Testing Structured Cabling

[J]

Testers for structured cabling (CAT5, etc) range from simple (order $100 Au)
to exhaustive (order $20k Au). I'm interested in the former. However, most
do only DC checks which won't pick split pairs. And price/claims are not a
guide. I've seen $99 units that pick split pairs and $300 that don't!

Short story is I wanna roll my own. But when I look at it, it's not a
trivial problem to do a complete wiremap from one end of a cable run - even
with a non-powered remote terminator unit. Anyone able to illuminate or
point me to the work of others?

I'm quite able to do the designwork myself - just looking for a jump start
on conceptual approaches rather than re-inventing the wheel!

TIA

 

[Peter]

J wrote:

Short story is I wanna roll my own. But when I look at it, it's not a
trivial problem to do a complete wiremap from one end of a cable run - even
with a non-powered remote terminator unit. Anyone able to illuminate or
point me to the work of others?

A recent issue of Circuit Cellar magazine had an article describing a
device that I believe may have done what you want. I'll try to dig up
the article and let you know which issue it was.

Peter

 

[Peter]

Peter wrote:

A recent issue of Circuit Cellar magazine had an article describing a
device that I believe may have done what you want. I'll try to dig up
the article and let you know which issue it was.

It was in issue 162, January 2004. The article was called "The
Innovative Wire Tracker", by Robert Lacoste, and it was on page 10.

Peter