tracing cables

Hi Is there an equivalence to a telephone tone generator in the ethernet world that will enable me to trace cables?

TIA Paolo

Reply to
vrkid0
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The answer.. A telephone tone generator.

Not much difference between phone and ethernet for doing that.

If you already have a good idea of where the cable is going and is terminated already, they have lots of kits that have 6-10 or so dongles and a continuity checker that will identify which dongle is on the other end. Very helpful.

Reply to
Doug McIntyre

Hi

And if I don't know where the cable is going (I can't even see where it's going into the ceiling)?

TIA Paolo

Reply to
vrkid0

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in part:

Then you put the tone across a split pair to increase the tone transmit range. Then you can typically detect tone through walls/ceilings from ~2 ft away.

-- Robert

Reply to
Robert Redelmeier

Hi

This is where my English isn't good anymore. What is the meaning of "across a split pair"?

TIA Paolo

Reply to
vrkid0

Split pair means tone across the Tip of one pair and the Tip or ring of a different pair.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that most switches ground the center pins in Ethernet. Toning that pair with a telepone style toner goes absolutely nowhere unless you want to unplug all the unused patch cords at the distant end :-)

You can grab a digital toner like the Fluke Intelliprobe (O.K. I hate mine) or a toner that sweeps all 4 pairs like a Microscanner/Mocrotest or even a TestUm ethernet toner for $100-300 (pick you comfort level), or use different pairs with a standard 77P style toner.

Carl Navarro

Reply to
Carl Navarro

Since alot of new telephone cable installations use CAT5 cable instead of CAT3 cable, they are harder to tone out. The twist are so tight, very little toner signal gets out. Here are a few ideas you can try.

Shorted and split pairs:

|---------------- white-blue |----| |+ |---------------- blue-white toner |- |---------------- white-orange |----| |---------------- orange-white

Split pairs:

|--------------------- white-blue |+ toner |- |-------------------- white-orange

You can also connect one of the toner leads (the [-] lead) to a ground and you can detect the tone from several feet away if up in ceiling tiles, especially if using the shorted and split scheme.

I use a home made dongle that spits the pairs for me. Instead of having to run my toner up and down over several inches of CAT5 cable to find the tone, this throws the signal all over the outside of the cable. When I use two toners (one with a steady tone and other with warble tone), I'll have two dongles and a different color jumper. That way its easy to tone out a simple two jack face plate back to inside the communications rack room.

It looks like this:

|----pin 2 pin 4 ------- pin 1 |+ | toner --- pin 2 six inch Cat5 wall |- ethernet cable jack |----pin3 pin 5 ------- pin 3 jumper | RJ11 RJ45 --- pin 6

Reply to
DecaturTxCowboy

I have one too. Though I think the hype far surpasses the reality, I find the built-in service ID (limited as it is) and wiremap testing helpful... especially when I have to limit what I'm carrying. Why do you "hate" yours?

Reply to
Michael Quinlan

I notice you didn't mention the digital tracing capabilities. You know, the kind where you take the probe and walk into the phone closet and can tell in an instant if the cable goes there :-)

Yeah, right. If I hear that little tune one more time I'm going to smash the probe......

Did I mention I have my Fluke?

Carl

Reply to
Carl Navarro

On live network cables I've had better luck with the digital tracing of the Intellitone than I do with analog toners, but the only time I ever had to do that in practice was when documenting connectivity between switches for a customer with MANY distributed switches and NO documentation of how they were connected.

The feature I find most useful is tracing an unused cable, and after locating it, being able to do a quick wiremap test without returning to the other end first.

The "legacy" analog toning of the kit seems a bit on the weak side compared to my Harris (now Fluke) 2000.

At $189 for the kit, the fact that it came with alligator clips instead of ABN test leads (that I paid another $15-20 for) also bothered me. I also noticed that they actually recommend plugging in 6-position modular plugs into the jacks on the toner and probe, and even provide them for testing phone jacks. When I pointed out to a Fluke rep that this can damage the jacks (I've seen it happen), he actually passed the info along to engineering, but they haven't changed anything as a result. But I use the cables that came with my Siemon MODAPT adapters so I don't have to worry about it.

Reply to
Michael Quinlan

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