Patch Panel Switch - bicycle-progs61’s diary

This is a patch panel: From Wikipedia: A patch panel or patch bay is a panel, typically rackmounted, that houses cable connections. One typically shorter patch.
A patch panel is a device that all of the Ethernet wires terminate into for a computer network. From there, the network cabling is distributed to a switch.
Patch Panels are a part of structured network LAN cabling. Let us look at why they might be required, what are their major classifications and the disadvantages.
All professional installations in offices use patch panels. Even in quite small offices. A patch panel has the solid-cored cable connected in at the rear using a.

Ars Praetorian

Registered: May 4, 2011

Posts: 545

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2015 pm

Sorry for a possibly dumb question.

So I m getting ready to wire my house up for gigabit in the next few days, and one guide I came across mentioned a patch panel being optional. That got me trying to figure out in what circumstances they would be useful.

I am putting 3 outlets into the house, each with a 4 jack wallplate on them though I only have a 8 port switch so they won t all be wired up, but I don t have more than 6 devices that can even be hard wired anyway. I m planning on running this cable up through the wall, into the attic, then down into a hole in the laundry room ceiling and into my gigabit switch that ll be resting on a shelf near the ceiling. I was planning on terminating the cable with an RJ47 plug and going straight from wall jack into the switch.

The only vague reasons I could find to use a patch panel was because of cable breaks, which didn t totally make sense to me since you have to have another cable anyway to go from the patch panel to the switch.

Can anyone give a good reason why you would or would not use a patch panel.

Thanks,

Ars Legatus Legionis

Tribus: I left my heart in Prussia, but my body lives in Sydney Australia

Registered: Jul 9, 2001

Posts: 11426

A patch panel lets you break up your wiring system into a couple of sections. Firstly, you have solid copper wire in the walls between the wall plates and the patch panel, which don t move, are rigid, and fixed in place. Then you use stranded path cables to connect devices to the wall plates, and the patch panel to the switch.

Since you are planning to overprovision have more connection points than connected devices, this lets you connect only the ports you want to have live to the switch, and to change them over in the future, without having to mess around with your solid cables.

You re also much less likely to bump the switch off the table and pull a jack through the wall if the switch is connected via patch cable to the patch panel than directly connected to the fixed wiring.

Yes, it s a cost. But if you re going through the trouble of running the cables in the wall, it s probably worth doing the rest properly as well.

Ars Tribunus Militum

Tribus: Kailua Kona, Hawaii

Registered: Aug 26, 2004

Posts: 2261

For me, it s just one piece of doing a wire job properly. The goal is to make the wiring you install fixed in place. To that end you would encase the wire in wire mold or conduit in any readily accessible area, terminate the far end with keystone jacks, and in your network cabinet/shelf into a patch panel. Along the wire runs I use velcro to fix the wire in place.

For what you are describing, it doesn t seem like it will add anything of value to your install. And I don t blame you for taking shortcuts, retro-fitting any structure with low voltage wire properly is a giant PITA. I ve done it for a long time and built up a decent list of tools to do the job including long drill bits, 90 degree drill adapters, wire snake, fiberglass rods, pull string, a torch and plugs for bending conduit, and drywall repair tools.

Live young. Die fast.

et Subscriptor

Tribus: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem

Registered: May 16, 2001

Posts: 68503

I d say absolutely. They aren t required, but they are wonderful to have.

Why. I can think of several reasons:

It allows you to flexibly move and segment different portions of your network.

It prevents you from continually moving the last meter of cord, risking damage to the cable that is, even if a patch cord fails, you can easily replace it, not so much an in-place install

As your use patterns change family members moving about from room to room, say like when Jr. moves out and you want to repurpose his room to a home office you have the flexibility to do so.

If an in-wall cable fails for whatever reason driving a nail for picture hanging, adding a pass through, etc you still have options in terms of alternate paths.

Ease of identification.

You can link room-to-room at the patch panel quite easily, should you need to.

Finally, it provides a structured environment that looks far better than loose cables sticking out of walls.

The obvious downside is some additional costbut if I had my walls open during an LV wiring install, I d home run the shit out of everything into a patch panel.

