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Wiring my home with fiber

sschueller.github.io

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Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#251

Post by cortesoft »

pooper wrote: post #42
mr_sturd wrote: post #23

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 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 don't own a house and have never owned a house. This will probably sound stupid and I am sorry if this is something obvious. Is it that my spouse will leave me or my parents will disown me if I run a conduit…

> I feel like all of this comes from treating our homes as some kind of liquid asset that we must keep in pristine condition at all times so we can stage it and sell it at a moment's notice.

This seems like you are missing the point. The REASON that having a conduit hanging on the wall lowers the home value is because it looks bad and ruins the aesthetics… for both the current home owner and a future home owner. The reason the person buying the house would pay less is the same reason me, the current home owner, doesn’t want it… it looks bad.

I understand that some people don’t care about aesthetics at all (I am probably closer to that end of the spectrum than most), but you also have to realize that people care about how their home looks for more reasons than just resale value. Do you think the whole world only makes their houses look nice in case they want to sell?

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#252

Post by cortesoft »

Aeolun wrote: post #223
pooper wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 don't own a house and have never owned a house. This will probably sound stupid and I am sorry if this is something obvious. Is it that my spouse will leave me or my parents will disown me if I run a conduit…

> I feel like all of this comes from treating our homes as some kind of liquid asset that we must keep in pristine condition at all times so we can stage it and sell it at a moment's notice. Well, you aren’t wrong. This is exactly the thinking behind that. The other response is correct that it’s nicer to have it all covered up though. I guess it comes down to a bit of perfectionism. If I stick everything on the walls…

I think it is wrong. Most people want to keep their house looking nice because they enjoy living in a nice looking house… this is the same reason why having a nice looking house sells for more. It isn’t like the whole world somehow decided to value nice looking houses for no reason and so everyone started keeping their houses nice even though no one actually cares.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#253

Post by conk »

yakak wrote: post #219
sponaugle wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fiber is, as runjake mentioned, very very cheap. The raw cost is less than copper, and that is part of why I ran so much of it in my build. (I am not the OP). I did however include some multimode in that equation only because some AV equipment uses is, and not all of them use replaceable optics modules. I would strongly agree that if you are running fiber, run single mode everywhere. It is amazing how far singlemode…

What kind of equipment outlay was necessary if you don't mind my asking? I.e. the splicer the OP bought seems a bit expensive and impractical to own compared to an ethernet crimper, etc.

I just ordered the length I needed from fs.com. Granted I only have a single run between 2 switches homegarage. I ran the fiber in a PVC conduit. Put a 4”x4” pvc junction box in the run with a couple feet excess coiled inside because my measurements were a little off.

At the termination of the runs I have fiber keystone jacks and I can extend/replace the last bit if I need to move equipment.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#254

Post by stephen_g »

moogly wrote: post #144

I did this as a small-scale experiment/proof-of-concept earlier this year in my 2 br apartment, preparing for wiring for 10G (and possibly beyond as the years pass) when I move into my house later this. I went with singlemode fiber. Don't really see the point of multimode. At all. After doing some research I am not sure who it is made for. Sure, the BiDi SFP+ modules are a bit more expensive but not overly so. The fi…

I think back 15 years or so ago, multimode fibre and optics were quite substantially cheaper. Given that you could still get several hundred metres to over a kilometer with the slower speeds available at the time, it probably was worthwhile. But by the time I got into fibre stuff SMF was not much more expensive, so I've always just used it by default.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#255

Post by mrb »

sschueller wrote: post #79
kube-system wrote: post #18

Is the equipment used for termination more expensive than the splicing equipment? I just use premade MMF in my house.

I have no experience with terminating connectors directly. There appear to be all kinds available, even ones with gel inside them but they suffer a lot more loss than if I splice a fiber. Using the splicer gave me the flexibility to splice pig-tail ends or just two fibers together with a small loss.

