New building - need ethernet cable recommendations

[iLikeProg]

My family and I have all made a big move, sold our house for a large 20,000 sqft commercial building for our business and eventually our residence. Step one right now, get internet to the building and figure out how to network this monster. This will be my first time making ethernet cable from bulk line and need some advice. Like many here, I enjoy technology and consider myself a prosumer (video editor and musician), but networking tech has never been my forte. From the little research I've done so far, it seems like our security cameras will all be running CAT 5e for energy and cost savings, and CAT 6 for computer and device networking with conduit to allow replacing with CAT15A 20 years from now.

 

Step one is doing more research: any links to information resources for such a project would be extremely helpful.

 

Step two: recommendations for buying bulk cable without overspending and best tools for making cable runs.

 

Thanks in advance for any assistance with this!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id probably run cat 6 for everything now. Should handle 10gbe if needed in the future, and its gonna be a while before speeds faster than that will be used.

[manikyath]

if you cant be arsed to read a long post, at least read this: GET SHIELDED CABLE.

 

that said.. from experience at work, and from experience upgrading a house that's seen the origins of the internet, here's some tips and tricks:

- spend the time to compare different types of cables. there's hundreds of options out there, chances are there's a cost-optimized option for your purpose out there.

- put all your cabling in (individual) cable conduits. the house i live in has most of the cables in flexible plastic tubes, it makes upgrades a 10-minute one-person job.

- on the case of cable conduits.. put in extra's. future you will thank you.

- get decent cable crimping tools and fixtures, especially when working with thick/firm cables it'll be a huge boost in long term reliability. (once again, spend the time comparing)

- take the time to label EVERYTHING, future you will thank you.

- assume you have no idea what the future will bring. when my house was built, there was extra conduit all over, because someone in the 90's thought "in the future, we will have these magical cables that bring TV by light instead of electricity (fiber?), all those conduits are now filled with ethernet, because there was no concept of that ever being a thing in the household back then.

 

as for advice for sourcing tools and consumables:

- avoid amazon. I know lots of americans will disagree with me, but i dont trust anything that comes from amazon, the amount of QC is actually zero...

- try to find a 'relatively local' supplier for your consumables, either a warehouse you can drive to, or something that'll ship in 1-2 days. especially unwieldly/heavy things will be terrible to have shipped.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, iLikeProg.com said:

My family and I have all made a big move, sold our house for a large 20,000 sqft commercial building for our business and eventually our residence. Step one right now, get internet to the building and figure out how to network this monster. This will be my first time making ethernet cable from bulk line and need some advice. Like many here, I enjoy technology and consider myself a prosumer (video editor and musician), but networking tech has never been my forte. From the little research I've done so far, it seems like our security cameras will all be running CAT 5e for energy and cost savings, and CAT 6 for computer and device networking with conduit to allow replacing with CAT15A 20 years from now.

 

Step one is doing more research: any links to information resources for such a project would be extremely helpful.

 

Step two: recommendations for buying bulk cable without overspending and best tools for making cable runs.

 

Thanks in advance for any assistance with this!

Because its a Commercial building it will probably be pretty easy to run cables. Id run at least Cat6 because with the new standard it can do up to 5Gbps @ 100m, which would be a nice upgrade in the future when you need it. 

 

@manikyath mentions shielded cables. Thats probably wise, generally in homes they are not used because you basically only dealing with 110v, but in commercial spaces voltages can get much higher and if you're going to be running near high voltage lines, you're going to want shielded cables. ALSO shielded cables are used when you have lots of Ethernet running in a general area, like large bundles, from what I have read. The next part I would suggest is making sure you do at least 2 cables per drop. This way if you have two devices in an area that need to be wired, you don't need to buy a switch. 

[iLikeProg]

Thanks everyone for the great tips. I will definitely do all shielded cable and I appreciate the long posts with details very much!

 

So, does anyone have a recommendation for a cable supplier or a tool supplier? I hate Amazon as well for the reasons posted above, and I also disapprove of Monoprice. I love the Monoprice low cost TV mounts, but have been scared away from them with poor QC audio cables (un-shielded "shielded" audio cables, reversed polarities, and cheaply manufactured "professional" audio cables that fall apart after a year). Maybe their bulk CAT cables are fine, never purchased any from them?

 

Maybe even a tool brand recommendation? I wouldn't recognized a cheap CAT crimper from a good one since it is something I have yet to do. And knowing how many cables I will need to create for this project scale, I am willing to invest in some good tools (and cable) to start with.

 

Thanks again everyone!

