Network grounding? Shielded Cat6A disscusso

[m1abram]

I mean cat6 and electric running parallel within 12" of each other (example: think of zip typing cat5 to electric). Crossing electric at 90 degrees isn't too bad, but running parallel within 12" is.

Bundling cat6 together with only 30 drops really isn't bad at all as long as everything is run correctly by spec in the rest of the house. its not like an enterprise where all 30 drops are running data traffic simultaneously all the time.

Oh, and for a 2 story, 3 bed home with office and 1 entertainment center, typically I do 26-28 drops.

2 in each bedroom (pc & stb)
2-4 to kitchen, depending if they have a TV in the kitchen (voip, spare, stb, spare)
6 in the office area (printer, wap, pc, voip, backup drive, spares)
8 to entertainment center (stb, tv, bluray, ps3, 360, network media player, spare, spare)
2 drops to central location in basement and upstairs for additional WAP's or other things.

I agree with most of your drop amounts except the entertainment center. That can be handled with a small switch. It is not like you will be saturating a single uplink since you will only be using 1 maybe 2 of those devices at once. And usually finding room for a small switch in an entertainment center is not tough. Plus you need a double gang wall plate just for the network drops, that is crazy.

 

[bds1904]

I agree with most of your drop amounts except the entertainment center. That can be handled with a small switch. It is not like you will be saturating a single uplink since you will only be using 1 maybe 2 of those devices at once. And usually finding room for a small switch in an entertainment center is not tough. Plus you need a double gang wall plate just for the network drops, that is crazy.

I see your point about a small switch, but I personally prefer to have 1 switch in the house unless I am exceeding 35 drops, for simplicity to the end user. Less crap to die. In the case that there are more than 35 drops, the drops are separated by floor to a "networking closet" with a switch on each floor. The exception is the office those drops go to the core switch.

For an entertainment center I typically put in a small, wall-mount patch panel, like this one. Mount it in the cabinet of the entertainment center and you are set.

If there isn't a cabinet invloved, I put in a double gang, low voltage box (open back) with this faceplate.

Line that faceplate up with the surround sound, the "to-tv" connections, RG-6 faceplate and 8 power outlets and you are set.

 

[mesyn191]

I mean cat6 and electric running parallel within 12" of each other (example: think of zip typing cat5 to electric). Crossing electric at 90 degrees isn't too bad, but running parallel within 12" is.

Yea I brain farted when I posted sorry. Some of the runs for my house go right next to mains for at least several feet in some places.

2 in each bedroom (pc & stb)
2-4 to kitchen, depending if they have a TV in the kitchen (voip, spare, stb, spare)
6 in the office area (printer, wap, pc, voip, backup drive, spares)
8 to entertainment center (stb, tv, bluray, ps3, 360, network media player, spare, spare)
2 drops to central location in basement and upstairs for additional WAP's or other things.

To me this seems like over kill and normally I don't mind some over kill. There are other quirks for my set up too though. I don't have a basement for instance and my wireless router can already get a good signal to all the devices I've used throughout the house so extra ports for multiple WAP's is a waste. There is no TV in the kitchen (pointless due to layout of home, I can see the huge TV in the living room already) and I don't use VOIP either.