Will it Certify? Testing my Home Network Cabling Install with a Cable Certifier!

[@pbrigham]

His house has better internet infrastructure than most business, thanks for sharing.

[@SB-qm5wg]

This guy takes his tech serious to a whole different level.

[@labbiee]

Cameron, I think I have said this before but EVERY video you make is absolutely BRILLIANT! Having a delightful hour long video to watch from you is always a treat! You have also introduced me to so many new interests such as burglar alarms, speakers and standing desk legs! Thank you so much for these wonderful videos :D

[@camerongray1515]

Thank you so much! Comments like this make the ridiculous amount of time and effort these videos take worthwhile! Hopefully a lot more interesting stuff still to come!

[@sulrich70]

Agree. Professional!

[@craigmurray4746]

This is pretty awesome. I have a school network that is closing in on 400 copper connections and whilst it's been mostly reliable, odd issues have come up time to time. Having something like this would have helped diagnose issues so much quicker

[@davideyres955]

When your cable was installed they should have used this type of certifier. When you have that the manufacturer will guarantee the cable for over 10 years.

[@gandi69]

Sounds like my life. Site offices where I’ve overseen the cabling install - perfect! Head office with old converted building into offices near 35 years ago - nightmare, dodgy cable runs and patches/termination. Cablings a nightmare, wifi coverage is a nightmare etc

[@Nothinglastsforever]

Yikes. These are still going for 3000 to 4500 USD on eBay for the full 7G kit. You must have got a steal.

[@wmoule]

Probably someone that didn't know what they had.

[@phantomskis]

Brilliant video again, as all of the “new house” series. So many useful tips. Thanks Cameron! A little request / idea. Since you’ve done a lot of crimping and testing and now probably have a plenty of spare cable and connectors you didn’t use. How about doing a video about various cable management / crimping mistakes one can make and how they show (and potentially fail) on the certifier? Things like removing too much shielding, not connecting shielding to connector, not using grounding, unwinding pairs too far, bending the cable too tight, crunching the cable, etc. Also if you have some, difference between cheap and higher end cables / connectors. Only if you have time and spare goodies of course. Would be great educational material for all DIYers for proper techniques. Thanks!

[@RWL2012]

16:20 me: "oh wow, a high-resolution *_colour_* screen!" Cameron: "screen is a little bit dim because it's a very old LCD" lol it's funny how different people perceive things

[@toddthetechgod]

@Cameron Gray Still waiting for the multi-room HDMI distribution! Any ideas on when you'll be doing a video on that?

[@Lagittaja]

Would you upload the test report on your website maybe? I'd like to take a closer look at the reports your Ideal generates compared to the Fluke certifiers I've been playing with.

[@jwaddin]

I think you skimped over the bit how to test what country we are in 😂😂😂😂😂

[@AlexKidd4Fun]

Let's work it out! 😁

[@martuk7707]

That’s easy if you’re in the UK, no tester needed to know it’s a fail!🤦‍♂️

[@TheFlow2006]

oh i was using such a tester when i was still an apprentince back in the late 2000´s

[@markjl2]

Fantastic video, as an electrician, have definitely hired and used one of those before.....probably not really understanding it!

[@kevinhughes9801]

Great insight thanks

[@tschubb1992]

I was a jammy git and won a Trend LanTEK IV-S in a raffle! :)

[@alexscarbro796]

I’m looking for recommendations for a 1U keystone rack panel and a brand of LC/SC/RJ-45 keystone modules to put in the panel. Any suggestions?

[@Farhan-l4g6o]

My wishlist - to buy a house and have you network the life out of it.

[@gandi69]

We are at the point now where a lot of legacy cat5/5e cabling in offices is coming to the end what’s realistically possible with new standards. My employers offices are currently running cat5e but we are struggling in some instances to get even 2.5gbe to wifi6/6e/7 APs. We have 10g plus fibre and upwards between critical infrastructure but we are finding a lot of 20/25 odd year old cabling are struggling sometimes to do 1gbe to much more in various offices due to age and use, especially on the wall ports. Also we’ve had work done by contractors on building refurbs in the last 5 years where they’ve put cable in specced to cat6 or better on job sheets and found they have done cat5e runs instead! The perils of work done when I’m on my holidays eh and getting sparks to do the work eh, not my call though - powers that be just finding whoever is cheapest. As said by others your home is better wired and specced than most small to medium businesses so kudos to you there. At work I find it’s cheaper for us to do cable runs to decent ish AP (ruckus 750 in our case) and run our user end points with decent wifi cards rather than have the hassle of cabling them

[@IcyEyeG]

It would be very interesting to see if the cat7 cables you mentioned in your network installation series would pass certification or not. I get that cat7 isn’t a thing, but I’m not from the UK, and it’s hard to find cat6a for sale (and when available it’s very expensive), but cat7 stuff is just as common as cat6, but only a bit more expensive.

[@usagold8]

Wonder if the newer models also do more consumer-ish premade cable types like HDMI or USB, probably not since most people don’t run huge runs of them but it would be great for fault finding.

[@yellowcrescent]

Usually HDMI, USB, LVDS, and other high speed wire protocols (including the various Ethernet variants like 10GBASE-T) are tested with a high end oscilloscope with a special test fixture (eg. by inspecting the eye diagram while transmitting a signal). Typically they would only be used by engineers designing cables or products, or as part of an automated go/no-go test or QC test at a factory. Network cables have their own dedicated devices because they are field terminated -- whereas USB, HDMI, etc. are not. Although there are specific hand-held test devices for digital and analog video (I have an old Tektronix WFM 90D, which is for analyzing the quality of analog video).

