Telecom, data, etc. to garden shed!!!

[ColinDH]

Hello,

Been reading for a while but now have a real requirement. I will be working from home for a period and need a garden shed to escape the family. Well not quite a garden shed but a timber garden office. The telephone line comes in with ADSL 60 meters away on the house and I want to extend them both to the 'shed' office.

Is a CAT5 run of that length OK for telephone and data?
Should I separate telephone and data before sending them across CAT5 to the shed? I have a wireless router and the range on that is not good enough to get out the house and to the new office.

Also want to consider routing the digital aerial signal to the shed as well, for the breaks you understand.

Finally if CAT5 OK what conduit would I use (across grass lawn mainly). The power with be buried armoured cable.

If I run CAT5 externally down the wall before entering underground conduit, should the CAT5 be protected in smaller conduit on the wall?

Really appreciate any ideas, thoughts or advice. Thanks everyone.


Colin

[jpdw]

You may be best to keep the DSL router where it is and run data (ethernet) and voice over separate bits of cat5 from the house to the shed. By doing this, you keep the "fragile" DSL run on the incoming telephone line to a minimum, moving the data path to ethernet as soon as possible.

I wanted to do something similar, to put the router in my study/office, but found the DSL signal deterioration (even over good internal wiring) meant I was better off putting the router back at the BT master and running ethernet to the study [still running voice over the internal phone wiring.... voice isn't as susceptable]. That was even using a filtered faceplace at the master and running voice & unfiltered DSL along separate pairs of the same cable.

I dont know about conduit etc so will leave others to comment on the "outside" run....

[ColinDH]

Seperate CAT5 cables...

Hi,

Thanks for that jpdw. You seem to support seperate CAT5 cables rather than seperate pairs on the same cable. That right? I'm on the edge of my knowledge here so appreciate your input.

Await any input on the conduit situation...

Colin

[jpdw]

If you were putting the router in your shed then 1 cable would do it ... in fact you would only need 1 pair as a minimum as you could keep the DSL & voice together (ie unfiltered). But doing this you are quite likely to find the DSL sync speed reduced (if at all, & how much would depend on the length & quality of your new wiring & connections etc). At least you will have the TV to watch while Outlooks slowly downloads your emails....!

The reason for suggesting 2 cat5 cables is because - assumign you leave the router in your house - 1 will be taken up with ethernet data (connection from router to the PC in your shed). The other one would be for voice. IIRC, 100Base-T (100Mb/s network) only uses 2 pairs ... so leaving 2 pairs spare. I'm not sure how well it would work if you did put voice down a spare pair ... But Gig ethernet does use all 4 pairs... so for future proofing, it's best to plan that all 4 pairs in the cat5 are used for ethernet. And pulling 2 cat5 through is likely to be no more difficult that pulling just one.

Hey, if you have enough cat5 cable, why not pull through 3 just to be on the safe side?

[ColinDH]

External CAT5

Hi,

Thanks jpdw for your input; appreciated. I have come across 'external' black covered CAT5. It seems that this can be run down a wall without conduit protection at least from the weather. As it gets to the 2.5m height I will place in black ecxternal conduit and then run to flexible underground conduit and try to keep some distance away from the power supply cable although I would like to put them in the same trench.

Any thoughts anyone?

Colin

[toscal]

Whenever possible always put CAT5 or similar in a seperate conduit. Also when putting the cable in the conduit use a few drops of washing up liquid to help with pulling them through.
And always pull more cables than you need. If you are putting in 2 put in 3 or 4. And if possible some means of pulling some more at a later date. So when you pull the cables also pull a length of string through as well.

[ColinDH]

Specification? Video?

Hi,
Thanks for those useful tips. I will buy 300m and basically use it all up. I thought I would also pull a nylon cord through at the same time to aid further pulling.

Any help on the specification of the underground conduit? Drainpipe, purpose flexible conduit (expensive) 110mm drain pipe?

Also what about video? Seems to me that we are heading for more video over CAT5 (KAT% etc.) rather than CT100. Which route would you go?

Thanks all again.

Colin

[toscal]

I actually used in my house a 2.5inch soil pipe. Between the house and pump room. These pipes are designed to be burried underground. Then I can either pull conduit through this or just cable bundles. At the moment I'm upto 5 Omnimedia cables, (Abitana's modified Cat 5 cable), coming through this. One for gate control, one for Video door phone, one for CCTV and one spare. No doubt when I get to do this bit I will have thought of a few more uses for the pipeand pull some more cables.
Check local regs though about buried mains cables.
As regards Video it doesn'hurt if you have the chance to pull some cable for that. Its better to have redundant cables than thinking a few months later I wished I put some more cables in.

[TimH]

I tried to reply over the weekend but it seems my message never made it...

I've installed ducting around my garden in preparation for just this. The ducting is in pairs with one run for mains and one for all other LV cables. I've used the proper buried trunking, made by Polypipe, in black, and bought from here:

http://www.rudridge.co.uk/general-purpose-ducting.htm

It comes in 50m rolls for ~£50 and I got the 63mm OD / 50mm ID version.
Where I go through the wall I've used a tumble dryer outlet vent to cover the open end of the ducting. Keeps it neat

If your wireless router doesn't have enough range, you could consider fitting an external antenna and having a similar setup in the shed. One of the benefits of a directional antenna is that your signal is less likely to be snooped-on as the "beam" is focussed directly onto its target.

