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Structured Cable (Premise Wiring) Testing...

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IT Pro

Programmer
Aug 5, 2020
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US
Although my job as a consultant is mostly programming, I've done a dozen or so premise wiring projects and UNIFI installs and have a few pending... Anyway, I now feel the need to be able to test and troubleshoot premise wiring. If you were paying for it, I'd own a $23,000 Fluke test kit for copper and fiber. Yet, back to reality. I'm only working with copper at the moment (Cat 6 & Cat 6A) with mostly Gigabit needs, although I'll need to support about 4 drops of 10G ethernet later this year. So, what test equipment do you own and that you fine indispensable? My needs include: mapping the drops, POE verification and testing, verifying that the pairs have continuity, any break in a conductor should be identifiable based on the length of the cable before the short or open...

So, what's in your bag?

Thanks!
 
To start just get a 4 pair continuity tester for about $40 bucks. This will tell you 99% of what you need to know. If all your pairs are showing good you should assume you have POE or it's a switch issue. Or in case of unifi your AP will light up. No need to spend $20,000.00. Make some money with your continuity tester then save up for bigger toys. That's just my 20 years of experience and a cheap opinion haha

Clint


 
In the good to know information column - Before Avaya sold their cabling line to Commscope the only certification testing they required was a valid wiremap for whatever EIA/TIA standard you were using. They considered the Systimax line to be so good it could overcome most cablers mistakes as long as the wires were connected to the right spots.

I'm on Resintel's side. Get a good durable device like linked to and if you actually have a need to "certify" a cable rent that tester.
 
Didn't Lucent and later Avaya require installers attend classes and become certified if installations were to be covered by a warranty? [ponder]

I [love2] "FEATURE 00
 
Yes and no. They couldn't "require" that if they were selling the cable to all comers at Graybar. But they did push a "Certified Installers" program that was quite the BS class your technicians had to attend.
 
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