I have no experience either. But terminating seems easy, for example this guy is terminating singlemode fiber in just a few minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKDYw0jPskc&t=2m35s He uses DINTEK Singlemode ezi-FIBER Connectors which have a low loss of 0.1-0.2 dB: https://www.dintek.com.tw/index.php/singlemode-ezi-fiber-con... Such a low loss seems to be a non-issue for short fiber runs in a single residence, and cheaper than using a fusion splicer.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#256

Post by pacaro »

latchkey wrote: post #66
mr_sturd wrote: post #23

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 had a (small) fire in the wall of a house in about 2000. Turned out the rubber insulation had fallen off the wiring, in various places there were just pairs of bare copper wires. An electrician friend helped me rewire, and we layed in cat5 and conduit (between storeys) at the same time. Rewiring a house from the 1840s required pulling up floorboards, but no significant work in the walls.

I'm not sure whether older houses are more maintainable by default, or just once you have rocked over some threshold of continuous occupancy, there there are sufficient layers of repair and rework that you just stop worrying about (for example) sawing through a floorboard. While I didn't have to mess with the walls, if I had, I'd just have torn down the existing plaster and redone it, like you say it's not that big of a deal

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#257

Post by adrian_b »

jjeaff wrote: post #146
adrian_b wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interior doors in most houses that I have seen have wooden frames in which it is very easy to make holes for passing cables. Some newer houses might have door frames made of plastic or metal, instead of wood, but even in such cases it is much easier to make a clean hole through the door frame, instead of through a wall. I have made many such holes in door frames for passing Ethernet cables or TV coaxial cables. W…

Why would you prefer to make a hole in your doorframe rather than the wall? Sheetrock is so much easier to deal with. But perhaps you are referring to a concrete construction, which is uncommon in the US.

Making a clean hole through a door frame takes a few minutes at most, with an electric drill machine, after which you pass the cable through the hole, you crimp the connector on the end of the cable and you are done.

At least in Europe where I live, I have not seen any walls through which you can make clean holes with high probability. Almost always there is some small damage, which must be repaired, e.g. by filling with plaster and/or repainting. In most cases you also need a percussion drill machine, not just a simple drill machine. Here most walls are made either of concrete or of bricks.

So at least in the kinds of walls that I have seen, passing a cable through a wall requires more time, more diverse skills and a larger set of tools and materials than passing a cable through a door frame, which requires only that you have and know how to handle a drill machine and a cable crimping tool.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#258

Post by pbourke »

whiddershins wrote: post #177
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it’s easy when you have the wall texture that is designed to look like a bad drywall job. If you’re trying to match the wall type found in 90% of American homes, there’s a huge difference in efficiency and quality between a DIYer and a professional mudder. A good feathering job saves a ton of wasted sanding effort and drywall dust. When I ask GCs and tradespeople which job they would would never do themselves,…

How about flooring?

I’ve done wood and vinyl plank flooring in a single room as a not particularly handy homeowner. It’s a lot of work but not really difficult.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#259

Post by bacon_waffle »

cortesoft wrote: post #250
y04nn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just take practice, my first try was not perfect but acceptable, the second time was much better and the third on a larger wall with lots of defects looks good, but I probably spent too much time on it, although I am confident that I can now do it much faster.

Sure, but I don’t want to have two crappy looking walls in my house with a good looking third one. Of course if I do something enough I can get good at it, the point of hiring someone is because I am not going to do it enough to get good at it.

Another argument to always hire someone else: if you learn to get a nice finish with drywall, you'll start noticing defects in existing drywall. Everywhere.

Highly recommend Vancouver Carpenter on youtube, if you do want to go down that rabbit hole.

Re: Wiring my home with fiber

#260

Post by midoridensha »

briHass wrote: post #232
NegativeLatency wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One of the big benefits to drywall, that often gets missed in the typical libel it gets, is its fire resistance. It's basically a water-containing gypsum powder. Some areas where plywood would be preferrable for durability, like a garage, are often prohibited from using something other than sheetrock due to the fire risk. Probably not a big deal unless you have entire walls of it.

They should make some kind of drywall panels with easily-removed fasteners at the corners.
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