Pre Wire for a friend

[Firefighter]

A buddy is building his house and wasn't going to do anything. I convinced him otherwise.

We went from maybe a couple wireless arlo cams to letting me do what I want with some caveats.
No low level cameras, no inside cameras. Only using wire he already had. Cat5e. No cat6. Hell... he's not even running coax wire...

OK fine. Some overview is better than none. He lives out in the middle of no where.

Building his house and a 10 acre lake infront.
So my idea was place the boxes and at least have the wire there for options down the road. After spray foaming attic/rafters/eaves it would be difficult later.

Goals
1. General overview
2. Look at wildlife around the lake

So all together I installed 16 boxes for cctv.
All in all used almost exactly all of his 1,000ft box and 500ft box. So 1500 ft total of runs.

1. Front porch
1. Back porch
2 in garage inside
Then basically 2 on each outsiee corner and 1 on several inside corners.

Then I ran a cat5e to his 4 most likely to use tvs to send a cctv monitor signal as a separate input to see the cams around the house/back porch.
I also ran cat5e to 3 tvs I knew he would use most for streaming. He doesn't know that yet. Lol he'll thank me later. He has very low speed internet. So using wifi should be last resort and ALL of his TV experience is streaming. So yeah I made sure he had a solid data connection to those tvs...

Anyway here's the start of it.
Ran a chase under the house incase anything in the future needed to be added. Also will add another going up just in case. Using a 27" network enclosure. The poe switch might fit inside. And the NVR will be on a shelf or cabinet. Not sure yet.

So here's the box before and after.

Then the other photos are just some of the boxes.
I labeled each wire end and each box.
I'll have a legend printed out so anyone can work on it if something happens to me.

Empty enclosure with chases and an outlet added in the box.


Pulled some wires....


I labeled each wire end with a sharpie, AND some blue tape.


Wires in the box. I will cut and trim each wire when it comes time to trim out and install...



So here's some of the boxes. I also labeled each box on the inside so if the cover is ever removed even the box is identifiable.

Here's just a few put together



And here some wider shots.





Here's an interesting one. You can see I installed two boxes. The one further away will be for looking down to the left outside the house and garage.
The one closer to the exterior light will hopefully be the access box that will feed a future PTZ mounted on the corner of the exterior brick on a corner mount. We'll see. I wanted the box and wire there just in case.




Anyway we'll see what he ends up doing.
At least it will be ip...
And yes he knows "cat6 would have been better" and "Eave shots will just get their heads" and "you can't ID someone from above"

 

[TonyR]

Great job! He's fortunate to have you as a friend.

FWIW, you might like these clip-on markers for CAT cable, I recently used some in a restaurant that put in 4 POS terminals and I wired it all up with CAT-5e. The KN-60 fit the CAT-5e a little loosely, but great on patch cables....YMMV. They are removed and replaced easily and as you can see, use the resistor color code. They'd look great in the wall box. ==>> ezitown 0-9 Coded Clip on Plastic Cable Identification Wire Cord Cable Marker C shape (KN-60) suitable wire 6mm2 cable equal to AWG10 AWG9 cable out diameter 6-10mm 100 Pieces in releasable bag

 

[Firefighter]

I like those, thanks for the heads up! Thats cheap for what it is. Nice!

 

[mattp]

Yeah, that's better than what I did. I used a label maker with good outdoor rated label ribbon. It works, but definitely not as nice as above.
I too have cams up on my eaves. My solution was to get varifocal cameras. 6mm won't cut it for me. I wish they made fixed lens cams in the 8mm-12mm range.

 

[Coachtech]

I use the colored mini zip ties for electronics, can get about 300 for about 6 bucks i have about 16 different colors, when you run out of using all colors the you start and put 2 different colors on cables and keep going. been diesel mechanic 30 plus years and use them to mark everything especially hydraulic cables put one on fitting and one on hose and you'll never forget where you took it off from especially when you take a bunch of hoses off at the same time.

 

[looney2ns]

My choice for marking cables.
No need for a cheat sheet that will usually get lost.

These are heat shrink tubing, I've not applied the heat gun to them as yet in the below pics.

