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Wiring my home with fiber

sschueller.github.io

101–110 of 305 posts

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#101

I always end up green with envy that people seem to have pre-existing conduits in their walls for running new cables. There's no way, in my old house, of doing this without some invasive smashing in to walls.

An attic or unfinished basement can make this much easier

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#102
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a hard time finding UPC wall outlets since most that are available in the Swiss format are for FTTH use, so they all have APC LC connectors on them. The keystone versions are available as UPC but they lack any fiber routing in the back.

I use the Feller one - https://www.feller.ch/de/Produktangebot/Kommunikations-und-N... - and it's indeed LC/APC. My setup is much simpler - I get 25Gbit/s from init7 to Mikrotik CCR2004 https://mikrotik.com/product/ccr2004_1g_12s_2xs and then distribute it to 2x1Gbit access points, and use the other SFP28 port to power my PC (in another room) via the Intel E810 card. I use the Feller fiber extension cable (20m) and b…

Very nice, how much does one of those plates cost? I can't find any prices easily.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#103
post #5

This article is great overall, but there is some stuff you should do differently, if you're wanting to follow in the author's footsteps: 1. Just use UPC connectors everywhere unless you have really good reasons not to. 2. Use single mode fiber (SMF) everywhere, including internal wiring. SMF is infinitely scalable for future needs, multimode (MMF) is not. These days the cost differences for cabling and optics is negl…

What about bi-directional vs running two fibers? Will this increase latency, even if negligible?

And given some of the inexpensive single mode fiber spools are two fibers, it is probably easier to just have two fibers instead of trying to do 2 wavelengths.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#104
post #91
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this was one of my great enlightenments: no matter how good or professional a wall looks, it's really just drywall mounted on wood, some cracks sealed, and then painted over. When the walls are off in the house is the best time to get anything done. Sometimes I don't even want to put the walls back on- for example, an unfinished garage with exposed studs is very convenient.

I may someday use shiplap instead of drywall in specific rooms, simply because you can make it so you can take it off and put it back on relatively easily.

I have a couple of large plywood sheets in closets for this purpose. Paint it the same color and nobody knows

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently in the process of literally tearing down walls in my old house (built in the 40's). I used to fear smashing into walls. Once you do a bit of drywall and mud yourself, you realize it isn't that big of a deal. Everything I've learned has been off YT videos and there are some excellent channels with all of the professional tips and tricks. It isn't rocket science by a long shot.

While it's not rocket science, I always find it to be super annoying to do. Getting things smooth/flat when you're done (generally, I think I wind up doing 4-5 layers of mud) takes a fair amount of time. Plus sanding it down without getting the powder everywhere is difficult; I use a wet sander / sand "sponge", but even then I wind up with some of it spreading around.

My house already has the "Santa Fe" texture on the walls... it is supposed to be not perfect. Going with smooth, seems like a mistake to me.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#106

This is likely not useful in most west european homes (even gigabit connections are unheard of in the uk, 10 megs being advertised as “superfast”, let alone tens of gigs). But still a fun project!

They'll eventually be dragged into the future by requirement, 1GbE is already standard on most equipment, with 2.5GbE and 1+gbit wifi becoming more common on consumer equipment. The increasing reliance of on-demand delivery of various forms of content, from multimedia to gaming, is already pushing 100Mbps connections to where 10Mbps connections were less than 5 years ago.

I think its worth choosing fiber in a new deployment, at least at the distribution level (between floors, or zones of the home). Most new computers come with ultra fast solid state storage, so even between systems on a local network, 10GbE speeds could be useful.

With the way the price of copper is going, and how much less efficient rj45/copper chipsets are compared to optical, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a shift to optical as a replacement to rj45 in the next decade.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#107
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a new house. The 18 AP locations serve a couple of different long run purposes and reasons: The first is to have direct nearly-line of sight locations for the majority of the house which is primarily to support higher frequency(60GHz) and beyond which have poor wall penetration. The second is to provide good wifi coverage due to signal attenuation from the construction techniques. I did many of the walls in do…

10k sq ft as "somewhat large" ha! ;) With 18 APs are you using campus wifi style things, or just a bunch with the same SID?

I'm using Ubiquity Unifi 6 Pros right now, but am going to switch to the Enterprise ones (with 6Ghz) at some point soon. They are all integrated to the same controller (a UDM Pro), so all SSIDs I use are available everywhere. I even have a couple of them down the driveway all the way to the gate so I have wifi coverage all the way out.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#108

I always end up green with envy that people seem to have pre-existing conduits in their walls for running new cables. There's no way, in my old house, of doing this without some invasive smashing in to walls.

I'm currently in the process of literally tearing down walls in my old house (built in the 40's). I used to fear smashing into walls. Once you do a bit of drywall and mud yourself, you realize it isn't that big of a deal. Everything I've learned has been off YT videos and there are some excellent channels with all of the professional tips and tricks. It isn't rocket science by a long shot.

I agree it isn't rocket science, but plastering if one of those things best left to professionals, much more so than plumbing or electrical for instance. They usually make near minimum wage, are just so much faster and produce a better result.

I've started plastering a few of my walls and after wasting a couple days doing a few square meters ended up hiring a couple guys to do the rest of the house. There is just no comparison in value.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently in the process of literally tearing down walls in my old house (built in the 40's). I used to fear smashing into walls. Once you do a bit of drywall and mud yourself, you realize it isn't that big of a deal. Everything I've learned has been off YT videos and there are some excellent channels with all of the professional tips and tricks. It isn't rocket science by a long shot.

I’ve done a lot of drywall work and I still avoid it whenever possible. Doing basic drywall and paint isn’t rocket science, but getting a professional level fit and finish actually takes a lot of practice and experience. It’s also a completely different experience when you’re trying to match old specialty paints from a previous homeowner, blending repairs to match the wall texture, and other complexities that don’t s…

I just redid my whole kitchen to the studs. You're making it out to be a bigger deal than it is. Now I'm onto a bedroom where I removed two whole walls that had been weirdly built to cut the room into a smaller room. This is going to require a bunch of repair work, all the way to the ceilings.

Certainly, if you're looking for perfectly smooth walls, then you're never going to be happy regardless. My place is Santa Fe, which is perfect... it is supposed to be messy. But this is a place built in the 40's... nothing is perfect. Doing something perfectly would stand out even more.

If you want old paints to match, then just paint the whole wall. That's easier and probably the right solution anyway.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently in the process of literally tearing down walls in my old house (built in the 40's). I used to fear smashing into walls. Once you do a bit of drywall and mud yourself, you realize it isn't that big of a deal. Everything I've learned has been off YT videos and there are some excellent channels with all of the professional tips and tricks. It isn't rocket science by a long shot.

I agree it isn't rocket science, but plastering if one of those things best left to professionals, much more so than plumbing or electrical for instance. They usually make near minimum wage, are just so much faster and produce a better result. I've started plastering a few of my walls and after wasting a couple days doing a few square meters ended up hiring a couple guys to do the rest of the house. There is just no…

I'm sorry, but it isn't that hard, really. Also, awkward to talk about how you pay someone a barely living wage as an excuse to not do it yourself.
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