I FELL THROUGH My Ceiling Trying To Run Fiber! - Was It Even Worth It?

so i fell through my ceiling and made a mess while trying to upgrade my home network and in this video i'm gonna talk about what i was doing what i did wrong and whether it was even worth it hi everyone welcome to another tech talk with samir where i talk about anything and everything related to technology in my life in a recent video i upgraded my non-unified 10 gig switch to an unifi one this new switch has no rj45 ports and only has sfp plus ports so in that video i briefly talked about different ways to connect my devices to that switch although i was okay with how i had my devices connected there was definitely room for improvement to summarize there's three potential ways to connect my devices to the sfp plus ports on my switch and there's pros and cons to all three methods probably the cheapest and simplest way to connect is using something called direct attached copper cables these are basically short cables that have sfp plus modules on both ends they're relatively inexpensive and are pretty easy to work with the downside to dac cables is that like i said they're short cables so they're really just meant for devices that are very close to the switch like within the same room pretty much so for things like servers and nas devices which typically stay close to your networking gear it's a very inexpensive and effective way to connect to a switch like mine three out of my four 10 gig devices are actually connected like this they're located right next to the switch and i just have them connected using dac cables but in order to use that cables you have to have sfp plus ports on both ends so along with the switch your devices must also have sfp plus ports but often that's not the case most consumer grade 10 gig network cards have rj45 ports like the mac mini for example it has a 10 gig port built in but it's an rj45 port so to connect those devices to a switch with only sfp plus ports you need an sfp plus to rj45 transceiver not to mention by default most homes these days already have regular ethernet cables pre-wired throughout the house and to leverage those cables you'd also be using rj45 to sfp plus transceivers although this is the most practical and convenient way to connect your 10 gig devices to a switch like this it's also the least efficient the sfp plus to rj45 transceivers use a lot of power and they get extremely hot like to a point where you can't even touch them while they're connected also the longer the cables the more susceptible they are to interference so cat 6 cables are only rated for 10 gig speeds for up to 55 meters and cat 5e cables technically aren't even rated for 10 gig speeds and depending on when your house was built it's most likely wired with cat 5e cables up until now i've been connecting my desktop workstation which is in a different room with this method just using a cat6 cable with sfp plus to rj45 transceivers on both ends it was definitely a compromise but it worked fine for the most part the third way to connect devices to an sfp plus port is to use fiber optic cabling and in this video we're gonna do just that with my desktop computer the advantage of using fiber is that it just uses light to transmit data so electromagnetic interference isn't a thing at all it's very good at transmitting data over long distances i mean if you think about it the internet as we know it is only possible because of fiber literally continents are connected to each other using sub c fiber optic cabling so that should give you an idea that distance is much less of a factor when it comes to fiber cables another advantage of fiber is that it's capable of very high bandwidth i'll only be using it for a 10 gigabit link but in data centers fiber is often used for 100 gigabit links between devices that's just something copper cables can't compete with with all that said working with fiber isn't exactly the easiest thing they're quite fragile and you have to be a little more careful while handling them also just like that cables you need to make sure your network card also has an sfp plus port because you can't just plug in a fiber cable into a rj45 port and picking the cable to buy is also a task on its own there's no one size fits all the cables you need to use are very specific you need to make sure that every device in the chain is compatible with that particular type of cable there are several variables you need to look out for for example unlike regular ethernet cables that use only rj45 connectors fiber cables have several types of connectors to choose from the particular type of connector that i'll be using is called lc so i'll need an lc to lc cable when it comes to connectors another variable is whether to use single mode or multimode fiber single mode cables are less expensive and is better for higher bandwidth over longer distances but compatible transceivers tend to be significantly more expensive because of the type of light they use for my setup i'll be using multi mode because i'm only using a 40 meter cable so i won't be benefiting from the distance advantages of single mode another variable is whether to use simplex or duplex for duplex you have two strands of fiber one for transmitting and one for receiving simplex on the other hand only uses one strand but it can also do bi-directional data transfers by using different wavelengths of light for transmitting and receiving in my case i'll be sticking with duplex the last variable to consider is the om rating from what i understand it's sort of like the cat rating for ethernet cables it's just innovations that's been made over the years to support faster speeds over longer distances in my case i'll be using om3 rated cables which should be more than sufficient for 10 gig speeds for the length of cabling that i need so to summarize the cabling that i'll be using is lc2 lc multimode duplex om3 cables i got three of them one is 40 meters for the actual cable run and the other two are just meter long ones for actually connecting to the devices from the wall in total the cabling costed me around 45 as i briefly mentioned you also need to get transceivers to connect fiber to sfp plus ports and the transceivers also have to match the specs of the cables you use so i got these from amazon made by a company called cable matters it was a two pack that costed me around 40 bucks additionally i needed to get some keystone couplers some wall plates and brackets so i spent an additional 10 to 20 bucks for these miscellaneous items once i had everything it was time to get to work alright so right now i'm under my desk here good thing about a sit stand desk is that i could always raise it to work on stuff underneath it and this right here is my desktop computer and this cable right here this ethernet cable is how my desktop computer is connecting to my 10 gigabit switch in the other closet over there now just a disclaimer here i did do a little bit of the dirty work ahead of time to make sure i could even do this project so i made a little hole down there and that's where i'll be pulling the fiber cable from i actually already have a pull string here which i'm going to use to pull the fiber cable from the attic and i had to make a hole in the attic to bring it down here but it should make the job a lot easier because most of the dirty work is already done now one thing i'm going to do before i even pull the fiber cable down here is put a low voltage bracket over there so that i can put a little keystone plate on there now the hole i have down there is actually a little bit wider