The first step is cutting
out the old single gang electrical
box
.
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Then I add a two gang box and pull all the
wires
through.
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This is the access point from downstairs. Next
is running the wires through conduit and above the drop
ceiling.
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The
blue is the conduit. It helps protect the cables as I pull them
through the ceiling and hopefully slows down critters from chewing
through it. I don't that we have that many critters anymore in our
ceiling, but it's still worth
protecting.
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With
the cable run, it was time to wire it up. In our "network closet" we
have a patch panel I wired one end of the cable to.
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At
the other end were the jacks in the wall. Here's the first one wired
and working on the second. The patch panel isn't so bad, but the
jacks actually hurt. To get the wires in the jacks or patch panel
you use a tool called a punch tool. It presses each little wire into
whatever you're connecting it to. For the patche panel I had
the shelf to press against. For the wall jacks you end up
pressing the sharp corners of the jack against your hand and
fingers.
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Here's all four jacks wired. Boy, was I glad
that part was done.
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And
now the faceplate. Technically you're not supposed to put data
cabling so close to power lines, but I'm not all that worried
about lost packets of porn
due
to line interfence.
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The
last part, and still going, was configuring another router we had as
a switch. Jen and I hacked for hours, but couldn't get it. At work I
found out it was much simpler then what we were trying. We got it to
work, but it's not enough. As a switch the router would
give us only 3 ports. Ideally we need something like 10, so I
ordered a 16 port switch today (11/20/07). Got it off ebay. Pretty
nice deal. We got 16 ports for the price of an 8 port switch. That
should give us room to network two more rooms if we have to.
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Over the holiday the switch came in. It was
real simple - pure plug and play. Now all our ports are up and
running. For now this project is complete. We might need some more
ports in rooms in the future, but the groundwork has mostly been
layed.
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