Phone sockets to patch panel

[leenowell]

Hi All,

I have run cat 6 cables to all rooms in my house all terminated in a comms cupboard. The BT master socket is in another room and again a cat 6 cable is run from it to the comms cupboard terminated with a BT socket. In the comms cupboard I have terminated all cat 6 cables in a patch panel.

So, the question is how best to I connect the 3 patch panel ports which are connected to phone sockets in rooms to the BT socket. So far I have thought of the following

1. Create patch cables with RJ45 one end and BT socket the other. The connect these into the BT socket via a normal phone splitter
2. Create a 3 way cable by having 3 cables with RJ45 connectors one end and the other ends all soldered together. Then solder this onto a phone cable connected to BT socket
3. I tried looking for a RJ45 splitter (RJ45 version of a normal phone one) but couldn't find one

Neither of which seem ideal. Anyone have any better ideas?

Also, I assume I have to terminate the cable from the BT master socket in a BT socket rather than terminate it in the patch panel?

Thanks in advance for your help

Lee.

[spuorgelgoog]

No, terminate the phone line on paralleled RJ45 sockets, eg on your patch panel if you have an spares, or on something like this

The use RJ45-RJ45 patch leads between the data panel and the phone panel.

On my home patch panel I have 4 phone lines per group of 5 jacks, jacks 1-4 are a single line on the first pair each, and jack 5 has 4 lines using all four pairs. Thus I can take 4 lines to a location only using 1 data line. (And as in the main rooms the jacks are in quads, I can take 16 lines to any one location.)

(They're not BT lines, I do have a number of switchboards.)

Owain

[stephenten]

What I did was to fit a second patch panel that had 16 sockets. I wired all the sockets in parallel and ran the cat 5 cable back to the BT master socket.

The idea was to have 16 ethernet sockets all wired as secondary BT sockets.

The first patch panel was wired to all the ethernet wall sockets in the house.

I had a 48 port gigabit switch also in the rack connected to the LAN port of my internet modem.

I have a set of green and a set of white short patch cables.

The green ones were used to patch between the wall sockets and the internet connected gigabit switch ports.

The white ones were used to patch between the wall sockets and the 16 socket BT sockets patch panel.

Incidentally if you wire the phone patch panel as eia/Tia 568b instead of Tia/eia 568a, this will then take on the same wiring convention colours as BT wiring and the phones will just then work without fear of mis-wiring between patch panel and BT master socket. ?

All I needed then was commonly available RJ45 plug to BT socket adapters where a phone was required to plug into the ethernet socket.

Kenable have them at

[stephenten]

P.s. that reminds me, you need to keep an eye on the REN load on the phone line.

BT phone lines can support a REN of 4.

Simply add up all the individual REN numbers of your telephony devices. If t comes to 4 or more, you will need to fit a REN amplifier between the BT master socket and your telephony patch panel.

REN stands for ringer equivalent number.

[The Natural Philosopher]

PABX?

[John Rumm]

Modern phones usually have a pretty low REN anyway, so you should get away with a fair few. However, just turning off the ringer on some of the handsets will normally solve any REN problems.

(or better still, fit a cheap PABX!)

[John Rumm]

If you have spare patch panel sockets free, then wire 4 in parallel, patch three to the other patch sockets you want to connect phones to, and connect a BT to RJ11/45 to the remaining paralleled socket.

(Note that you can plug a RJ11 into a RJ45 socket - hence a "normal" BT to RJ11 lead will often be adequate to connect a BT phone socket to a patch panel)

A basic PABX would probably be overkill for three phones, but might be worth it if you would like to be able to call between extensions, or want to add a VoIP line to the system, e.g.

You can get "master" euro modules with BT socket on them, but those are really designed for use with 2 wire PABX wiring, since they only provide the ring cap, but not the surge suppressor or test resistor that you have the main master.

[leenowell]

Thanks very much all this was exactly what I was after but couldn't think of a way of achieving it. So, just so I can apply the various comments to my situation is this correct?

1. I have wired all my sockets up using 568B so sounds like at the face plate, when I need to have a phone line I just need the RJ45 to BT adapter Steph (sorry can't see full name) suggests above
2. I wire all faceplate sockets (including those that will be phones) to the patch panels
3. I wire the cat 6 cable that is wired into my master socket into the patch panel directly rather than to another BT socket
4. Set up 3 ports on the patch panel wired in parallel (i.e. punch a long wire connecting all same colours together - e.g. same brown wire punched into brown of all 3 ports). 1 for the master and one each for the 2 phones we have
5. Patch whichever face plate ports I want to activate as a phone to one of the ports set up in set (4).

Would this work?

thanks

Lee.

[Steve Walker]

How about a BT socket to RJ45 adapter and then

SteveW

[Lee Nowell]

Thanks Steve. Looks good but I have some spare ports on my patch panel so if the above would work might be a neater solution for my scenario

[John Rumm]

Typically (analogue) phone wiring on a structured cabling system just uses the middle two contacts on the connector. The actual wiring standard used does not really matter, so long as they are connected to a pair, and they get to the far end! (and the centre pair are typically carried by the blue wires on CAT5/6 - and those are the same in both TIA-568 A and B anyway).

So you need to wire a patch lead with the outer two populated pins on the BT plug (pins 2 and 5), to the centre two on the RJ11 / 45

See:

Yup, wire all sockets the same way - all pins connected between socket and patch panel. That way you can decide how the socket will be used later, and change the use as well should the need arise.

Is this the incoming line we are discussing? If so that still needs to be in place to provide the line protection and test facilities. You can wire directly from its extension terminals to your patch lead though if you want. I would be less keen on wiring a line to the patch permanently.

