Lightning storm last month, replacing all equiptment question

[tangent]

Residential lightning protection systems are generally a bit less extreme than nayr's post above. But putting those spikes all over your roof wired together and installing a ground ring still isn't cheap.

If you want to test the cables (for lightning damage), I don't think there's a tool quite optimized for the purpose. You could use a megaohm resistance meter, but that would get extremely tedious as you'd have to preform dozens of tests per cable (sorry too tired to do the math). Cat-5e/6 cable is generally only rated to 250V, you have to test at a lower voltage than that. megaohm resistance meters are used to test the integrity of wiring insulation and do so using fairly high voltage.

My Aunt's house had a direct strike that put a hole in the roof, fried everything, and fused all her alarm contacts and damaged the alarm wiring.

 

[bguy]

Testing the wires is not some complex issue. If the guy doesn't have a $10 cable tester, he's not likely to have a megaohm tester. Besides, there is a tool specialized for testing the network cables, but it's too expensive to buy for a few cables. Network cables need to pass data reliably, not high voltage. If there's no charring visible, then the cables are probably ok.

You can do the continuity test with the $10 tester. It will tell you if the wires are still connected. Or do what nayr and I said, and try to pass data. I have seen cables that worked well enough to get a network connection that seems to work, until you try to pass a load of data. So the simplest test is to connect the camera to a PoE switch, and see if you can watch a smooth stream at the highest resolution. If you can, then the cable is good enough.

 

[tangent]

Testing the wires is not some complex issue. If the guy doesn't have a $10 cable tester, he's not likely to have a megaohm tester. Besides, there is a tool specialized for testing the network cables, but it's too expensive to buy for a few cables. Network cables need to pass data reliably, not high voltage. If there's no charring visible, then the cables are probably ok.

You can do the continuity test with the $10 tester. It will tell you if the wires are still connected. Or do what nayr and I said, and try to pass data. I have seen cables that worked well enough to get a network connection that seems to work, until you try to pass a load of data. So the simplest test is to connect the camera to a PoE switch, and see if you can watch a smooth stream at the highest resolution. If you can, then the cable is good enough.

A continuity tester (a bit tedious to try all combinations), normal network tester, trying to pass data without PoE are all fine ideas. If those succeed, there could still be issues that don't show up until you power up PoE on the cable. As long as the PoE switch has appropriate overload protection the risk is minimal.

 

[Iama]

This is good advice.
Also, if you're going to recrimp/rewire, you might want to use a better tester than the basic ones. I went through several of them until finally just spending a few extra $'s and got this one. Been VERY happy with it, and thousands of crimps, and years later, it still runs like a champ. (Best part was seeing just which wires I (or the idiot still installing T568a) had crossed.
https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-VDV501-823-Scout-Tester/dp/B00M2DDO0Q/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1472219809&sr=1-2-fkmr0&keywords=Klein+VDV+Scout+Pro+VDV501-Q53