Wise, Aged Ars Veteran

Tribus: North East, USA

Registered: May 10, 2014

Posts: 169

I have my modem, router switch all mounted to peg board in my basement. The peg board is on 2 x 4s just below a drop ceiling.

So the wires come down from the drop ceiling, behind the peg board to their respective location. A patch panel would have been one extra item to clutter up the wall.

Quote:

I d say absolutely. They aren t required, but they are wonderful to have.This. For long-term reliability, why not.

Besides, they re dirt cheap

12 port Cat5e from Monoprice:

1 1 format 2

Tribus: Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Registered: Sep 20, 1999

Posts: 2332

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 am

I have a patch panel in my house. It s a godsend. I can move the phone from one spot to another has happened three times in the last year already. just by changing a plug in the patch panel. Phone plugs rj11 fit just fine in the rj45 connections. I am lucky that my apartment had a number of empty conduits in it so I could get cables pulled without having to drill through the reinforced concrete.

Other benefits have already been mentioned, but it is a nice way to reduce clutter no wire ends and plugs in the rooms that currently do not have something connected and it simply feels right. The only downside is that my rack is half-width, which means the little box housing everything doesn t allow wide devices. Luckily, with the help of the Zyxel GS1900-16 and the Edgerouter Lite I ve managed to get things sorted properly.

Long story short, yes, I d recommend a patch panel, but only if you also take the time to get a proper rack and possibly even a box with a door to keep everything in.

Tribus: USA

Registered: Jan 22, 2015

Posts: 609

For a small installation like yours I can see why you wouldn t want to use a patch panel. It sounds like you re only going to have 3 wires coming in there, correct.

If so, then you d just put another 4 keystone jack and terminate the cables there. Then you have the benefits of a fixed patch panel without needing, well, a patch panel.

Ars Praetorian

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2015 pm

Thanks all for the feedback.

I will not be having a rack or any type of mount. I don t have room in my house for it and the point is for it to be out of the way, thus me wanting to put the equipment on a top shelf near the ceiling of my laundry room. With that in mind, unless there s something I m missing like putting the patch panel in the attic attached to. something if someone pulls down the shelf they risk pulling the wires out of the wall anyway.

Right now I was planning on having 6-8 wires going from the wall jacks, up the walls, across the attic, all dropping down and hooked up into my 8 port switch. I bought all 4 jack wall plates because they came in a 10 pack and it didn t seem worth it to buy one 1 jack plate, one 2 jack plate, and one 4 jack plate to accomplish the minimum of what I want.

So it sounds like the core benefit I d get from a patch panel is to make it easy to drop 4 wires for each wall plate, have them all hooked up, and just connect the patch connectors to the switch for what is actually in use and leave the rest for expansion.

Thinking about it more, that does make perfect sense, as it will also simplify another aspect I was wrestling with, namely how to manage having my router connected to both the switch and the DSL modem even though the DSL modem and router are in different rooms I really don t want to deal with trying to move and re-patch the AT T Uverse wall jack at the moment, especially since it doesn t look like regular cat5e I read somewhere it s rj11 jack and a condensed cord going from the wall to modem. If I m using a patch panel it sounds like I can just identify which ports go to the router internet and to the modem, and just patch those straight to each other.

Another thing I saw in a few responses was the concept of patch panels allowing segmentation. Can someone expand on this. What kind of segmentations would I do. Per wall-plate so the 4 cat5e cables only go in one direction, so straight up - panel - straight across attic - central panel - switch. That s the only segmentation that I can see as being useful and keeping what needs to be repaired to a minimum, but I m not totally sure if that makes sense or is overkill.

Thanks again.

Exactly.

Another thing I saw in a few responses was the concept of patch panels allowing segmentation. Can someone expand on this. What kind of segmentations would I do.

If you often have guests, it provides you a way to isolate them on to a guest network well, you can do it without a patch panel as well, but it makes a clean and easily recognized separation. It s just a bit of OCD on my partand obviously not everyone would need such a thing.

Registered: Sep 27, 2011

Posts: 595

Patch panels have one big advantage over direct to switch cabled connections - grounding.

