dd-1 panel and cat5 cable 1

[johnbear91]

I am working in a brand new house that has sat empty since being built 2 years ago, where every room has a outlet panel with a rj11 and an rj45 cat5 connector. The RJ11 is used for the phones in the house, as they all are run downstairs to the phone box. The RJ45's are all patched in all 8 wires to the wall socket, but in the basement they all terminate in a ETCON DD-1 panel. Every cable comes downstairs, has 4 of the wires punched into the panel, and the other 4 are wrapped back around the cable. The panel doesnt appear to be connected to anything else besides the 7 cat5 cables which run to the different rooms.

I have 2 questions. One is, what would this have been used for? The phone and intercom systems use their own wires.

Secondly, if I pull the wires off the dd-1 panel and cap the ends with cat5 ends, then plug them all into a router, could I use this wiring for a computer network?

I understand I might need to adjust the wiring when capping to be compatible with however they punched it in each room at the jack. Or I could just re-punch the jacks in the room to meet one of the standard cat5 configurations.

sorry I wrote so much, I am going back to the house in 2 days and wanted to make sure I at least know what to look for.

 

[franklin97355]

Don't "cap the ends" get a proper network panel or jacks for the panel you have and punch them down to jacks in the basement. Open one of the outlets and see how they are connected and if they are 568A or B do the same in the basement.

The answer is "42"

 

[edfair]

A google search indicates that it was a distribution panel for telephone using cat5. Using a patch panel as franklin suggests will allow you to use patch cables from the router and you will have a professional type network layout.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[wires]

The good news is that it appears that there are two cat5 cables going to each wall plate.

The bad news is that the person that did this work appears to not know what they were doing.

The ETCON DD-1 panel is a telephone distribution device. If the cat5 cables that are connected to the RJ45 jacks are connected to this device it would never work. The fix is fairly simple.

1. BE SURE what you are describing is correct. The DD-1 should be on the telephone cat5 cables, not the data cat5 cables.

2. BE SURE that the rj45 wall jacks are rated for data use. They should not have screw terminals! If they have screw terminals or are not cat5 or cat5e rated replace them. If they are data rated be sure they are consistently terminated in either a 568A or 568B pinout.

3. If all is good at the wall plate end get a patchpanel type device for the wiring closet end. Here is an example of a inexpensive product that will do the job:

https://www.tselectronic.com/openhouse/h628.html

You will save yourself a lot of time if things don't go right if you have some sort of a basic tester for wiremap. A wiremap tester will confirm that all the wires are connected in the same order on each end of a cable run. The inexpensive ones will not test for split pairs but at least you will be able to confirm continuity. Here is one such tester:

https://www.tselectronic.com/testum/tp500.html

I have seen other units on eBay for as little as $20.


Good lusk!

 

[johnbear91]

Thank you all for your help and support. As it turns out, there was actually an entire separate bundle of cat5 for the data still in the ceiling wrapped and pushed back. I apologize for not having any tools on me during the preliminary check of the house, or I could have seen that the wires on the dd-1 panel were live phone wires. The set of wires I thought were the phone wires were the security system not hooked up yet. What a difference some light bulbs make when surveying.

Thank you for the info on the punch panel, I am going to pick up a comparable model at frys later today and hook it up. The only place I've ever seen a punch down panel used with data is in a server room, so it never occurred to me to use one in a home. It does make sense to be able to make it easier to configure and move or upgrade at a later date if necessary.

once again thank you all for your help.

John