[@jamess1787]

I had (still have) an Ideal cable tester, was the first one I bought. $150. Good piece of kit, no lengths except for breaks. Saved me a bunch of times. Ended up working at a place and had a Fluke cable certifier that was awesome.

[@thomassvedin8701]

Reminds me of my old Fluke DSP 4000 tester but a bit newer.

[@andyhello23]

Always interesting just to see these things most of us never will use or see in real life. Love seeing these sorts of videos, as anyone interested in computers seeing what enterprise level computer stuff goes on at company level is fascinating for most of us who will never get exposed to these things Amazing how much you say they cost, but people in that business must be willing to pay for them at some level, and it must fit in with some sort of business model

[@partypiggaming9344]

wonder if its possible to rent one of these lol

[@camerongray1515]

You definitely can, there's a lot of places that rent out test equipment and generally speaking, if you only need to certify a couple of installs a year, it's probably the best way to go versus paying the initial cost to buy a new tester outright and then the ongoing calibration costs.

[@lifoy]

Used an Lantek 2 500 with cat 6A adapter at work long time but its crashed and reboot som times got a new Lantek 4 way better , the failing of NEXT ist ih this point minimal i have a full building with 300 Duplex Ports wo arround 80 of the Ports was bad , an rewire it help to get the Value better and some need to change the Jack to a nother model that help but it was working with 1gbit at the ports :p

[@timballam3675]

What do you think of the requirement for all Ethernet cables that could be used for PoE having to be installed by an electrician?

[@andrewmcewan9145]

Generally electricians do some of the worst terminations I've ever seen. Not everyone but most. So absolutely not that's a awful idea. Ethernet runs also don't really follow wire regs for installs like you don't want to staple your Ethernet to the studs. Finally any cables that can be is essentially any cable so you'll never be able to install cable on your own. I mean I also come form a country where you can wire your house it just has to be approved by a electrician before you can connect it to the grid so..

[@camerongray1515]

Are you referring to the fact that BS7671 Amendment 4 is introducing some regulations around PoE? I've taken a look at the initial draft and nothing in there says anything about exactly who can install cables, it just sets out some requirements around how they should be installed. Given homeowners and other "competent persons" can completely legitimately carry out many different pieces of electrical work themselves in the UK, I can't see PoE being treated differently.

[@andrewmcewan9145]

@@camerongray1515 (canada,Ontario) our electrical code explicitly covers poe lighting. Same as low voltage lighting. Was there anything in the new code arround that. "Poe" was a big loophole to follow no code at all for lighting. But honestly the code dosen't define what a light is well. Like is a ap with a blue led a light? I don't know. The standard interpretation is literally a primarily for lighting device.

[@chimpo131]

​@@camerongray1515you really don't stop yapping about the most pointless things over and over in your videos

[@camerongray1515]

Then maybe watch a different channel?

[@aRndBelgianGuy]

Hi Cameron, would you add a like to these overpriced CAT cables ? I'd be interested to have a look what these PCBs do. Thanks !

[@camerongray1515]

If I remember correctly, they're these ones: uk-store.netceed.com/siemon-z-max-patch-lead-cat6a-s-ftp-lszh-clear-low-profile-boot-26awg-white-l-1mtr.html

[@u1f98a]

Couldn't see it in the video but looks to be the ZM6A-S01M-02 from their Z-MAX 6A range. In the spec sheet the PCB is labeled as "PCB equipped Smart Plug optimises signal tuning for exceptional transmission"

[@aRndBelgianGuy]

@ thanks, I am suspicious, you too ?

[@yellowcrescent]

I'd imagine the PCB is primarily there to provide a more consistent physical connection at higher frequencies. The PCB doesn't appear to have any components on it.

[@Cablesmith]

Clicked this because of the thumbnail. Old lantek 7G !!! I started my days using one of them doing data only work

[@benjaminsmith3625]

184 pages of happy client that has a hefty report for all that money 🙄 (and no one to blame for none of the cabling working...)

[@gabest4]

Those who install the cables cannot put a computer onto each end and run iperf, they will be long gone by then, that's the only reason such device exists. Unlike you or me, who do it at home to ourselves. So I don't really see the point. Not even a continuity check.

[@camerongray1515]

This is definitely not required for the vast majority of installs but it's also not equivalent to running iPerf over a link. Testing using iPerf is closer to a qualification tester as it would demonstrate the link running a particular communication standard such as 10GbE without errors. This is a good test to do in lieu of having an actual tester - I've done it in the past and I keep meaning to put together a simple script to automate the process and collect results. However, it wouldn't really be suitable in a professional setting that requires the cables to be qualified as there's so much variation between different NICs.etc (for example I have a NIC that couldn't run 10GbE over a 10m CAT 6 run, but all other 10GbE devices I have worked fine over it). In settings that require links to be qualified, you'd still want to use an actual qualifier since you're using a known-good device that tests to a particular standard. Then, when it comes to a certifier, you're testing way beyond what you could do with an iPerf test - you could very easily have a link that can pass 10GbE using iPerf without error but still fail certification. This may be fine if all you want to do is run 10GbE over it, but in the future what if you have a machine with a fussier NIC or want to use a different protocol such as HDBaseT which operates up to 16Gb/s? A certifier is a very strict test that ensures the cable confirms to the releveant specs, not just that it can carry ethernet without errors. Of course for almost all installs, you don't need any of this, but you should still really test all links with a continuity tester. The last thing you'd want to do is send PoE down a miswired cable run. You could also easily end up in a situation where you could have accidetally wired a run as a crossover cable which would work fine for the vast majority of devices but then cause issues with certain other devices - this sort of issue can be an absolute nightmare to diagnose if it crops up long after running the cables!