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Thread: This Old House

  1. #1
    Skiz's Avatar (_8(I)
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    I have a Zotac Zbox in my basement living room that is equipped with 802.11 b/g/n wifi but is notoriously slow. Mine is no different. I pay for 105 Mbps connection and the shit Zbox has been reporting between 1 and 1.5 Mbps during various speed tests. After setting up the new 65" TV and speaker system, I just couldn't bear to sit there watching watching my Kodi box buffer for another minute. Something needed to be done. I kicked around the idea of building a new machine. I even pondered getting an Nvidia Shield. But there was always the chance I might have spurious results with any of those as well.

    The solution hit me. I opted to run my own cable and do away with wifi for my downstairs home theater area once and for all.

    The house I recently purchased is almost 60 years old. I figured that with an old home without fire blocks, I could likely tackle this project on my own.

    My town has been rolling out a local fiber gigabit network and I wanted to get everything done before that hit my area sometime soon ("Spring 2016"). I planned to run Cat6a from my office modem, down an internal wall into the basement. Then I would remove the baseboards and cut into the wall. There I could bore holes into the studs and run the cable around to the TV area. That plan fell flat as I had a door in my way. I opted for a similar plan, but this time outside the wall.

    I already had the tools I needed except for a few job specific items. I purchased 250ft of Cat6a cable on Monoprice for $35. It was cheaper to order it that way than to order the individual pieces I needed. This would also give me some versatility if I changed my mind or ran into any problems. I bought the Cat6 jacks and wall plates at Lowes for around $30. The plastic molding/conduit type stuff was the most expensive thing at around $10 per 5 ft section.

    Before I even got started I ran into a problem. The walls weren't aligned right on top of each other in the upstairs office and the downstairs basement. After doing quite a bit of measuring, calculations and sketching, I was able to drill a 1/8" test hole in the office floor (out of sight, under the printer stand) and hit inside the basement wall perfectly. I then opened that test hole up with a 3/8" bit to accommodate the three cables. I wasn't keen on putting a hole in my original wood floors but it was an unavoidable sacrifice.








    My initial thought was to just run one cable to connect the Kodi PC. This quickly turned to, "well if I'm going to run one I might as well run two". It ultimately ended up as "If I'm going to run two I might as well run three." I did some more measuring and cut three 60' lengths of cable that I would run. I put a 3/8" hole in the very bottom of the basement wall and used my fish tape and some fine wire to pull it through. I started running the cable inside the plastic molding and sticking it to the wall. This went very quickly once I got the hang of it.

    My doors go right to the ceiling so I needed to remove the top molding and cut it with a table saw to re-fit.














    Once I had it all the way behind the TV area, I cut another 3/8" hole and put the cables back into the wall, up about a foot, and out to the box. Then came punching down all three cables to Cat6 jacks on both ends. Then testing to ensure everything worked and label each one.








    Kodi PC that was getting 1-2 Mbps over wifi is now getting full speed 120 Mbps and is ready for the impending gigabit network.
    Last edited by Skiz; 03-29-2016 at 08:09 AM.


    yo

  2. The Drawing Room   -   #2
    megabyteme's Avatar RASPBERRY RIPPLE BT Rep: +19BT Rep +19BT Rep +19BT Rep +19
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    Nice job, Skiz. Shame about the hardwood floor, but you will be using the wires for years. If you ever did change that, you can find a similar grain and color piece of matching hardwood and use a plug cutter.
    Quote Originally Posted by IdolEyes787 View Post
    Ghey lumberjacks, wolverines, blackflies in the summer, polar bears in the winter, that's basically Canada in a nutshell.

  3. The Drawing Room   -   #3
    Gribley's Avatar On a hate list
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    You`ve got to do something more asthmatic with that break out box on the right. Or just put a chair/table or anything to cover it up

    You didn`t ask but what the hell:
    I run cat5e around the house but then we have plasterboard internal walls so running new cables isn`t really an issue once I got the main feed to the loft and then with a gigabit switch goes to all the bedrooms.... cheated in kitchen with a power line adaptor but that is fine for Kodi use

    Anyhow put something over that ugly connection so your wife don`t notice

  4. The Drawing Room   -   #4
    Skiz's Avatar (_8(I)
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    Do you mean "aesthetic"?

