after the 2 runs he initially made, when he went to pull a third run a couple years later, he didn't have enough room to fit the wire.

 

When wiring, always think of the future. I've been caught with my pants down so to speak a couple times, and its always annoying knowing you could have avoided the circumstance with a little forethought.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL072412&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL072412-_-EMC-072412-Index-_-Switches-_-33156251-L013C

 

Just ordered 4!

 

These are $77 in Aus, even after buying another power supply they will be more than half price.

 

These should do the trick,

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/350581611141?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649#ht_1552wt_1396

 

or this one as the specs on the Aussie Trendnet site say 7.5V DC,

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/power-supply-ac-dc-adapter-output-7-5V-1A-1000aM-au-/230828372974?pt=AU_CablesConnectors&hash=item35be7173ee#ht_3013wt_1396

 

Actually if someone who has one could tell me pin size that would be great!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL072412&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL072412-_-EMC-072412-Index-_-Switches-_-33156251-L013C

 

 

Thanks for the heads up on this!  I just ordered four myself.  Lightning hit close to my house a couple of months ago and I lost ports on every switch in my house, except my ProCurves.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156251&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL072412&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL072412-_-EMC-072412-Index-_-Switches-_-33156251-L013C

 

 

Thanks for the heads up on this!  I just ordered four myself.  Lightning hit close to my house a couple of months ago and I lost ports on every switch in my house, except my ProCurves.

 

No worries, I figured use 3 to start and 1 for a spare, you'll more than likely have them set-up before me, if you wouldn't mind letting me know the pin size of the power plug, I'd appreciate that, as I will have to get new ones.