Modular patch cables vs.110block to modular plug

[daronwilson]

Greetings,

I remember YEARS ago a customer requiring me to terminate the data on 110 blocks in the equipment room, and then use those patch cables that have a modular plug on one end and a plastic fixture on the other end that pushed into place on the 110 block. They were a little unstable, but once in place seemed to work. I've not used the product for probably 8 years or so.

I currently have one customer who insists they are the cat's meow. I find that they are still available, more expensive, and much harder to find and I can't find any reason to use this system as opposed to the patch panel with modular jacks.

Ideas? Reasons? Others using this system?

thanks,

Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron at wilson dot org

 

[jerryreeve]

You might find that they do not adhere to cat5e standards and if the customer uses them you probably want to test thru this hookup and verify that the end-to-end hookup works and tests out.

I use something similar for many voice applications that are temporary. If your customer wants ease of access to the cable terminations (vs the termination on the back of the patch panel) Thew Siemon S110 cat5 jack panel might be the ticket, it works like a patch panel and like a 110 block at the same time. removes the "plastic fixture" from your picture.



If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.

JerryReeve
Communications Systems Int'l
com-sys.com

 

[ttech]

ICC still makes those 110-RJ45 cables and they are marketed as cat 5 cables not 5e or 6

http://www.icc.com/ICPCSA03BL.asp

Don

 

[Kwick18]

http://www.systimax.com/products/visipatch/

 

[wires]

I just re-terminated all the wall jacks on a 200+ cable installation and used 110 patch plugs on the wiring closet end. 110 patch plugs work great!!!

The installation was fairly old and in addition to having DEC serial jacks the LAN terminations were non-standard. The original installer saw that 10baseT only used two pairs so they used orange on pins 4&5 and green on pins 1&6. However they did a fine job on the 110 blocks in the closet.

I replaced all the wall jacks with Panduit and used Siemon S110P4 connectors in the wiring closet. All but two of the LAN jacks passed cat5e tests on an OmniScanner. To get the wire lengths correct in the closet I got fairly long (14') patch cords which I cut and field terminated with the S110P4 connectors. I got two 8P8C (RJ45) to S110 patch cords from each cable.

Here is a link to the current Siemon S110P4 product:

http://www.siemon.com/e-catalog/products/S110_Patch_Plugs.asp

Graybar should have them for around $3-4 each.

I tend to use quite a few of these especially in any homes I wire. In my standard home jack there are 2 cat5e and 1 RG6. In the closet all the cat5e cables terminate to 110 blocks. Not using modular jacks keeps costs down both in materials and installation time. Additionally this allows the individual cable pairs to be used for any purpose without making all sorts of weird breakout cables.

I hardwire the LAN jacks to the router that we know are going to be used and I leave a couple of S110P4->8P8C patch cables for the homeowner. This way they can make any LAN jack in the house active.

I find it usefull to run two different colors (grey & white) of cat5 in these installations for ease in termination. I terminate all the gray cables to one set of 110 blocks and all the white cables to another set. The white cables are usually used for telephone and the gray for LAN or IR.

 

[Jtodd]

Daron,

We've got a few buildings here on campus that use this method (no new ones once I got in on the planning!). But I would make the case that to use or not to use 110 wall mounts for data is not a technical issue but a practical issue. All the major manufactures have both Cat5e and Cat6 (albeit in varring custom set-ups) compliant 110 style termination fields. I've tested Cat5e versions with no problems, and am aware of a contractor who has installed several Cat6 with out issue either.
The problems arise mostly with patch cord management. If you look at where a rack should be installed in a properlly sized Telecom room, you're going to need 10-15' patch cords (we even used some 18 footers). The other issue we ran into was side rails for the cable tray, which are absolutely neccessary if you are not directly under the portion of the cable tray, and if you have a large number or patches to do. Lastly, unless you label both ends of the patch cord, tracing them out is a royal pain in the a$$!! Even with a step ladder to reach the tray.

Having said that, I have looked at the Systimax Visipatch, and it looks very compeling, particularly if you are useing a cross-connect set up for network electronics (as opposed to an inner-connect). Especially since they can be rack mounted anyway.

I suggestion is to not put data on wall mounted 110 blocks. I'm even cosidering moving voice off the wall as well in anticipation of VoIP...but that's another discussion.


Justin T. Clausen
Physical Layer Implementation
California State University, Monterey Bay

 

[daronwilson]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I don't do these installations, haven't had a request for one in a long time, just had one customer who was doing it and swore it was much better.

I found an AMP Netconnect white paper comparing the technical aspects as well as cost for the two systems, their summary was that the modular patch panel solution was much more reliable and less expensive than the 110 block and special patch cable solution.

thanks,

Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron at wilson dot org

 

[Jtodd]

Was that white paper on the AMP website? I'd like to read that one.

Thanks.

JT

Justin T. Clausen
Physical Layer Implementation
California State University, Monterey Bay

 

[daronwilson]

I've got it in pdf from somewhere, email me and I'll send you a copy.

thanks,

Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron at wilson dot org