3M sells fusion-less APC and UPC connectors that you can insert into any (well cut) fiber. I used them to fiber my home too without using a fusion machine.
I was really dubious at first but they work really well
Wiring my home with fiber
151–160 of 305 posts
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#152This 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…
Is there a best practice for which bidi direction to choose for which device type? i.e. I assume you don't want to just wing it for every link, so do people typically choose to use all A/B on the switch side, and all B/A on the desktop/server side? If I were walking into a business, not having setup their network, what direction would I expect to need on the desktop/server side?
I can't speak for anyone else, but we wing it for every link. When we light up a new link, we grab a matched pair, randomly select one to put in the switch, and then put the other one downstream.
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#153I 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 moving into my new home (which was built in 1962) in the next month or two. My plan is to run cat 6 throughout, before I get the bulk of my stuff/furniture in. Hopefully I won't need to smash into too many walls but there will be a few. Definitely worth it in the long run though.
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I’m guessing what people are saying is that they have seen plenty of home jobs where the surface is left with an obvious bulge, hollow, or an hideous line. Some people are very sensitive to surface unevenness, and really notice slight surface imperfections, and some people don’t notice gross errors.
In my very limited experience, many textures are often harder to make look right than flat surfaces. I think I am sensitive to texture variation, because with textures I notice mistakes and I often notice where alterations have been made.
Either way, your Santa Fe look is irrelevant to the topic of fixing problems in walls when they are not textured like yours.
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#155I 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.
Youd be surprised what you can do with a 40in drill bit and a wire snake. did my whole house and only had to repair 1 piece of dry wall.
With that drill bit you won't be able to get far with concrete brick walls...
I hired an electrician to drill the holes for me earlier this year and it took him over 10 minutes per hole to get through the 60cm (2ft) reinforced concrete slab for running cables between two floors.
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#156Earlier 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,…
From what I've learned on YT, using quick drying mud and mixing it yourself (not using the premixed stuff in plastic containers), is the key to smooth finishes. Mostly because it hardens quickly and doesn't shrink. I used the 40m quick dry and it was quite easy to work with. You're right, feathering correctly... no sanding needed.
Sheetrock 45 is the way
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#157Earlier 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,…
From what I've learned on YT, using quick drying mud and mixing it yourself (not using the premixed stuff in plastic containers), is the key to smooth finishes. Mostly because it hardens quickly and doesn't shrink. I used the 40m quick dry and it was quite easy to work with. You're right, feathering correctly... no sanding needed.
Picking the correct timing for the cure time with the job size is almost an art in itself. It’s unlikely one can figure it out without a lot of experience doing it and most folks that don’t do it for a living won’t do it often enough to acquire that experience. It’s a lot of hot mud waste and back and forth trips to the hardware store that’s exhausting for busy folks that have another full time job.
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#158Wiring for me has been a waste of time. I spent a good amount of time wiring the house with cat 6 cabling. I had our TV on a hard wired network which felt great, no drop outs, no wifi noise. I then bought a roku box and left on wifi for a while. Its still on wifi, works great and kept it there. Family mostly uses wifi now, no PCs using the hard-won ethernet jacks.
Ya, my house is wired for cat5 but no point to use it. It just isn’t necessary.
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 70% of UK homes have access to a gigabit connection through either fibre or the Virgin Media HFC network. FTTP coverage is about 40% nationwide. It’s not that rare.
Respectfully, I find the 70% figure for access to a gigabit line extremely hard to believe. When I lived in central London (tube zone 2), all that was available at my address was a wet-noodle quality 20 Mbps DSL connection. No BT FTTP, no Virgin, no Hyperoptic, no G.Network. This was in early 2022. I now live in Switzerland and have a 25 Gbps FTTP connection, paying about 30% more than I paid in London for the DSL li…
The 70% figure is very recent and largely due to Virgin Media doing a massive upgrade. It surprised me too.
Re: Wiring my home with fiber
#160I 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…
Having fiber cables hanging around is a sure sign you're a hacker.