Optimize your cable runs at home! - Installing an exterior Cat 5e cable
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
2,594 words · ~12 min read
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if your house or your landlord's house isn't wired for networking there are a
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variety of ways to get an internet connection to the place where you need
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it power line Wi-Fi the problem with these Solutions is
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that they're just not as
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good as a good oldfashioned cat 5e the
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problem with a good old fashion cat 5e is that sometimes it is nearly
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impossible to get it from where your internet connection comes into the house
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and your network switches to where you want it to be without creating either a
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tripping Hazard or in my case a wife
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Hazard Corsair boasts unrivaled comfort
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and Universal compatibility on its void surround headset featuring a genuine
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Dolby 7.1 headphone USB ad adapter click on the link in the video description to
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learn more so the objective today is to
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run an Ethernet cable from my networking closet on the Second Story down to the
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first story where my media center and my TV are in order to eliminate the
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tripping and wife hazards though we're going to be taking it outside so to
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speak and running the Ethernet cable along the siding on the outside of the
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house however before you embark on a project like this there are some
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considerations number one is mapping out where exactly
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your entry and exit wounds are going to be and we'll show you some simple tricks
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for how to find exactly the right spots to drill the next one is figuring out
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how long your run needs to be to find a balance between the shortest possible
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run which is always good for Signal integrity and optimizing your Aesthetics
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as well as the durability of the cable if your run goes way across a very sunny
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south-facing path it might not last as long even if you're using a UV rated
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exterior cable we'll show you how to Anchor your cable to wood as well as
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brick or concrete and finally we'll show you how we're terminating the jacks on
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both sides so it not only works well but looks professional let's begin with a
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rundown of everything we're going to need for our job today first of all
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we've got 100 ft of cat 5e cable that we paid about 50 bucks for why did we pay
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that much I'm glad you asked it's because this is outdoor rated cat 5e
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which means that if it is in direct sunlight it's not going to pretty much
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immediately break down the way that an indoor cable would next we've got the
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wiring diagram for our Twisted pairs as well as some RJ45 connectors to
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terminate both ends of the cable we've got a crimper to make that whole thing
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happen and then when it comes to actually putting holes in the house to
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run the cables through we've got an
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impact drill with a couple of bits so the larger one here and this is a 38 in
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bit is going to be for the cable itself
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and then we've got ourselves a uh cocking gun you know what job is
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complete without the to make sure that the hole seals and doesn't actually
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leak water into the house which would be bad and then we have a second bit and
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this puppy is a 3/16 inch bit and this one is for the plastic inserts that
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we're going to use to run our cable straps so these are little Cable
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Management Ties on the brick and car Concrete where needed in order to make
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our run nice and clean now we've also got some regular wood screws here these
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are just some Robertson head wood screws as well as some more straps for where
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we're running the cable along the wood and finally we've got ourselves an
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electric screwdriver as well as one of
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these handy dandy little mounting plates
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for where we're going to put the jack that is going to come out of the wall
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the one thing we are missing because we need to do a run to the store is a
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female to female piece that goes on here where we
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can run our terminated Jack into the back of it and then we can plug our Jack
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into the other side and run it to the TV or a network switch or whatever else as
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we went along we realized there were a few more things we needed a measuring
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tape a marking pencil a drywall saw a
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hammer and of course safety glasses now
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we know that the downstairs connection needs to go through this wall but if we
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were to measure it from the outside it would be easy to overlook things like
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that my living room has a sunken floor and we could end up at completely the
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wrong height or the wrong distance away from the wall so to make sure that we're
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drilling at the correct height we actually need to take things inside for
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our measurements so from in here we can decide exactly where it is that we want
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our Jack to come out so I'm kind of thinking a little off to the left of
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this power outlet right about there so the first thing we need to know is is
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the height so we go okay a standard wall Jack has its bottom about 12 in off the
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floor well exactly 12 in off the floor in a perfect world so we're going to aim
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for about 14 in here so we go ahead and
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make a little Mark on our wall at 14 in
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then we find a landmark that is common to both the inside and the outside of
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the house so in our case we can use the bottom of the glass on this window and
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measure that to our 14in Mark so it looks like about 19 and2 in the next
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thing we need to know is the distance along the wall fortunately once again we
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have an easy Landmark because we can actually see the brick on the outside of
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the house which is what we'll have to measure from when we're out
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there so doing some somewhat approximate
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yes this isn't quite perfect but is good enough for our purposes eyeballing we
