Thanks for pointing out that 110 block is smaller than a 66 block.
Actually, I choose 110 block instead of a 66 block not for its smaller size. My reasons are:
- I don't want to buy a 66 punch down tool when I have already had a
110 punch down tool that I use for home networking.
- The 110 block kit comes with all the other accessories that I need. The
66 block only comes with the block itself. And they are the same price (actually 110 block kit is slightly cheaper).
- Leviton.com suggest people to use 110 block instead of 66 block (Funny thing is that I could not find their excellent installation instruction of their 110 block from their search tool; I ended up need to find it indirectly from a third party web site).
In fact, a big 66 block probably is easier for our eyes than a small
I'd use good 'ol twist-n-solder with heatshrink tubing over the splice. Excellent connectivity, you can maintain the twisted-pair turns, water resistant, low bulk, nice looking, cheap....
Thanks for pointing out one of the alternative of connecting two sections of phone lines together.
I probably will not do this though because there are too many wires involved to solder together. But I have a feeling that this can be a good choice if I need to connect two sections of audio cables together (two wires involved).
I thought you said 5 lines (that's a total of 10 wires). Or if I interpret your original post very carefully I see where one 'line' may have four wires (of which 2 are used, right?).
Anyway, 10, 12, or a few more connections is a quick job with a soldering pencil. Quicker for sure than the amount of time collectively spent on this post.
Upon a second reading of your original post it appears that you may have only one or two phone lines coming in to your house. Is that right? If so, you can terminate the five 'home run' circuits together with any simple junction bos (you might even use one with an RJ-11 connector on it like this) and then run just one pair (two pair if you have a second line) to the telco demarc point.
Actually, your twist-and-solder approach seems to be very good. Better than the plug-and-jack approach that I was thinking of doing. I thought there were many wires involved. But when I think about this, there are only 4 wires per cable, not that many wires to deal with after all. Moreover, the heat-shrink-tubs are very inexpensive. I will try this approach in this weekend. Thanks for the suggestion.
I don't want to home run all the cables to one block and then extend one cable from the block. I don't want to do this. The reason is that I need the flexibilty of easily assigning the dedicated DSL line to any one of the phone outlet. If I grouped the cables from all the outlets together, this would become all-or-nothing. I may move the computer into the basement, or I may decide to leave the computer in the master bed-room, and I need the DSL line to go with the computer (and I only have one computer for now). Therefore, I need the flexibility to mix-and-match the DSL line to any one of the outlet.
The telephone company has already installed a DSL-splitter that splits one incoming phone line into a line for DSL and another line for all the analog phones. Then I don't need to use filter on those analog phones. Is this what you are referring to?
Is it like an one-to-two adapter that we can use to plug the DSL modem in one jack and a regular phone in another jack in the adapter? In where I am going to put my computer, I have already had a phone jack for DSL and another phone jack for analog phone; therefore, I don't need an one-to-two adapter. However, if I later on decide to move my computer elsewhere, I may need that adapter because I only have one phone jack in all the other locations in my house. Thanks for pointing this out.
I only have one land line (with 2 physical wires inside the cable). Therefore, this will apply if I decide to move my computer to a different location.
Yes... Most of the wireing i've seen for phone stuff has two pair. (4 wires red, green, yellow, black) A phone line only needs 1 pair to work, and so, the cord is capable of handling 2 lines.
Exactly! Sometimes it's a 3-1 adapter. one jack is line 1, the other jack is line2 and the third is a passthrough. (which means the phone will default to line 1. All it does is passes line1 pair to the line1 jack for one, and moves the line2 pair to the line1 jack in the other side.
buggar it all! That kinda makes things less handy. If you only have a single pair going to each jack, then you are not able to use the "line1/2 splitter" technique.
Just to be sure of your setup: The phone company side of the line should be a single pair of wires.
They took this pair to a filter and split it into 2 lines, one DSL filtered (for voice) and one not (data). You now have two pairs of wires
The distribution block in your basment should have some sort of terminal connections for those 2 pairs. Most of the feeds for the house will go to the "filtered" side. The feed for your computer room will go to the "data" side.
Are the feeds single pair, or double (or more) pair?
If the feeds are 2 pair (with one pair currently unused) you can wire that spair pair to the data side and use the line1/2 splitter.
If the feed wires are single pair, you will have to use your original idea of extending them to a location that is easy to maintain.
If there are any "single pair" runs which are easily replaced with cat3 (or cat5) then I'd do that and use the 2 line approach for those.
Or, you can do what we did and go wireless. (modem and access point sit at a single station and all computers have access. ;)
Close. The only difference is that the existing distribution block only deals with lines for voice. The data line goes its own way.
Not so sure what you mean by "feeds"?
If it is the incoming phone line from the phone company, it only has one cable that has 6 pairs inside. Only one pair is being used. The rest are cut off and rolled up.
If the feeds that you are referring to are the phone lines leading from the distribution block to phone outlets, they are all either cat-1 or cat-3 cables that have 2 pairs in each cable (there is one cat-3 with 4 pairs).
The lines that I want to extend are the lines leading to phone outlets. I need to move the distribution block to a more convenient location; but the phone lines are too short. I will use the twist-solder-and-heat-shrink-tubs approach to attach an extension to each line line.
I think you are referring to wireless computer connection, not cordless phone connection.
Wireless should be fine for internet connection. But I need the computer connection to stream video. The current wireless standard is simply not good enough for video according to people who have tried this. Even the A+G standard is just the minimum, not for the best result (according to what I read from Microsoft web site related to their Media Center Extender such as those from LinkSys and HP). Therefore, I have chosen the safe-bet, and installed wire through out most of my house. This whole house wiring project will be done as soon as I am done with the phone line connection (I am not familiar with phone wiring). This is the thing that is holding the project back.
The latest pre-N wireless standard may be quite good for streaming video. But I am not very sure. I guess we will hear more about the pre-N and the final-N standards in the coming years. Thanks for sharing your thought.
A little more research yields that CTC is "climate technology corporation" (800 676 7861) and that it is currently handled by
formatting link
I do not see my model (which is a "5+2" model) They seem to have 7 day models which would fit our lifestyle better though... might have to look at them. ;)
I took your advice and extend the existing phone lines using twisting-soldering-and-heat-shrink-tubing. This way works great and is much cheaper than the jack-and-plug approach that I originally planned to do. Everything works (voice/DSL) after I have extended the phone lines and relocate the control panel to an easily accessible location. I just feel great when everything works.
The downside of using the twisting-and-soldering approach is that I cannot twist the pair together. And I see no way to even attempt to twist the pair together if there are two or more pairs of wires in the cable. The result is that I end up having a long section (around 4") of untwisted pair of wires. This is probably not good for more demanding application (such as computer networking). But this doesn't seem to cause any problem with phone-connection and DSL connection. If I was trying to extend a section of cable for computer networking, I would likely choose jack-and-plug approach that can have very short section of untwisted wiring (like 1" or less).
My home wiring project is still not 100% done yet. But getting the phone central panel to the correct location and having the panel organized is a good step forward.
FYI in future jobs - I've had good success in offsetting the splices and maintaining the twist in the two wires in each pair before soldering. It isn't necessary to twist the pairs around each other in order to achieve contstant impedence and avoid crosstalk. But as you say, maintaining a perfect continuous twist really isn't necessary in this case anyway.
I cannot picture how offsetting the splices of the two pairs of wire can maintain the twist. Do you mean let one wire of the first pair to bundle together with the second pair before twisting with the second wire of the first pair?
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.