[THEGURUOFNOTHING]

Being as you are in the US, (can't speak for other countries as I am in the US myself), I agree with the shielded cable idea. CAT6 is plenty enough for a basic build-out in a commercial space. One thing to note is that if you plan to run cables in the overhead above drop ceilings, code will require you to have "plenum" rated cable. That is cable that if caught on fire, won't drip sticky burny shit all over people below and add more toxic smoke to the environment while doing so. Being as you are in Cali... bet your ass any inspector will catch that for the sweet sweet fine money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenum_cable <--This is a good read BTW.

 

Run each cable in individual conduits". Mwahahahahahahaha... let's get a little real here. I get it for houses.. it's called "smurf tube" here in the states because it's typically colored blue (though sometimes orange, which farts in the face of the naming convention). But VERY few installations in commercial environments use it. IF the walls are framed with steel and the wiring has to be run through framing members, that stuff will be installed to keep the wires from chafing and shorting out. But if the drops are put through the top plates and dropped straight down to the jacks... not tubed. No reason for it. I would suggest watching a few video's of Bridge Cable's channel - Link below as an example. You're clearly installing in a commercial environment and they are commercial installers. 

 

As far as getting wire from Amazon... I don't know what to tell you outside of that I have installed many thousands of feet of cable that I purchased from Amazon. Like EVERY purchase from EVERYWHERE... buyer beware. But you don't buy cables with manufacturer names like Pungwha and Tootsal. You buy name brands. There are "less expensive" cables that work well and won't leave you hanging. VIVO and Dripstone are two I buy a LOT of. However, there are other more expensive brands if you really want to spend more money on a box that has lots of certification symbols printed on it. Fast CAT and trueCable are a couple of those.  If you are doing 320 foot runs without any kind of switching gear in the middle... buy the high end certified cable just for the piece of mind. But I have done plenty of 250-275 foot runs with VIVO cable and not had any issues at all.

 

Spend your money on GOOD quality switches and your problems will be far less as wiring is not the biggest headache in the process. Wire your camera systems as their own network (don't plug camera feed wires into the same switches that runs your data) and use POE switches for that network. Won't need to have power at every camera location and the installs are way cleaner, though POE switches are more expensive. DON'T CHEAP OUT on POE gear. You will absolutely get what you pay for.

 

Tools is subjective but I don't buy cheap crap because its my livelihood and I want it to work every single time I pull it out. I prefer Klein tools for this. I own a Klein Tools VDV226-110 Ratcheting Modular Cable Crimper... that i bought on Amazon. Sorry. You want pass-through ice cubes (the connectors) and honestly, I use Cable Matters pass-through RJ45 ice cubes. Decently priced and I have had no issues with them personally. Yep... Amazon. You WILL need to add a decent quality punch down tool and you can't live without a cable tester as it's nearly impossible to track down a wiring issue (that you inevitably caused and didn't catch it) without one. I bought mine from Lowe's and it's dumb as rain but works great. You can buy smarter ones that do all sorts of testing and tracing functions but really not that necessary.

 

Label the shit out of your runs at both ends. I personally use a Dymo Industrial "RHINO" label printer. WHY? Because you can get shrink tube that you can print run numbers on that shrink to the wire and are pretty damned tough. They will print up to 3/4" wide tape, shrink tube of all sorts of sizes and are just generally great for industrial labeling. A tad pricey but if you are anally retentive and OCD about this kind of stuff like I am... it's a worthwhile buy. But when you label your drops, put one 6 inches from the end and one a foot from the end... You'll figure put why that is important when you do the install ( I won't spoil it now:-)

 

There is lots of topology suggestions but this could go on for PAGES if I did so. Good wiring standards is a hot topic around these parts. One suggestion I will definitely throw in there... if you have to run ONE wire... pull TWO. If you think there may be 2 computers in a space, pull 4 wires. Though just "tossing in a 5 port switch" is a valid answer, it's a lazy one and adds complexity that makes troubleshooting harder. If you lose a drop for some reason.. it happens even with top tier cable... you want an easy spare. Can't do that without a spare drop. Cable is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things so wire for contingencies. I pulled 4 wires between two node cabinets thinking I'd NEVER need more than one or two. All four have been utilized at this point and I am wishing I had pulled a couple extra because these are underground runs... in conduit, so I could pull it all and add more but what a PITA.

 

Oh yeah... and since you DIDN'T ask... if you are going to go with some WiFi ('cuz why not?) Use Ubiquiti AP-Lite pucks. Definitely more expensive than consumer grade shit but it's price vs quality value is incredible. It's also POE powered and has GUI based management that tells way more of a story about your network than any POS consumer grade wifi router ever could. It's also a MESH environment which is pretty important in today's WiFi intensive world.

 

That's my 2 cents. i have a massive network in my home and property and I I installed it and can forget about it.

 

[VIVO-US]

On 8/29/2020 at 10:38 PM, THEGURUOFNOTHING said:

But I have done plenty of 250-275 foot runs with VIVO cable and not had any issues at all.

 

We're glad it's working well for you!