[Leaplist] new office, existing cabling

[Randall Perry]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 12:58 PM, Kevin Korb <kmk at sanitarium.net> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Those are all good suggestions.
>
> Sky craft has a crimper/tester set for <$20 IIRC.  They are cheap tools
> but the price is right.
>
> If you decide to hire a company http://www.wiringtech.com/ is the best
> in town.
>
> Actually that is not a 'tester'.
It would just be a 'cable checker'. Those are typically $7
Those only check for continuity.
A step up is a tester that can check for reversed pairs. $35
Light years past that is an analyzer. $700-$5,000.
Mine was over $2,000 and runs embedded Linux.

I let some of my guys use a checker only for initial jack termination tests.
All cabling projects we use are through with the analyzer/TDR.
It checks for things like NeXT, Far end crosstalk, mismatched pairs, length
and can tell you where exactly the shorts or breaks are in the cable.
Buy a nice one, and it has hookups for speaker wire, coax and have multiple
ID'd ends to check multiple cables with.
It will then certify the cable to run at 10BaseT/100BaseT/Gigabit
speeds/VoIP.
For Fiber, I have used an OTDR (but I do not own an OTDR), or a palm meter
and light source.
Fun toys.

Keep in mind 80% of network problems are attributed to cabling (kinks,
termination, EMI, etc).

Funny thing, is I have seen companies larger than ours (that ONLY do
cabling), screw stuff up like green-horned college kids.
Most of them can't tell you how to AM test for simple EMI issues around
ballasts.

BTW, the CHEAPEST place you might find locally to get the tone and probe is
at a Harbor Freight.
They have a set for under $20.
I would not use it myself, but would buy one for a loaner (I actually buy
extra punch tools and checkers just to not loan out my prized tools).

-- 
Randall Perry
www.domain-logic.com
574.612.5893

It needs but one foe to breed a war, and those who have not swords can
still die upon them.
--- J. R. R. Tolkien

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.leap-cf.org/pipermail/leaplist/attachments/20090729/e1b19d4f/attachment.html