    Both of those boxes are on the wall and behind the TV stand. They aren't visible at all. I just had everything pulled out for installation purposes. Everything is nice and clean with tidy cable mgmt as well.
    Last edited by Skiz; 03-29-2016 at 05:23 PM.


    yo

  5. The Drawing Room   -   #5
    Gribley's Avatar On a hate list
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    Opps yes, I really can`t spell beyond the checkers abilities Didn`t notice that mistake, don`t think the socket needs an inhaler but good camouflage I think is essential

  6. The Drawing Room   -   #6
    IdolEyes787's Avatar Persona non grata
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    Quote Originally Posted by Skiz View Post

    Before I even got started I ran into a problem. The walls weren't aligned right on top of each other in the upstairs office and the downstairs basement. After doing quite a bit of measuring, calculations and sketching, I was able to drill a 1/8" test hole in the office floor (out of sight, under the printer stand) and hit inside the basement wall perfectly. I then opened that test hole up with a 3/8" bit to accommodate the three cables. I wasn't keen on putting a hole in my original wood floors but it was an unavoidable sacrifice.
    See, this is why we can't have anything nice.

    On a purely pragmatic level I hope that one day Gribley comes to realize that asthmatics are nearly as important as basically anything.

    On a serious note, nice job, Bob.

    I'm running custom builds of Kodi on my computers (Apollo and Kryptonite) because they're cool and I'm lazy.
    Last edited by IdolEyes787; 03-29-2016 at 06:44 PM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost
    Respect my lack of authority.

  7. The Drawing Room   -   #7
    Skiz's Avatar (_8(I)
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    During last weeks blizzard, we had 6 large branches either break and fall off of two large trees we have in the back yard. Chainsaw time.

    I inherited a Craftsman chainsaw from my grandfather some time ago. It's a 24" beast that must weigh every bit of 15 pounds. It's loud, spews white smoke from a 2-stroke mixture that is always too rich, and has no safety features of any kind. The manual I have for it indicates it was purchased in '79.

    I got the ladder out, made my way up the tree and got to work. The chainsaw was doing ok but maneuvering such a long and heavy (giggity) item 20 feet up a tree isn't easy. I decided to buy a new chainsaw for the tree job. I bought an Echo CS-400 18".

    Have any of you played competitive baseball and used a bat weight in the on deck circle, and then when you're up to bat your normal bat feels like a 1 pound wiffle ball bat? Yeah, that's how this new chainsaw felt. So a day and a half later I had a large bounty of firewood size pieces and stacked in the shed for next year.

    You think I can put that I own two chainsaws on my next resume?

    Next project: kitchen speakers.


    yo

  8. The Drawing Room   -   #8
    IdolEyes787's Avatar Persona non grata
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    Good job, urbane cowboy.

    As you're a redneck I assume the old chainsaw will end up being something like this.

    Respect my lack of authority.

  9. The Drawing Room   -   #9
    Skiz's Avatar (_8(I)
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    Put some speakers in the kitchen recently. Some Audioengine P4's. I was tired of doing the bluetooth dance every time I wanted to listen to something, and I didn't want to be wired either. I wanted an option that would allow me to play music via wifi.

    The Audioengine P4's are a passive speaker so I needed an amp and I didn't have any experience with small amps. Did some reading and found a nice little one online. I had power behind the stove hood so did some work to create an outlet behind there. Put both speakers above the cabinets, as well as the amp. The third piece of the puzzle was an older Apple Airport Express which allows me to use AirPlay to play music over wifi. So I have a 3.5mm cable coming out of the Airport Express and and splits to a red/white RCA connection into the amp, which in turn run to the speakers. All sitting on top of the cabinets and out of sight. Works great. Don't have to be worried about distance either. I can go to the yard, garage, wherever and as long as I have a wifi connection there's no interruption.

    Next projects will be shelving for the garage and some office improvements.
    Last edited by Skiz; 05-19-2016 at 07:00 AM.


    yo

  10. The Drawing Room   -   #10
    megabyteme's Avatar RASPBERRY RIPPLE BT Rep: +19BT Rep +19BT Rep +19BT Rep +19
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    Quote Originally Posted by IdolEyes787 View Post
    Good job, urbane cowboy.

    As you're a redneck I assume the old chainsaw will end up being something like this.

    [video=Lance Armstrong Returns to Tour de France!]
    It is a very competitive sport these days...
    Quote Originally Posted by IdolEyes787 View Post
    Ghey lumberjacks, wolverines, blackflies in the summer, polar bears in the winter, that's basically Canada in a nutshell.

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