I ran across these several yrs ago, and used them religiously when I installed projection equipment in theatres.
They showed their worth many times over a few yrs down the road after install.
Yes, it takes additional effort and time on the front end, but save's loads of time on the backend a year or more after the install.

 

[mat200]

A buddy is building his house and wasn't going to do anything. I convinced him otherwise.

We went from maybe a couple wireless arlo cams to letting me do what I want with some caveats.
No low level cameras, no inside cameras. Only using wire he already had. Cat5e. No cat6. Hell... he's not even running coax wire...

OK fine. Some overview is better than none. He lives out in the middle of no where.

Building his house and a 10 acre lake infront.
So my idea was place the boxes and at least have the wire there for options down the road. After spray foaming attic/rafters/eaves it would be difficult later.

Goals
1. General overview
2. Look at wildlife around the lake

So all together I installed 16 boxes for cctv.
All in all used almost exactly all of his 1,000ft box and 500ft box. So 1500 ft total of runs.

1. Front porch
1. Back porch
2 in garage inside
Then basically 2 on each outsiee corner and 1 on several inside corners.

Then I ran a cat5e to his 4 most likely to use tvs to send a cctv monitor signal as a separate input to see the cams around the house/back porch.
I also ran cat5e to 3 tvs I knew he would use most for streaming. He doesn't know that yet. Lol he'll thank me later. He has very low speed internet. So using wifi should be last resort and ALL of his TV experience is streaming. So yeah I made sure he had a solid data connection to those tvs...

Anyway here's the start of it.
Ran a chase under the house incase anything in the future needed to be added. Also will add another going up just in case. Using a 27" network enclosure. The poe switch might fit inside. And the NVR will be on a shelf or cabinet. Not sure yet.

So here's the box before and after.

Then the other photos are just some of the boxes.
I labeled each wire end and each box.
I'll have a legend printed out so anyone can work on it if something happens to me.

Empty enclosure with chases and an outlet added in the box.
View attachment 129749

Pulled some wires....
View attachment 129750

I labeled each wire end with a sharpie, AND some blue tape.
View attachment 129751

Wires in the box. I will cut and trim each wire when it comes time to trim out and install...

View attachment 129752

So here's some of the boxes. I also labeled each box on the inside so if the cover is ever removed even the box is identifiable.

Here's just a few put together

View attachment 129753

And here some wider shots.

View attachment 129756

View attachment 129757

Here's an interesting one. You can see I installed two boxes. The one further away will be for looking down to the left outside the house and garage.
The one closer to the exterior light will hopefully be the access box that will feed a future PTZ mounted on the corner of the exterior brick on a corner mount. We'll see. I wanted the box and wire there just in case.

View attachment 129755


Anyway we'll see what he ends up doing.
At least it will be ip...
And yes he knows "cat6 would have been better" and "Eave shots will just get their heads" and "you can't ID someone from above"

Very nice, really looking forward to seeing how well this build out goes.

Will he have cat5e/6 drops within the house also for typical ethernet connections?

btw - this was one of the videos I liked for pre-wiring inside the home:

 

[Firefighter]

No drops. The only other thing I convinced him was ceiling speakers on the back porch for the TV.

 

[Flintstone61]

Great job pulling cable.
Wow, the Dymo sure looks like a nice product.

 

[mattp]

My choice for marking cables.
No need for a cheat sheet that will usually get lost.

These are heat shrink tubing, I've not applied the heat gun to them as yet in the below pics.

I ran across these several yrs ago, and used them religiously when I installed projection equipment in theatres.
They showed their worth many times over a few yrs down the road after install.
Yes, it takes additional effort and time on the front end, but save's loads of time on the backend a year or more after the install.

