RJ45 to 110 Cross-Connects

I'm planning the wiring for new office space. 125 Cat5 cables for voice (plus 125 for data) from the offices will terminate on patch panels in a rack. 1 pair lines from the phone switch terminate on a

110 block mounted on a plywood board about 8 feet away. I'm trying to figure out the best way to cross-connect the two that will make it easy to make changes when folks change offices.

I'm familiar with both RJ45 and 110 patch cords (in this case, I could use the 1 pair clips) and I presume that I could get patch cords with one of each. But I'd really rather not have 125 (expensive) patch cords running from the rack to the wall. Please suggest some other options I should consider.

-- Bob Simon remove x from domain for private replies

Reply to
Bob Simon
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Mount another patch panel in the rack. Cable it with 25pair cable, one pair per port, terminating on the white/blue punchdown. Terminate the other end on a 110 block next to your dial-tone 110 block. Cross connect your various extensions to the 110 feeding the patchpanel. Viola. Modular extension jacks on the rack, ready for you to patch with standard patch cords to the workstation outlets.

Reply to
Touch Tone Tommy

Tommy and Dmitri, Thanks for the suggestion. I only have one question: Instead of terminating the wall side of the 25 pair cables on another

110 block and cross-connecting to the dial tone block, why not directly punch down on the top of the dial tone block's 110 clips?

This would make the blue/white connections on the new patch panel simply an extension of the dial tone block onto the rack. All cross-connects would then be done via RJ45 patch cords.

-- Bob Simon remove x from domain for private replies

Reply to
Bob Simon

If Bob is looking for a cheapest solution, this may not be it. You would just exchange the cost of the (rather expensive) 110-to-RJ45 cords onto the costs of the patch panel, 25-pair, labor and RJ45-to-RJ45. Depending on your labor it may become even more expensive than to just take the 10FT cords from the wall directly into the rack. In case Bob is in for a most convenient solution, I totally agree with you. If both voice and data patch panels are in the same rack, cross-connects will be a snap and the mass of the cords will be more manageable.

Reply to
Dmitri(Cabling-Design.com

That makes sense. I do want this installation to look neat and professional (ok, maybe even pretty). How do you keep the cross-connect wire that goes between the two 110 blocks managed neatly? Would you suggest mounting them vertically or horizontally?

Thanks for sending me the link to the diagram on your web site. Although my situation is a little different than connecting 6 Cat5s per row, it's still interesting and brings up another question:

Why do you suggest using five 4-pair blocks + one 5-pair block per row instead of using six 4-pair blocks. After all, the 25th pair is never used and you only have to buy packages of one size block that way.

However, in my situation, I'll terminate all 25 pairs so I guess I should buy all 5-pair blocks, right?

-- Bob Simon remove x from domain for private replies

Reply to
Bob Simon

Technically you can do that, but it won't really look pretty as 110 blocks have no way of holding a mass of cable(s) coming from above, so people tend to avoid doing that. On the other hand, 110-blocks are cheap enough so you don't really save too much by excluding the other block that would take the 25-pair on its base.

I thought this diagram from my site can be useful as a reference here:

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Good luck!

Reply to
Dmitri(Cabling-Design.com

You are correct: if you are terminating all 25 pairs at once, you are much better off by using 5-pair 110C clips. As a matter of fact, the 4-pair ones will be confusing you as they lack the grey pair, and the colors will be always off after the pair #4.

The diagram I referred to was specifically for terminating 4-pair cables, such as your patch cords, on a 110-block, where it is better to use (5) x

4-pair and (1) 5-pair per row of contacts.
Reply to
Dmitri(Cabling-Design.com

I know that I am coming in to this conversation at a late date, but I haven't read netnews for a while, so I missed it when it occured. I feel very strongly about this though, so I decided to comment.

One of the most important considerations in analog voice systems is "pair control". Being able to easily place any analog line on any desired pair of the user's RJ45 jack is very important. For this reason I believe that all CAT5 "Voice" jacks should be terminated on 110 panels, as should the voice lines from the PBX/Telco/Etc. In order to have easy usage of "Voice" jacks as "Data" jacks, or vice-versa, "tie lines" between the 110 Voice patch panel and the RJ45 Data patch panel should be installed.

The above system is the easiest to troubleshoot and maintain. I believe that the most important consideration in mainting neat, orderly patch panels is the ease of keeping it neat. Using RJ45 jacks for "Voice" connectivity in the closet forces the use of wierd adapters, which may or may-not be at hand. 110 Patching is simple and any desired configuration is trivial.

Robert Sklar

Bob Sim> I'm planning the wiring for new office space. 125 Cat5 cables for

Reply to
Robert Sklar

We keep that thread archived here:

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So you are always welcome to go back and read it all.

I would comment on your suggestions that you can still control patching of every individual pair by using 1-pair RJ45-to-110 patch cords. This may become a little hairy though for digital phones that use two pairs instead of just one. You can always get a two-pair RJ45-to-110 too, but then you'd have to worry about the actual pin layouts (T568A and T568B). However, if you use RJ45 patch panel for your phone connections, it will give you an easy upgrade path to VoIP in the future. So, in my opinion terminating voice cables on an RJ45 patch panel is still viable option despite some patch cord awkwardness.

Reply to
Dmitri(Cabling-Design.com

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