network cable question

I have a customer that wants his new building networked. He owns an electric company so he decided to pull the wire himself then let me install the wallplates, connectors, hubs, ect...
the problem is the way he pulled the wire. Instead of pulling a seperate wire to each receptacle, he looped the wire through each office. In each office there are three receptacles that are looped together (not the entire office). He wants me to install female rj45's on each receptacle, looping them together (they will all be on the same wire) Now there will only be one computer hooked up at a time per office. Is there a connector that will accommodate looping these or will this work at all. I told him no, but he insists that even if there is not a proper connector, that we can twist the wires together or solder them and tape them. I told him to pull a seperate cable for each box. Need some input....

Why in Gods name does he want it set up that way? Surley he is not trying to save some money on extra cableing.

i think he is an idiot....i told him i can buy 1000 feet of cat 5 for $60...and only have to pull 8 cables...i don't think its the money or time, i think he wants to prove that he can do it that way. so i told him that i would see if i can find some connectors that have 2 punch blocks on it. i have never seen such, but i have never looked for something like that. do they make connectors like that?

I know they make them for phone wiring but I'm not sure how well they would work for networking. Tell him that yes you COULD do it that way but that it will just lead to problems in the future. Pull the extra cabel because it is defintely worth it.

The only thing he'll be proving is how useless this type of connection will be once you want to expand that network.

And we're not even talking about points-of-failure and interference here.

I'm not even guessing at how the 500' max. length would be affected by this setup.

If I get this right, there will be more than 1 user on this cable at any given time? So he doesn't like efficiency OR speed, does he?

Soldering or taping... aaargh! Would he do the same to electrical wiring and still expect normal functionality?!?

Refuse to do it, you'll only get more s#^t from him when it doesn't work.

My dad believes that RJ45 is the only way to go. I keep telling him that I'll go over to his house and hook up some cat5 and a simple 4 port hub, but he refuses to let me. I guess some people just like to live in the past.

You can split the pairs at the wall jack using 4 wires for each jack, as 1,2,3,6 are the only four that are used in a 100base connection, you would have to keep track of the colors at the switch/hub end to get them punched down right. But, it will work, you will not, however be able to go to 1gb over copper in the future, because all 4 pairs are required for 1gb. For reference 1 and 2 are orange tip (striped) and orange ring (solid). And 3 and 6 are tip green and ring green. For the second jack just sub. the other pairs in place of these. This will of course only get you 2 drops per wire. hope this helps.

[quote]Originally posted by adept:
<strong>Soldering or taping... aaargh! Would he do the same to electrical wiring and still expect normal functionality?!?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Can you imagine having to solder those tiny little wires together? You couldn't pay me ENOUGH to do that!

If they can splice/repair fiber optic cable for a reasonable price, I don't thing splicing copper is anything out of the ordinary. I don't believe solder is used; typically it is bridged with a punch down component...

As far as what this guy is trying to do... I can't comprehend your explanation, what you are asking doesn't make much sense. The problem is that I can't seem to visualize the loop you are describing, and how it will be used. I can't help without a better explanation.

[quote]Originally posted by fathead:
<strong>i think he is an idiot....i told him i can buy 1000 feet of cat 5 for $60...and only have to pull 8 cables...i don't think its the money or time, i think he wants to prove that he can do it that way. so i told him that i would see if i can find some connectors that have 2 punch blocks on it. i have never seen such, but i have never looked for something like that. do they make connectors like that?</strong><hr></blockquote>


Something just came to mind. If this guy is an idiot, and really just wants to prove to you that something can be done despite your best judgment; then he should hire someone else--right after you walk out the door holding your middle finger high. Don't take that crap!

I think I understand what you mean - does what I've put below make any sense:

He has a building, say (for the minute) there is three rooms and, in each room there will be three CAT5(e) outlets.

Now, there is only one cable running into each room, and he wants three cat5(e) outlets hanging off one cable.

Is that right?

There is a possible way to do this, and that's to wire them in series using what we call in the UK a 'BT Tool'. Basically, what you do is run the cable to the first female socket and use the 'BT tool' to push the individual wires onto the recepticle, then you cut another length of cable, and match the wires up and push the second set on to the first socket, and the other end goes to the next socket... and so on - you could call it wiring in series I suppose.

This would look like the ascii art(?) below

Each '-' is one twisted pair, in reality you'd need to do the same for each individual wire but I'm not gonna use eight dashes :p

[code]
[ SOCKET 1 ] [ SOCKET 2 ]
-------------| | | | ------------------| | | |
---------------| | | --------------------| | |
-----------------| | ----------------------| |
-------------------| ------------------------|

</pre><hr></blockquote>

And so on, depending on how many outlets you need.

Now, if more than one PC is on this arrangement - it won't work so it sounds like it'll suit you down to the ground. A graphical rep would look something like this:

[code]
|========WALL================
|
----CAT5-----|-----[S]-------[S]-------[S]
|
|========WALL================
|
----CAT5-----|-----[S]-------[S]-------[S]
|
|========WALL================

</pre><hr></blockquote>

etcetera - you get the picture (I hope!) - if you hadn't guessed, [S] is a socket, '-' is the cable and '=' is the adjoining walls.

All you do then is simply hub-off the other ends of the cat5 (the ones above with CAT5 at the start) and plug a file server into the hub.

IMHO I'd prefer a switch cos it would run full speed for every cable instead of negating down to a fraction of the speed but that's just me though :) You can pick up unmanaged 8 port switches for a couple hundred quid (UK£)

If this isn't right, then I'm not sure what you meant! lol - sorry :D

Good Luck!
Dave

As an electrician he may have wired it that way because that is the way a electrician would normally run electrical wire for standard outlets in an office or home. Then when you point out that it is not right, rather than admit he is wrong, he says it will work so find a way to make it work. Sounds like people I have had to deal with too. Best to have it done right run new wires! Good luck.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stedlj

As an electrician he may have wired it that way because that is the way a electrician would normally run electrical wire for standard outlets in an office or home. Then when you point out that it is not right, rather than admit he is wrong, he says it will work so find a way to make it work. Sounds like people I have had to deal with too. Best to have it done right run new wires! Good luck.

---

Wow! You just brought to life a really old thread! Welcome to Windrivers!

Now, get your glasses fixed!… :p