than what you would have for a single gang bracket so because of that i'm gonna try to put a two gang bracket there and then eventually put a two gang keystone jack wall plate thingy over there so this is the low voltage bracket that i'm gonna put over there and the way you cut out the wall with the right measurements is by using these little dots in the corners you have to mark those as the corners and then kind of just draw a line from one to another and cut out that exact shape so i'm going to do that right now so as i marked out the corners with the pencil i then used the edges of the bracket to draw the lines before going at it with an oscillating multi-tool this tool makes it so much easier to do plunge cuts into things like drywall compared to using a drywall knife just make sure you know where your studs are before you start cutting i then just inserted the bracket into the hole and it fit perfectly but before i could tighten the screws my cat wanted to do some inspections to make sure i did everything correctly after he gave me the approval i tightened the screws that hold the bracket into place alright so inside my network closet i'm actually going to be using this electrical box type of bracket to terminate the fiber and that's because the other side of this wall actually has insulation and i don't want the insulation to push up against the fiber cable so this box should hopefully give it some room and keep it safe from the insulation one thing i probably should have done was put some plastic over all my equipment cutting drywall is really messy and you get drywall dust everywhere that's just one of many lessons i learned during this process after i got the hole precisely cut to the right size i went ahead and inserted the little junction box these types of junction boxes are usually used for electrical work but this will be perfect for my need by the way i have access to the other side of this wall through a door here so i don't have to fish around for a cable through a wall so now that we have both sides figured out it's time to run this long fiber cable through my attic so for now let's go over to the attic and run this cable from one end to the other by the way i live in texas and it's the middle of the summer so the attic is the last place i want to be but i'm doing this all for you well also for myself so i put on my headlamp and headed into the attic after i got to the spot where i drilled the hole i used some painters tape to attach the fiber cable to the string i already had i gently put the cable through the hole and went back downstairs into the computer room to pull the cable to the other side i just wanted to make sure that the cable had enough slack on that and before i proceeded to run it along to the network closet after that i went back up into the attic to run the cable to the network closet and this is where things went a bit sideways or should i say downwards so as i was navigating around instead of stepping on a joist i had a misstep and stepped on drywall my leg went right through the ceiling luckily i was holding onto things with my hands so i managed to pull my leg back up but it definitely could have been a lot worse and i should have been more careful here's what the damage looked like this is after i cleaned up a bit i had insulation all over the carpet below so after i gathered myself a bit it was time to move on and finish the task on hand aside from being careful about where to step the other thing i had to make sure was that i wasn't tangling the fiber cable turns out that 40 meters is a lot of fiber cable and i probably would have been okay with something around 25 meters but hey like i said longer cable won't have any effect on performance so it's not a big deal at all when it comes to fiber cables it just gets a little messy when handling it after i got the cable to where i needed to i just pulled aside the insulation and put the fiber cable through the junction box that i attached earlier then it was time to attach it to a female to female keystone coupler and pop on the wall plate the whole purpose of this is to make it such that the actual long cable will remain untouched going forward and whenever i need to connect anything i'll just be using a short patch cable to connect it to the wall similar to if i had an ethernet jack on the wall by the way speaking of fiber cables this cable right here is what i get my internet through and it is a fiber cable but as you can see it's quite thick but most of the thickness is actually because of the armor and just the way it protects itself and if you look closely down here and i don't know if you can see it um it's hard to see in here but the actual strand of fiber is like this little line right here is very thin i don't know it's hard to tell on the camera but it's pretty crazy because this is all that i'm getting my internet from and this one does appear to be simplex so it seems like only one strand is used for both transmitting and receiving i then went back into my computer room and did the same but on this side i had to use a two gang wall plate because like i said earlier i made the hole too big when i was trying to scope it out but knowing me i'm sure i'll probably run another cable down the road for something else and when i do i'll already have a keystone plate ready to go after i had the long cable terminated on both sides it was time to connect everything up i used short meter long cables on both sides to connect my devices to the wall for the computer and the switch i used the sfp plus to fiverr transceivers i got from amazon with that we accelerated to the speed of light and was all set i got link lights on both sides and the computer got an ip address right away so was it all worth it well sort of although things were mostly fine with my cat6 cable setup like i said earlier the transceivers got extremely hot and i noticed that after a while if i did iperf tests it would yield much lower transfer rates than when i first connected those transceivers so i have a feeling that either the switch or the transceivers were likely thermal throttling along the way after it got too hot now with the fiber setup i don't have that issue at all i get the same iperf transfer speeds no matter how long i have them connected for the other thing i noticed is that with the fiber cable my computer gets a link much faster after waking up from sleep not sure why that is but i have a feeling the rj45 to sfp plus transceivers had a bit of a overhead to get things started generally speaking this whole fiber run was more for my own curiosity than actual practicality for most people's home use this likely isn't going to be practical then again for most people 10 gig networking isn't very practical either so what about my ceiling well for the most part i've already repaired it and it costed me a total of less than 20 worth of materials but looking back i definitely do need to be a little more careful while working in the attic because it can be quite dangerous if you step on the wrong spot anyways thanks for coming along this adventure with me and if you haven't already make sure to subscribe and hit the thumbs up button for the youtube algorithm as always stay safe and i'll see you again on the next one

Channel: TechTalk with Samir

Views: 28,698

Keywords: fiber cable, running fiber in house, sfp+ fiber, fiber run in home, unifi, unifi switch aggregation, unifi 10 gig networking, 10 gigabit networking, 10 gig network, home network upgrade, unifi dream router, 10gbe

Id: XrlaAc3QRfA

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 22 2022