Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

alienchow.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 237 posts

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#91

Post by madaxe_again »

nevi-me wrote: post #33

I sympathise with burying cables that you think are for life, only to need to replace them later. We ran fibre cables in the ceiling when constructing our house. I requested the electrician to shield the cables with some tubing, but he probably thought I was being extreme. We have 9 cables, 2 of them don't work, likely from being bent by mistake or something. The wiring is intermixed with electrical and ethernet (for…

9/10 times the problem is at the terminator - they can get yanked out of position if they are pulled rather than the sleeve. Snip off the pulled end of the suspect line with Kevlar shears and shine an OFF down the other end - and you’ll probably see laser. It’s then a surprisingly simple job to re-terminate with mechanical connectors.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#92

Post by VanTheBrand »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #68
chneu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's underground at all, check for radon.

Radon is a noble gas. It's not going to affect fiber or wiring... but yes, if you're going to spend much time down there, definitely a good idea to check for it.

Radon is radioactive. The alpha particles it emits can break down polymers and degrade plastics.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#94

Post by Sesse__ »

FS.com is great for all kinds of fiber stuff… but curiously, nothing long-distance. I never really understood it; you can get a 40-channel DWDM setup (including tunable 100gig SFPs) just like nothing, but a drum of quite normal G24 loose tube cabling meant for outdoor use? Nope. You'll have to go elsewhere for that. And I guess that's also what happened here; the poster picked the best thing they had for the purpose, and it's just not that good.

I've also had problems with their pigtails also being weird, by the way (layers separating so that automated cutters can't stretch the pigtail properly). It's weird when everything else is so good—it's as if they only care about what's going on internal to a data center and you never need to do a splice. :-)

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#95

Post by alienchow »

madaxe_again wrote: post #81
jandrese wrote: post #13

Looking at the pictures it looks like the fiber itself might be inside of that spiral metal conduit in the middle and the outside is just abrasion protection. There are way too many strands for that outside bit to be the fiber. It's obviously bad that the outside plastic disintegrated, but it looks like the buried cables might be fine. I have a similar problem on my car where the 12v wiring is disintegrating like thi…

The metal coil will hold the actual fibre itself, yes - after a few more layers of protection. This is what is usually called “armoured” cable and is suitable for suspension and direct in ground. Dunno why he’s using it indoors. Honestly, this writeup is… weird? Dude doesn’t know you can terminate fibre at home with like $50 of gear? I had the fucking fox attack a freshly laid 500 meter line, literally the day before…

Hey actually I didn't know! It's my very first time dealing with fibre networking so I just maxed out the supposed durability specs. I figured I'd rather go overkill than regret not having done so. Ironic I know.

Unfortunately I can't easily dig the cable out and bury it again in this case. I'll have to figure out how to pull a new cable using the existing cable through the PVC conduits as the cable shares a larger conduit with multiple other fibre and Ethernet cables. The whole project was orchestrated remotely in a different timezone with me giving the electricians instructions over WhatsApp photos and audio recordings, so that limited what I could realistically control onsite back then. Often the contractors would proceed with a do first ask questions later approach while I was still asleep. The networking project was holding up the entire home renovation so everything was learnt and planned in a short amount of time.

AFAIK fibre splicing and terminating tools are very expensive. Do point me in the right direction for the $50 tools and I could go get some and DIY.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#96

Post by ZeroConcerns »

There's no link to the data sheet of the actual cable, but, yeah, looks like this should not have happened in such a short timeframe unless there's something really funny going on in that room, like ambient temperatures above 50 degC.

Another thing that should not have happened is installing the cable in loops in this way: any 'building' or 'underground' type cable needs to be of the exact length required at the demarcation point, fastened properly to prevent movement and terminated on a proper patch panel (can be a one-port box-type thingy for small setups), from where you use regular patch cords to connect your equipment.

(Loops are definitely allowed though, but that use case is mostly for aerial fiber to enable repair splices, and there are some very specific bend-radius and strain relief requirements, which, again should be spelled out in the cable data sheet)

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#97

Post by zeristor »

chneu wrote: post #56
russdill wrote: post #4

If you buy a consumer product labeled "military grade" you are buying snake oil. And not just snake oil, incredibly over priced snake oil.

Basically same with any company with "Patriot" or "Veteran" in the name. It's just a weak pander to people's weak egos. Freedumb, if you will.

I’m waiting for “Titanium Sourdough” optical fibres myself.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#98

Post by userbinator »

crote wrote: post #82
ericd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10GbE rj45 (normal ethernet jack) spf modules tend to burn power and get extremely hot, like to the point of burning you if you touch it - the manual for my switch said to leave adjacent ports unoccupied if using one of those. The fiber ones run cool to the touch. Also, not needing to rerun any cabling if we want to bump up speeds in the future, you just change the laser module on either end. These should be good to…

"10GBASE-T runs hot" is only half true. The real problem here is that 10GBASE-T is ancient . The spec dates back to 2006! And worst of all: it only saw lukewarm adoption by the datacenter industry, so there hasn't really been a reason for manufacturers to refresh their lineups. This means that SFP+ transceiver you buy in 2026 might be using chips manufactured using a 20-year-old node. No wonder it is running hot! 2.5…

Realtek recently made a new 10GBASE-T NIC that consumes much less power:

https://www.servethehome.com/cheap-10gbe-realtek-rtl8127-nic...

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#99

Post by harvey9 »

zeristor wrote: post #97
chneu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically same with any company with "Patriot" or "Veteran" in the name. It's just a weak pander to people's weak egos. Freedumb, if you will.

I’m waiting for “Titanium Sourdough” optical fibres myself.

Well those materials are verifiable at least.

Re: My Home Fibre Network Disintegrated

#100

Post by lexicality »

jijijijij wrote: post #54

Coiled up high-speed fiber optic cables suffer data-abrasion due to centrifugal forces. Either reduce data speed or arrange those cables in straight lines with space-grade angle connectors.

Worse still, the loop-de-loops can make your packets dizzy which is an unpleasant experience for anyone doing a video call with you and makes games such as VR chat completely untenable.
Post reply on HN