Got free 10Gig fiber cables, any way to use them cheap?

D

Daemonfly

n00b
Joined
Nov 2, 2011
Messages
8
I need to rewire my house, and was going to run Cat6 or so along with everything else. Work was tossing a couple hundred feet of free 10Gig fiber cables (LC 50/125) which I then rescued. Of course, I then realized the price point for 10Gig hardware was well outside being commonly acceptable for home use. The guy who pulled them said they should still be good, as they pulled carefully & were set aside as spares for a while.

I'm not too familiar with the fiber side of things yet, so is there any cheaper way to put these to use, or should I just pop these up on Craigslist or Ebay?
 
Fiber is cheap. Where you run into the expense is terminating it and the optical modules for your gear ie sfp, xfp, gbic ... etc. If you have a bundle of least 4 fibers, don't waste your time if bundle is smaller, it certainly can't hurt to pull it and leave it unterminated until you need it, but:

1. It should be in conduit.
2. Pull it using the the kevlar or nylon ripcord in the fiber bundle not the actual cable otherwise you'll likely break the glass making it useless.
3. This applies to all cable but especially fiber ... DO NOT exceed the bend radius.

In the end you'll likely never use it but as long as you're not spending money and have the opportunity it doesn't hurt.
 
Honestly, I would unload them if you can get something for them, unless you have an enormous house; fiber is just not economical unless you need it for length or electrical isolation. Twisted pair Ethernet speeds are quoted at 100 meters (330 feet), which is going to be hard to hit in most houses. 10GBase-T (cat 6a required for runs up to the max length) is starting to become available, 10GBase-T cards on newegg are cheaper than a transceiver based card plus a transceiver; in another year or two they might be at realistic prices for home use.

Also, when you say you're running Cat6 along with everything else, you do plan to separate the Ethernet from the power right? (I assume so, just ambiguity in English with 'along')
 
Thanks for the replies. I'll probably keep some and see if I can get anything for the rest (most are quite long). I may be able to pick up something later on when I eventually build my lab. Sadly my newer employer leases most of their hardware, so not much opportunity to acquire retired pieces there :(


As for running the cat6, yes that would be separate. Old 2-story house: uninsulated, knob & tube, plaster & lathe... Just going to completely rewire everything (power, then network & a/v in conduit) at the same time. Luckily I should be able to do mostly straight & easy conduit runs, as I have full basement and attic.
 
valve1138 said:
Ue them for 1Gig, fiber is fiber.
Click to expand...

Almost true... singlemode vs multimode :)

But yeah a multimode fiber certified for 10Gbit will work fine for 1Gbit and 100Mbit aswell. The certification has to do with how clean the multimode fiber is.

Singlemode on the other hand doesnt have these problems.
 
Blitzrommel said:
I'm trying to wire between 3 stories in my own place, I totally understand :)
Click to expand...

I've wired some very large 3 floor homes before, and what I always recommend is having 1 switch per floor, the main switch on floor 2 (in the middle) and running a 2-4gbps trunk between the switches on floor 1&2 and floor 3&2. CAT6 coming from NID into this room, as well as all the coax & cat5 phone drops also.

From there, all the drops go to the switch that is on that floor. Keeps cables neat and simple. Minimizes the difficulty of running cable between floors, as well as significantly reduces the PITA fire codes for cables running between floors that some parts of the country have. It also significantly reduces the physical length of the cable.

Of course I'm talking WAY overkill for most people, but there are those out there that want 2-4 network drops at each cable outlet, as well as minimum 2 network drops per room. The last house I wired like that was about 18,000 square ft and had over 150 CAT6 runs.
 
I may just run some of the fiber at least for the drop from an attic switch to basement, even if I don't use it right now. Services come into basement, and I figure it would be easiest to run straight to attic floor & distribute from there. Attic is full size, semi-finished, i.e. insulated roof, uninsulated floor. Main PCs & perhaps lab would be on 2nd floor, HTPC on 1st, and servers in basement. I'll have to check codes, but I believe I can run conduit straight up the void between walls & chimney (old brick water heater/furnace exhaust only, no fireplace).

I have everything for the Cat6 setup, aside from a spool of cable. (although I have a spool of really old Cat5 I can use up for phone)
vs.
I have nothing for the fiber setup aside from a load of cable.

From the label numbers, it looks like the cables are the LC-LC 50/125 multimode single-body ones offered here (top-middle pic): http://www.centricsolutions.com/fibcable_single_body_patch_cords.html
 
Well if u can source cheap 1gbit fiber stuff then the absolute best of the best cabling is fiber because it has ZERO interference from radiation and it has ZERO chance of being snooped on by illegal means such as recording the electrical pulses running down the wire with special devices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top