Yes, some patch panels aren t properly grounded, and yes, some directly cabled switches and routers can be grounded with proper racks and wiring.

However, a patch panel does this better and typically presents a single point at which to worry about, and once it s grounded properly that s the end of it.

Classic scenario is running into small businesses that don t have patch panel and those next door that do. A thunderstorm rolls over, and inevitably the shop without the panel is going to have more blown devices and other electrical issues than the shop with the properly grounded patch panel.

Ars Scholae Palatinae

Registered: Nov 27, 2004

Posts: 1247

i have 2 patch panels and a switch.

the top patch panel has 24 ports and has POTS/2 pair woven between the punch downs on the back. two pig tails from the weave join and connect to the cable modem for phone line.

the bottom patch panel has 48 ports and has all the ethernet runs from the house terminated to it. each drop has 4 ethernet lines, and 1 coax line in a 6 port modular plate. i wired the patch panel to coincide with the modular plate. position 1,2,25,26 are for MBR Master BedRoom. position 1 and 2 on the 48 port patch panel are plugged into port 1 and 2 on the 24 port patch panel via blue patch cables for phone. port 25 and 26 are plugged into port 25 and 26 on my SG500-52 via red patch cables for ethernet. this continues for all 8 drops in the house. if i want more ethernet port density at a drop, i move the corresponding blue patch cables from the 24 port panel to the switch. effort complete.

Seniorius Lurkius

Registered: Jan 4, 2008

Posts: 1

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2015 am

I can only see that being true where STP cable is used. I doubt if there s any reason most residential/home installations of Ethernet cable would need STP instead of lower-cost UTP. Grounding a patch panel wired with UTP cable seems pointless.

Ars Praefectus

Tribus: OC CA

Registered: Aug 7, 2003

Posts: 3094

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 pm

Patch panel total organization and control.

Since you posted that picture, and I literally came here to ask this question, what did you use for those tubes to route the wire through. Is that just Pvc pipe that you cut and affixed to the ceiling.

I m trying to figure out how to get wires into the central area with my switch, and not sure how to manage that without completely restricting myself with jacks.

Manual Labor

Tribus: Redwood City, CA

Registered: Aug 7, 2001

Posts: 11776

I need to post some pictures of my wiring closet when I m done with it. Will put even xsvtoys setup to shame. And yeah, putting in patch panels for both Cat5e and RG-6. I m using Keystone snap-in jacks everywhere, including the patch panel, though it s worth noting that fitting 24 ports in a single rack unit or 4 in a Decora outlet panel requires high-density Cat5e Keystone jacks. I found out the hard way, and have some jacks that I can t actually use.

Anyway, for conduit I ve been using Carlon 1-inch Resi-Gard tubing and fittings; I ve got 10 runs of it throughout the house. I ve had to redo a couple of runs, as with the flex conduit it s too easy to lose track of the 360-degree bend rule.

Yes that s it, PVC pipe bought at Home Depot put through holes cut in the ceiling. Here is what it looked like from the attic above before all the wires got put through.

This shows how it looked coming into the panel.

If I were to do it again this way, I would have added a ring or a flange around the pipes up against the ceiling for a more finished look. But this is in a closet and you can t really see it so it works fine.

If you want the whole sordid story Google retrofit structured wiring and click the 1 result Or

It was all done with the help of ARS. That project is almost 10 years old now so a lot of stuff has changed, but mostly everything is still valid.

It will never exist if we don t see pics.

After thinking about it since I did this one, if I ever do it again I am going to go with the rack stuff all the way around. I think it is the neatest, easiest to work with, and most organized way to do things, which should be pretty much obvious since that s how all the real network closets are made. I would get those keystone racks just like you have, and also set up a patch panel with snap-in coax connectors for the incoming video cables. Then those can be patched to a splitter or wherever as needed. I didn t think of that the first time around, so the unused ones are just sort of sitting there in a coil which will make it harder to bring them into the setup if they need to be connected.

I ll try to take some in-progress pics later this week. The rate of progress, on the overall remodeling project, and on this aspect of it, has been slow and sporadic, but I was just working on it this past weekend.

