Do It Yourself LAN Drops

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Carlosinfl

Loves the juice
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Sep 25, 2002
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Anyone have any recommended electrical boxes to use when doing your own LAN drops at home or in the office? I went to Home Deport and they have a very thin metal one that requires me to bend the tabs back behind the wall to hold it flush which never looks professional in my opinion. I see some that are plastic / heavy duty material and have clamps that hold them into the base of the dry wall. Does anyone recommend or know where I can find them online?
 
I buy mine form a local electricians supply store. I believe they are made by Erico/Caddy

They look like this

I hate the metal ones, and these are the best plastic ones I've used, quite sturdy, and when you go to install them, place them backwards on the wall and push a little, and it has 4 little bumps that give you a guide on where to cut with a drywall saw for a perfect square opening.

BTW: google "MP1P bracket", guess that's the actual model number.

found them on flebay: Here
 
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the thin metal boxes that you were referring to work great, very simple to install and once you have a faceplate on it you don't notice the difference, they also allow you to install them wherever and not have to mount the box to a stud in the wall.
 
Home depot and Lowes both sell these plastic boxes with the tabs


The thin metal one with the bended tabs is garbage IMO.
 
What you want is old work boxes, and you can get them in a heavy plastic or a light plastic. But the home depot and lowes both carry them. They are the ones with the screws that tighten up a plastic tab on the back of them and sandwich the drywall between the tabs and the front of the box. I personally like the heavy duty ones but they are a little extra. They are also the same ones that you will find at mom and pop hardware store also.
 
BootSector said:
I've used a couple of these for retrofitting some network drops into a wall.
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=256501-60784-F9060-01-V9&lpage=none
Click to expand...

Those are actually very nice as they don't require the wall to be as deep...

Anyone know if there is any problem with running the Cat5e runs along side the coaxial cable line for TV? Should I cut a different hole in the dry wall for the Cat5e or can I simply run the runs along side the coaxial cable behind the dry wall and not have any degradation in quality?
 
should not be a problem just get the face plates that accept keystones. Great place to get them is monoprice.
 
Honestly, all of our wiring guys use the plastic ones with tabs. They have a specific name, but i can't think of it off the top of my head.

I'm using them in my house.

IIRC, They are called "Cut In Work Boxes", you can get them in almost any size. (Single, Double, Triple and up). I got mine at Ace Hardware.
 
I use the Caddy MPLS. I don't mind the fact that they are metal.
I've also used the Arlington LV1 which is plastic.
 
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