HouseBot

sounds good. the leviton course will probably just tell you how to use their stuff and not much about how to pull wire. That will work though if that is the stuff you'd like to use.

So you dont think the certification will do much of anything for me?

I'd say no. I have been to stuff like that and it's pretty much a big sales pitch. It does help with ideas, but it is more or less a sales pitch.

Allright, so can you recommend a wiring box and which materials I should use?



I already have a box of about 800-850 ft of pvc cat5e. any reason not to use that?

I have used leviton, open house, channel plus, and on-q. I like on-q. I would run all the category5 into a network interface and run the video into a video interface module and patch to the desired services. Depending on how much wiring and what your putting into the panel, I would recommend a 28" panel.



As far as the wire goes, I would use multi colored wires for easy identification. For instance, I use white cat5 for data, grey cat5 or phones, and black and white rg6 for coax runs. I also use leviton's snap modular outlets and use color coded snap in modules to match the wire colors. This just makes configuring simple and fool proof. The wire will be the cheapest part of the job.



When you get into it remember you will also need to pull service entrances: phone, cable, and satellite tv to a southwest eve. I always put an antenna into the attic also.



If you tell me what you'd like to do as far as how many phone lines, dsl, or cable internet, sat or cable tv, I can put something together for you. My e-mail is [email protected] if you'd like to send me an e-mail.

Well just spoke to the buidler and he is giving me a weeks notice to go in and run the wires i need to. He seems pretty skeptical to let me run the cat5 on my own, but he doesnt really seem to know much about cat5 or network wiring.



Looks like i need to do some shopping for the wiring boxes and the like, thanks mangelsen for the links and time you took to help me.

If you're running it now, run Cat6 instead of Cat5e. It'll be more future-proof.

Whats the difference in expense, spending so much on the house I am on a fixed budget.

Not that big, but when I posted, I missed that you already had a bunch of cat 5 already. Forget I mentioned it.

good luck xport. remember not to kink the wire and don't pull too hard - it will affect the data transfer speeds. As far as the wire goes, cat5e is just fine. cat6 is better but all the residential applications as far as termination point and so on don't support it so you'd have to go commercial for the most part and it would get spendy.

Should I run cat6 or cat6e?

If you have a bunch of cat5e already, don't worry about it. If you are buying new cable, and don't have any already, go with cat6. It will work better with a gigabit network.



That said, a quick google search:



http://www.lanshack.com/cat5e-tutorial.asp



yielded a nice comparison, and do's&don'ts for you.



Take a look, it should help you make an informed decision.

Well I have some, but the price of that cat5e box is negligable if there is a clear advantage to running the cat6/6e

Oh damnit. The first time I read your post I saw "6 or 5e." Not "6 or 6e".



I gotta read slower. I don't know what the difference is really. I'd imagine that it is just manufatured to a higher standard.



You'd have to dig up some benchmarks to see if it really justifies the cost.



I've been told that the biggest advantage to 6 vs. 5e is it's bandwidth is better for gigabit ethernet. That's the extent of my knowledge on this subject.

5e is just fine if pulled correctly.