Since you can only really use this kind of joining for phone circuits, so you only need do the blue pair on pins 4 and 5.

See:

Yup.

Yup.

Yup.

You now need a way to connect the phone to the RJ45 socket at the far end. There are two typical options here:

One is to use a Line Adaptor Unit. This provides a BT style socket connected to a RJ45 plug. It also includes a ring capacitor to provide the bell wire to phones that need it. (its better to regenerate the bell wire locally if you need it, rather than pipe it about the wiring, since its not impedance balanced like the other pair, and is more likely to pick up noise that can upset broadband speeds).

The second is to simply use a phone lead with a RJ45 plug on the end (or change the plug for a RJ45) - for many modern phones that don't require the bell wire this will be fine. A straight through 2 wire lead with RJ11 on both ends (as used by ADSL modems) will work fine with many phones.

[Lee Nowell]

In my scenario, the cat 6 running from the master socket is connected to the extension terminals of the master socket and then wired into a secondary socket at the moment (I believe I have used brown wires and no bell wire to improve broadband). Sounds like I should switch these to the blue wires (does it matter which is which) and then wire the other end into the patch panel as normal. This was if I then use a RJ11 to RJ11 wire at the face plate to connect the phone it should work?

Ah yes good point

Of the 2 "phones" one is actually the alarm panel so is wired directly anyway so for neatness would be better to connect the real phone via RJ11 to RJ11 cable.

[John Rumm]

The colours used for that application do not matter particularly, so long as you use both wires of a twisted pair - say brown and brown stripe or blue and blue stripe. Don't use say blue and green.

Yup. Depending on the phone at the end it may not ring if it wants the bell wire and that has not been recreated somewhere.

The alarm panel is very unlikely to need a bell wire anyway, The phone probably doesn't but you might want to check to be sure. If its happy without, then a RJ11 to 11 or 45 lead will do fine. If it needs one, then a LAU will be needed (or open the phone and install a 10uF bi-polar cap somewhere suitable)

[John Rumm]

Shame about the lousy description - it gives the impression that you can split ethernet with it, when in reality its only of any practical use in a few limited voice application... something a good few of the reviewers have obviously not grasped!

[Lee Nowell]

Thanks very much John. Sorry if I am being dozy.. at the master I wire in 2 wires (say brown and brown/white) into the extension bit. At the panel and faceplate these will be pins 7 and 8 so when I connect the RJ11 to the face plate I assume 7 and 8 aren't connected or if they are they will need to be wherever the phone thinks they should be?

[John Rumm]

What is the "extension bit"?

I am not quite following that...

Here is my understanding on what you are trying to get to:

ok so you have wall sockets/hardwired connection to an alarm panel in the house, wired back to a common patch panel. These are fully wired - all 8 connections - in cat6?

At the patch panel you have taken 3 unused patch positions and wired pins 4 & 5 in parallel on all three. So they are wired only to each other.

You have a master phone socket from which you want to connect several phone points,

So you patch with a BT to RJ11/45 lead from the master socket to one of the group of three linked sockets in the patch panel. You now use a regular RF45 to RJ45 patch lead to connect each of those 2 remaining common phone sockets, to the correct ports on the patch panel to reach the phone points.

You don't need an extension BT socket in there unless the master is too far away from the patch panel. In which case you can wire a two wire connection from the master to the slave using two wires (2 & 5), then you can connect the extension to the commoned up patch panel sockets using a BT to RJ11 patch.

[Lee Nowell]

Hi John

That's almost correct. At the master socket, rather than have a BT socket plugged into the end I have the cat 6 wired like this (2nd photo) ie directly into the extension push down connectors on the face of the master socket (currently brown and brown/ white). At the moment there is a BT "slave" socket on the end.

The alarm wire is currently run directly from the alarm box to the slave socket. Based on the above plan is to remove slave socket and wire everything in as you suggest. Only question now is which colours I need to connect into the master socket for it all to work. I think it is blue / blue white but not sure

[John Rumm]

Blue/blue white would be a common choice - however it does not really matter, as long as you have the right connections.

Normally the NTE5 style master sockets have a front panel with and IDC terminal block on the reverse to add extensions to (done like that, so removing the front panel will "unplug" the extensions for diagnostic purposes). That block normally has three connection points - with terminations for A & B wires (aka 2 & 5) and Bell or 3. With that arrangement you just need a pair of wires in the CAT6 to take the A+B /

2+5 to the slave socket.

You mention broadband, so you might have a master socket with an integral filter. Some of these sport 5 connections on the back, 2, 5, &

3 filtered, and 2 & 5 unfiltered. You use whichever is appropriate for where the router is connected. i.e. if its plugged into the master, then you run all the extensions from the filtered side. If it needs to plug in elsewhere, then you run the unfiltered pair to just that socket - and the socket will also need a filter / splitter.

[Lee Nowell]

You may have spotted a problem in my plan. Rather than have the slave socket I was going to connect directly to he patch panel. So in essence that is a direct connection from the 2 wires the phone needs in the RJ11 to the patch panel,across to the phone bit of the patch panel and then back to the wired end in the master socket. Hence why I was thinking I need to know which pins/ colours the phone would use in the RJ11.

The flaw seems to be that I have forgotten about the broadband router's which also needs to be connected to the patch panel phone connectors. So need some way of splitting filtered Vs unfiltered. At the moment the phones are directly wired into the back of the slave socket and the router connected via one of those filter things in the faceplate. Having now said this it sounds a bit odd. It was something I quickly knocked together to get something working during building works

I assume phone is unfiltered and the modem and alarm are filtered?

[spuorgelgoog]

No. The modem is unfiltered. Everything else including the patch panel should be filtered.

Owain