For a while I was thinking about trying to go full-rack-everything, but the closet I m working with is only 24 deep. Instead I m using a couple of 6 deep hinged 1RU brackets for the patch panel, and some sturdy wire shelving from Home Depot.

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 am

I think that is good, for a home network everything should fit that depth. I would now much rather have my setup shown above in a more rack-oriented arrangement. It would include that power strip, the patch panels like you are doing for the incoming Cat5e and video cables, a nice rack-mounted switch, then the other stuff could sit on shelves as required modem, NAS, etc.

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 pm

Ok so here s a question.

I spent a bunch of time at home depot getting some last minute things to get started. I grabbed a conduit with the intention of having it attached to the wall and go up through the ceiling to pass the wires into my centralized networking room like xsvtoys with pvc. However, after thinking about the logistics and aesthetics of it I decided against it and I m now planning on putting a 2 gang low voltage old work box with 2 6 jack wall plates. This way you don t have a big pipe with wires coming out of it, it keeps me from having to mount the conduit to the side of the wall, seal the hole around the conduit, and make sure the conduit is pointing in a good direction that wires coming from both sides don t bend at bad angles.

It does hurt expanding later, so if I add new drops I d need to add new work boxes which sucks but I don t see that happening for a long time I m already over-provisioning by 4-6. Also there s enough space that it shouldn t be that big of a deal to add another 2 gang old work box.

So my first question is, am I being retarded with that decision.

The second question assuming the answer to the first is not totally is does that actually negate the necessity for a patch panel, since I can just use the wall jacks to patch things together.

It does hurt expanding later,

Conduit never hurts expanding.

You can always add a switch on each floor, and LAG them up if you really need the bandwidth.

Yeah, if you have few enough runs that you can fit them in a couple of wall plates, that works just as well. I ve done the same on several houses, either with wall plates or with small surface-mount boxes. It serves the same function of cleanly segregating the permanent in-wall cabling from the outside-the-wall device cabling.

If you re clever, you can still figure out a way to drill a hole and get conduit installed inside the wall; a 2-gang hole is plenty big. If you have access to the attic sounds like you do you can drill a hole through the top plate big enough for a piece of conduit, which would make it much easier in the future to fish new cables from your patch panel box up and into the attic.

My current project is absolutely overkill, but I ve wired up at least seven houses/apartments since I was in high school, strictly as an amateur, and these things tend to escalate.

I probably worded it bad, but I meant wiring in the wall hurts expandability, as opposed to putting a conduit in the ceiling and having the wires come through that.

This is a one for house, with an attic big enough to stand upright in, so it s mostly a matter of keeping things organized and manageable.

I did get some 45 degree config elbows to route the wires in the attic without bending them.

The only iffy part I see about having wall jacks on both ends of the cable is that means I have to feed the wire up the wall on one side so I can pull it through to the other side to make sure it is long enough. Having a conduit in the trusses might make that easier.

I ve never done anything like this before, so it should be interesting to say the least. My wife seems a bit worried, but I got this

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 am

You ll kind of have to do that anyway, especially with only one spool of cable. For spaces like your wiring closet that you ll be fishing multiple wires through, put in a pull string that s twice as long as the path, and tie it off at both ends. Then you can attach the end of the cable in the middle, and shuttle the string back and forth.

Registered: Sep 6, 2002

Posts: 5286

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 am

I prefer patch panels for a number of reasons. First it s just cleaner that way. I started out with just holes in the ceiling that were half-assed sealed. Absolutely hated it. So I installed a small rack Middle Atlantic HPM series with patch panel flush against the ceiling. Secondly - it makes organizing/changing any cabling much easier.

Any in wall cabling is through conduit with Carlon Resi-guard. A couple of pictures to illustrate what I mean about the racks.

Media rack patch panel:

Media rack

Server rack - the patch panel is actually mounted above the rack INSIDE the wall we took out a wall to another closet and framed the rack in.

Entertainment center patch panel yes, even within the same room, I run cables up through the ceiling. I m too OCD about cables running hanging between racks.

Any in wall cabling is through conduit with Carlon Resi-guard. A couple of pictures to illustrate what I mean about the racks.Beautifully done. So clean and neat. I d hate to see the power bill though with all that equipment.

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