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can line up the edge of our measuring tape with that brick and then kind of go
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okay we need to go across about oh I
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don't know
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20 8 in so there you have it 19 1/2 down from
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the window 28 in over from the edge of the wall and we should pretty much hit
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that spot okay so now that we're out here we can see about 18 1/2 in down is
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right on this mortar line which is really handy cuz it means that as long
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as you've got brick or wood siding or something along those lines you can
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actually follow it along assuming that it is probably pretty
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level and then take your second
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measurement 28 in which and this is more
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good luck lands us right on this point right here so that means we can drill
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through mortar rather than the brick which is going to do less damage to the
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look of the wall and also has less of a chance of cracking something as you go
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through we can put our cable through and then run it right down here under this
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metal flashing and cable management along the concrete here at the
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bottom so then without further Ado we've
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got our drill set to the hammer drill setting bear in mind you don't
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necessarily have to have a big old rugged one like this a lot of just
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normal hand drills will have a hammer setting you can just check yours and
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it's Off to the
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Races actually our masonry bit didn't end up being long enough to punch
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through the plywood so we've got a spade bit here and while I could you know try
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to use my landm marking to make a hole on the other side exactly where this one
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is and if I measured perfectly that would work it's a little bit easier
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since I'm in here anyway to just punch through the drywall
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now and they'll know exactly where I made my hole from the outside so for the
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next step because we want a socket in there we're going to to expand the hole
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we made with a drywall saw to just the
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size of the perimeter of the inside of this wall plate then what we're going to
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do is screw the wall plate in which will make these little flanges here grip onto
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the drywall holding it into place this gives us somewhere to mount that plate
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that we're going to add later so with our hole complete we take one end of our
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Ethernet cable and run it through the hole pretty
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self-explanatory now you're going to want to leave yourself a little bit of
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extra cable in the wall because the next step crimping the end onto the cable is
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the most likely reason that your cable
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run might not end up working so you want to have enough extra that you can cut
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off what you did and redo it so here we
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are with the cable on the other side and this won't be by any means the world's
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most comprehensive how to terminate your own Ethernet cables guide but basically
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you strip the outer sheathing then because this is an outdoor cable there's
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going to be some goop in there don't worry about that you still as normal
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separate all your Twisted pairs align them in the correct order according to
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your diagram place them into the cutting tool on the crimper with the length such
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that you'll will have the outer sheathing sticking into the connector
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about this far then feed all the ends
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without any need to strip them insert the whole thing into the slotted part of
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the crimping tool crimp and remove it
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actually shouldn't take longer than a minute or so per end once you get the
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hang of it so the next step here is to break out that smaller masonry bit
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remember you won't need that if you're running along wood you can just use your
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screws and put them right into the siding for the cable straps but we're
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going to be using the masonry bit as well as our little plastic inserts to
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every 12 to 16 in or so Place one of our
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cable straps for a nice tight cable management line under the metal flashing
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so that it's not visible from a person's eye level then we're going to remove the
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down spout and run the cable up the corner where the down spout is making it
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other than the entry hole and a small
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hole up in the top of the sofit basically invisible someone up there oh
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hi ha well that worked out so now that
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we've got our wire in the wall we need to put some cocking in there to keep
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moisture from seeping in along the wire this will dry clear once we're done now
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if you were doing a project with a longer run it's possible that you would
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be stuck with more cable visible from the outside of the house but the limit
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is pretty much your own creativity here and the best practice is to generally
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speaking follow the lines of the house whether it's siding or whether it's a
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vertical you know end piece or finishing piece and keep it in Corners as much as
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possible okay oh
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so this is it home stretch we've got the
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wire out of the crawl space and all that's left to do is cut it to the
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appropriate length
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here there we go we're not going to
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bother with the you know nice wall mounted Jack or anything like that so I
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just got to crawl over here put it through that same hole that everything
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else is using you get this nice shot of my butt in the meantime I got it
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brunning so I got to pull this baby out here
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terminate it and that's it that's the
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Run that's running an Ethernet cable on
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the outside of the house for a not only tier
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but crazy shorter run it turns out
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depending on where it is you're trying to get from and where it is you're
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