For telephone, you could consider VoIP instead of normal phones (POTS). You phone service then runs over the same ethernet link to the shed (either wired or wireless).

For the TV, have a look at the Slingbox - a device to stream an a/v signal over ethernet to be received by a PC in your house, or connected via the internet. (http://www.slingmedia.com/go/slingbox)

Finally, if copper-cabled ethernet is not up to the job (and 60m is still within spec for well-installed systems) you could consider a fibre optic link between house & shed. There's no noise/interference problems, signals can travel much greater distances and is no more expensive than copper once you start adding lightning arrestors to the copper cables.

HTH,

Tim.

[ColinDH]

Few follow up's

Lightning arresters? What are they? The power will be installed by electrician but I wanted to do the LVstuff. Can you explain the lightning issues please Tim?

Ducting link is great. I will use that. Is that the black stuff at the botom? You mention 50m rolls which seems to be the corrugated suff at the top?

Do you have any links to directional antenna as the only ones I can find are home produced. I think I favour cable but will check out all wireless options first.

Did you put the ducts for power and LV in the same trench? Do they fill with water? I guess that depends on the water table:-)

This input is all really helpful. Tim, do you have any pictures of your installation you could pm to me?

Colin

[TimH]

Hi Colin,

Lightning arrestors are desgined to minimise the impact on your kit of a nearby lightning strike. Nothing will protect against a direct hit, however. They are devices with (typically) "fuses" in them that will blow in the event of high current. The risk is from running thin cables outside and not having them grounded. Fibre optics are not electrically conductive so don't suffer the same risks.

In a previous job I was responsible for specifying ethernet links between various plant areas and wherever we ran between buildings it was always fibre. It's much more reliable (when properly terminated) and gives a lot of piece of mind etc.

I used the corrugated 50m rolls. It's corrugated on the outside (hence flexible) but has a smooth internal liner so cables don't get snagged. It's the proper stuff for running power underground - it even has "electric cables" printed faintly on the outside.

WiFi Antenna
There's quite a few ideas here: http://www.wlan.org.uk/antenna-page.html
And one typical one here: http://www.blueunplugged.com/p.aspx?p=115359

The other option that just occurred to me is to consider extending your ethernet network over the mains cable by using these devices:

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/default_ShopGroup.asp?ShopGroupID=61

I haven't tried these myself, but others have reported good results. Note that the signal/speed is degraded as you pass through RCD-type units in the "Fuse box".

My mains and LV ducts run side by side; the ducts are touching in fact. I'll have to consider carefully what type of cat5 I put in as it's likely to end up in the same junction box as the mains cables. The wiring regs say that if this is the case, the outer sheath of the LV cable needs to be rated for mains voltage. The pink Cbus cable (http://www.cbus-shop.com/product_inf...products_id=51) meets this requirement, but I'm not sure about other brands.

The ducting is waterproof. The ducts I installed some years ago (yes really!) were still bone dry inside. One of the more recent ones was a bit damp but I had forgotten to seal the open ends so I'm sure it was rainwater dripping inside, rather than water from the ground leaking in.

Re: photos - I'm halfway through a webpage with some of this stuff on it, I'll push on with that and post the link when it's in a publishable state

HTH,

Tim.

[ColinDH]

Many thanks

Tim, I appreciate your time to reply. All of that helps a tremendous amount. I have just confirmed that I will need to work from home for the next 6 months and will be constructing some kind of shed in the near future.

I will study the many links you have provided. I will also endeavour to record the whole project and do the same as you and place on a web site.

I have already looked at the network over mains approach and know a number of people who have successfully tried it in a small house but have a poor report where someone extended it to a neighbouring premises. I will look at optic which I had not really considered. I guess the thrust is that if I have the initial conduit then I have options!

Thanks again. Excellent response.

Colin

[jpdw]

but have a poor report where someone extended it to a neighbouring premises.

Power line stuff relies on both sender & receiver being on the same electricity phase - it's quite possible that the neighbouring premesis was on a different phase or, if the same phase, was just "too far" through electrical meters & fuseboxes, ....

The pink Cbus cable meets this requirement, but I'm not sure about other brands.

... slightly OT, but does anyone know of equivalent spec/other brand and/or available in less than 305m?

[TimH]

Re: photos - I'm halfway through a webpage with some of this stuff on it, I'll push on with that and post the link when it's in a publishable state

HTH,

Tim.

OK, it's taken me a little longer than I'd hoped, but I now have a few words & pictures uploaded.

They're here: http://www.fircones.co.uk/ha/garden2.htm
Comments, questions etc. welcome

HTH,

Tim.

[ColinDH]

Really useful

So really grateful for those pics and more to come. I will take pictures of the shed build which has just started and add to this site.

Thanks again and I look forward to more pics of the conduit being laid.

Colin