Solid versus stranded cat6 dilemma

B

Bviper

Weaksauce
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Oct 20, 2008
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Here's the situation, I'm moving into a new house (with FiOS yay!) and I want to wire the whole house with cat 6. I will be terminating to standard wall jacks, and a patch panel. Out of the 10 runs, only half of them are going to be high priority (actually operating at gigabit speeds)

Now comes the question, do I get the bulk pack of solid or stranded?

Stranded benefits:
Physically getting it down the walls is not a problem. I also will not be using the full 1,000 feet, so whatever extra I have I would like to use for patch cables.

Solid benefits:
I really want every drop of performance I can get out of the five drops. Plus trying to punch down stranded into a patch panel apparently isn't easy.



Any sage advice?



(before anyone suggests, two bulk packs are out of the question seeing as I'm not even going to use the full 1000 feet as it is)
 
i just recently (this month) wired my new house with solid cat6, i say go solid. was easy to work with, i made 4 runs totaling 13 cables from my rack through the house. was crazy easy to punch too.
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Yeah, you need to use solid for all your in wall runs. Virtually all punchdown blocks/wall jacks are made for solid cable, so you really have no choice. That and solid cable is a lot easier to pull anyway. Stranded is just too flimsy and like to twist up on itself. Also, if this will ever be inspected by an electrical inspector, getting cable that's in wall rated is a good idea. Usually the desciption will have something like CM/CMG rated. CMP rated works as well, but that's plenum rated and usually more expensive.

If you've got extra cable, just do multiple runs to each room. I ended up having 18 runs in my house: 2 to every room plus a couple extra to the office. Cable is cheap, and you never know when you might want that extra run.
 
stranded for patch cables, 110 punch downs are made for solid cable.
 
Solid cable for what you want to do with it... see if you can pick up a 500ft box instead of the 1000. Use the savings to pick up a 250ft box or roll of stranded for patch cables. Kill two birds with one stone. :)
 
Solid. Punching down stranded to a panel is mickey mouse.
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Sorry to dig up an old thread... but I've got a similar situation. Buying my first home in the next few days (waiting for that closing date!) and am already planning my home network needs.

The house has CATV and phone lines already run. I don't know who uses landlines anymore, but meh. I figure my idea is to use the existing, already-run coax and phone lines as my pulls to pull CAT6/string through. Then I'd use the string to re-pull the coax and phone line back through, thus, everywhere I had CATV and Phone will now have CATV/network and phone/network. Turns out it's easy to find RJ-11 and RJ-45 combo plates, but a little more difficult to find CATV/RJ-45 combo plates. Monoprice.com has the catv/rj45 plates but it's not a punch block connector, it's got a female plug like you'd plug a patch cable into it. From the above discussion, I probably want to run solid CAT6, but is terminating it with a clip gonna be a pain in the rear if I get cover plates like THESE?
Is it even possible to crimp on a connector with solid?

What have you all used for cover plates? Suggestions or tips on where to buy combo plates with coax/rj45 and rj11/rj45 that'll play well with the solid CAT6?

Pretty stoked about getting my own house and networking it the way I want! Now I just need to figure out if I want to spend the $300 for a Ceton card, and however much on used Xbox 360s as extenders...
 
I'd bet real money that you aren't going to be able to use the existing lines as pull strings. I bet they are stapled in place.

Those phone lines may be usable CAT5. You may be able to simple remove the existing termination and replace it with data punch downs.

Running lines in completed walls will require fish tape and poles.
 
I use Leviton QuickPort jacks and wallplates. Available in 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 ports for a single gang; voice, cat 5e, cat 6, coax, etc jacks in a variety of colors.
 
Shadowspawn said:
I'd bet real money that you aren't going to be able to use the existing lines as pull strings. I bet they are stapled in place.
Those phone lines may be usable CAT5. You may be able to simple remove the existing termination and replace it with data punch downs.
Running lines in completed walls will require fish tape and poles.
Click to expand...

Shoot... didn't think about that one. :rolleyes:
Guess we'll find out. If I have to run new cables, no big deal. Try running cables from basement to 2nd story in an 1888 farm house with multiple additions... my new house will be like shooting fish in a barrel... :D

I'll look into the Leviton even though I prefer not to use a modular type plate, they're usually more money. Thanks for the tip though, will look anyway!
 
Mike7143 said:
Is it even possible to crimp on a connector with solid?
Click to expand...
Yep

Make sure you buy the right connectors though. Some are designed for solid, some for stranded and a handful are apparently suitable for both. I have learnt the hard way that using the wrong connectors leads to very unreliable connections. Do not buy connectors from a source that doesn't explicitly say whether they are for solid cable, stranded cable or both.
 
Went and looked at the house again today during inspection. The phone lines he ran are CAT5. Now I just gotta run network for all the cable locations. Gonna be a lot easier than I thought. Do I run new CAT6 everywhere? Do I run CAT6 to the new locations only? Or do I stick with CAT5 on the new runs since there's already CAT5 going to the other rooms? All I plan on doing is running a Ceton InfiniTV card in my PC and streaming out to extenders. Probably have one in the movie room, one in the living room, and another in the bedroom. But could potentially end up having 2 more in the other 2 bedrooms and maybe 1 in the kitchen. Currently I can watch HD digital antenna shows perfectly fine from my tuner card to my 360 extender using CAT5. Suggestions?
 
I'm curious why you are insisting on using CAT6. Streaming video will not max out a 100mb connection and even if it did you can run gigabit over cat5. Cat6 is not a requirement.

Also, did you test the cat5 phone drops? They may not all be home runs back to the central box. It is pretty common to run a cable to drop 1, utilize two wires, then run the other 6 wires to drop 2, use the next pair, etc.
 
I wasn't insisting on using CAT6, just asking the opinion of if I already have to run network cable, do I continue using CAT5e, run new CAT6 resulting in a mix of 5e and 6 in the house, or just re-run all CAT6 if I already have to run cable anyway.

Yeah, the already-run CAT5e is just run through walls, the phone jacks aren't wired up, both ends are dead. I've been shopping monoprice and think I've got everything I need. Just gotta decide between a 1000' of CAT5e or CAT6.
 
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