View attachment 129783 View attachment 129784 View attachment 129785 View attachment 129786

@looney2ns,
I found the label writer. Not bad for $100:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/DYMO-Rhino-4200-Industrial-Label-Maker/50016468

A couple of questions, why the black on yellow vs. black on white? And, what size tube?
Edited to add:
It looks like the 3/8 tube comes in 5 foot length. That's 30 two inch sleeves for $30. That may do a house. If not 2 cartridges would and you could get the job done for under $200.
Here's a link to the cartridges:

https://www.amazon.com/DYMO-Industrial-Heat-Shrink-Labels-18053/dp/B000AN9I6O

 

[Rickoo]

Pretty sure the 3/8 is the width of the heat shrink tubing when it's flat. Not sure 3/8 will fit ethernet cable. Anyone know for sure?

 

[looney2ns]

@looney2ns,
I found the label writer. Not bad for $100:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/DYMO-Rhino-4200-Industrial-Label-Maker/50016468

A couple of questions, why the black on yellow vs. black on white? And, what size tube?
Edited to add:
It looks like the 3/8 tube comes in 5 foot length. That's 30 two inch sleeves for $30. That may do a house. If not 2 cartridges would and you could get the job done for under $200.
Here's a link to the cartridges:

https://www.amazon.com/DYMO-Industrial-Heat-Shrink-Labels-18053/dp/B000AN9I6O

Because I wanted the yellow with black. To me it was easiest to read in a dark projection booth.

For ethernet, the 1/2" is needed.

 

[mattp]

Because I wanted the yellow with black. To me it was easiest to read in a dark projection booth.

For ethernet, the 1/2" is needed.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

[samplenhold]

Wow, @Firefighter he has a great friend!

What do you envision going into the box? Mounting POE switches?

 

[flynreelow]

I recently bought this.. and it works great. Bluetooth label maker, and some labels made for cables. Water proof, rip proof. Works great..

Label Maker

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087CHRBHG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Wire Labels:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094VH4FT8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[Firefighter]

Wow, @Firefighter he has a great friend!

What do you envision going into the box? Mounting POE switches?

Hey, we work together at the fire station so we try to take care of each other.

To answer your question, I wish the box was larger. I'm worried I won't be able to fit much into the 27" box.
I was hoping to get a POE switch for the cameras in there, and a non managed switch for the TV Data cables. I figure a shelf or cabinet will hold the NVR and ISP Box depending on whatever he gets. Not sure what company it is.

The speaker wires I'm going to run into the next stud space over so they don't cause any issues with the cctv wires. So he'll need a shelf or cabinet for the amp/AVR. I'm still figuring that one out.

So to make it simple I'm hoping the poe switch at minimum. Guess we'll see.

 

[The Automation Guy]

Great job! I think everyone assumes that everything is going to be wireless in the future, but wired will ALWAY trump a wireless connection. No doubt he will eventually be kicking himself for not doing more pre-wiring, but at least you did what you could.

There is no problem using Cat5e for what you did. In fact, I'd argue that you will never need anything faster than 1gb connection for things like cameras and streaming devices and putting in Cat6 for these devices is just a waste of money. I'd definitely want a cat6 (or better) backbone for my main network (to WiFi APs, main computer locations, etc), but for the IOT type stuff Cat5e is fine.

 

[samplenhold]

To answer your question, I wish the box was larger. I'm worried I won't be able to fit much into the 27" box.
I was hoping to get a POE switch for the cameras in there, and a non managed switch for the TV Data cables. I figure a shelf or cabinet will hold the NVR and ISP Box depending on whatever he gets. Not sure what company it is.

You could do something like I did below. The alarm electronics were already installed by the alarm company in my panel, along with coax and cat5e. The coax is useless and just take sup space. Originally there were two other boxes in that panel for the internet, but over time they were replaced by just a single modem which is not in that panel. Also there were two small 4 port switches in there. As I needed more ports overtime and started with cams, I has a couple of switches just mounted to the sheetrock. I finally decided on a small, shallow rack for most of the stuff, with a shelving unit to house the ISP modem, two IPS, and a NAS that were not rack mountable. You could do this and overlap the panel.

 

[mat200]

No drops. The only other thing I convinced him was ceiling speakers on the back porch for the TV.

Good job on getting him to at least get some of the pre-wiring done ..

I'd still try for at least a few drops to the locations for the TVs .. and access points ...

 

[dudemaar]

seen this on another site, though id share.