Sure is a lotta cable ?'s lately... here's 1 more

  • Thread starter Thread starter rushfan33
  • Start date Start date
Steve, I was going to discuss the pros and cons of running CAT5. You've pretty much convinced me to do it now.
I have a little closet just outside of the CR that I was going to put CAT5 in for the PC, now I'm going to wire all the rooms with it.
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If you're going to run ethernet (cat 5), considering running cat 5e. The world is about to start selling gig-E at really cheap prices so having 1 gig ethernet instead of 100mb ethernet will be a good thing.

Especially if there is a chance you might be sending audio or video data over the network - having 10 times the bandwidth will make your data flow... 10 times faster :)

The price per foot of cat5E (or Cat6), is only a hair over cat 5, so if you want to not reopen your walls later, it might be a good investment. Just a thought...

Hook me up on this KVM Extender?
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I'll let Steve post his recommendations... but for KVM extenders I fancy "Black Box", even though they are generally more expensive than overseas stuff. This is because they put the devices in metal enclosures, and can survive some physical punishment. Also, they typically support higher resolution monitors (more bandwidth) than some of the cheaper, knockoffs.
 
How difficult are the combo jacks to solder? Looks pretty crowded in there to me........... [/B]
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The differences are internal, so that the pins in the female XLR socket have flexible tabs that will engage a 1/4" TRS plug inserted in the middle. You still have three solder tabs on the back, like any other XLR connector you'd be familiar with. They are tabs though, not collets, which means you can wrap the uninsulated tail of your snake conductors around the tab, then solder, for a stronger mechanical connection as well. A lot of the XLR-only connectors have what looks like a small diameter hollow pipe coming out, which you shove the wire in, then solder. Its stronger to wrap, then solder.

Where things get crowded is if you have normalling switching built into the connector, then you have an additional three, or six solder connections per jack. Still doable by the amatuer, as long as you have a pencil-tip soldering iron and some really good glasses :)
 
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