As cables get longer, you _should_ see different lengths for each pair in TDR. This is because each pair has different twist rates, and the tighter the twist, the more actual wire there will be between the end points. The different twist rates are a part of the specification for the cable with the intent of reducing or eliminating cross talk between pairs in the cable. If you want to see this in action, terminate the end of a spool of Cat 6 and note the different lengths for each pair. In time you'll very likely be able to recognize when someone has flipped the entire set of wires at both ends, or wired for 'a' vs 'b' of the spec, without having to actually look at the colors of the wires sticking the end of the plug, or opening up the wall plate.
TDR will tell you length to a cable break :) super useful when you're trying to find a break of a conductor inside a cable that's already in a wall or floor.
@@AnIdiotAboard_ Here is a situation where TDR telling you that you have a break somewhere in the middle of a span may be useful. If you are wiring multiple floors, and not putting a switch on each floor, but do have a wiring closet on each floor that you home run all of the wall plates on the floor to, you can use the TDR to validate that someone hasn't gone into the closet and broken a punch down or broken a between floors span. Yes, you can then work out which inter floor span to move over to, or check the punches, or re-terminate the patch cable, but you will generally know whether the break is on the same floor, or down at the network switch, or even at the wall plate. Not all network implementations home run all connections, uninterrupted, to the switch for the entire facility. Whether that's best practice, or not, may depend on various factors. Some regulations may bar having a powered switch sitting in a closet no one checks with any regularity. And it may very well make sense to run a bundle of cables between floors to floor level patch panels, so you're not pulling more wires between floors every time you put in a new set of devices in some previously unused room. Now here, I've got a managed switch on each floor with a trunk link connected per floor, and then redistributed from the office that switch is in. On the other hand occasionally testing the spans on the off chance that there just might be mouse damage seems like a good idea. The cats seem to take a bit longer than desired to find those mice at times.
Not so useful for standard ethernet like this to my mind but certainly comes in handy for inter-site fibre and such. Generally once your cables get into the multi kilometre range or more and most of them are buried under roads or underwater etc the only real practical options for repair are to cut out the failure portion and splice in a replacement. But this is more because the costs of gaining access are so high that it is not economical to replace the perfectly good portions.
@@seraphina985 Yes, phone companies have been using this technique since long before I worked for them (and I haven't in over 20 years.) There are some oddities that become an issue on the really long spans though, as you can encounter issues with what are called 'nulls' for various frequencies, and a lot of the old 2-wire feeders had 'bridge taps' running in various directions that would introduce spurious bounces as well. As part of that, it wasn't unusual to find a couple thousand feet of wire coiled up in a vault under a man-hole cover a couple miles out from a telco central office, which could also cause odd returns.
Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough review - watched the whole video and this looks super useful and just what I've been looking for. Have ordered one via your affiliate link.
Damn, if only these would've been about when I had a datacentre job, this would've been perfect rather than trundling a trolley full of tools, keyboards and monitors around. Thanks for the excellent and comprehensive review.
I have one of these too but without the toner or VGA/HDMI inputs I bought it for testing cameras like Hikvision ones mostly and it works great for that. very quick to test. But the network cable checker is my goto now as its far better than the cheapo testers without paying Fluke/Ideal prices. Just seeing it visually is a game changer for wrapping your head around how a cable is broken
i just ordered one via your affiliate link, i don't do a lot of CCTV stuff, but lately i've been doing a lot of network troubleshooting and cabling so this looks like it will be super useful for what i need it for, useful information, and a great review, i cant wait for it to arrive so i can start using it to debug network cabling and maybe identify some of the odd-ball cables that have found their way into my comms box while i'm at it
Great thorough review from someone who understands the practical issues of testing! This looks like a great bit of kit that II would have found so useful a few years ago. I ordered one halfway through the network section, thinking 'wow, that does almost all I need - pity it doesn't do TDR, but you wouldn't expect it at that price' Bingo - it does!!! I did many years in networking before retiring and we spent thousands on Fluke kit - this would have been in each of my tech's toolkit for fairly comprehensive diagnostics before having to bring in the big guns. That port up/down function is really useful (as others have said) Identfying a connection to a switch through a rat's nest of poorly documented patch panels was always a nightmare. Looking forward to playing with this.
That fault detection is pretty sweet, I got to play with a fancy Fluke tester for a few days and the full Time Domain Reflectometer stuff is AMAZING, it will tell you exactly how far down the line a fault is, even if it's not a full break, even if it's just a shoddy join that would pass most testers completely, but because I was testing for 10 Gig it showed us the problem. (so freaking cool) Honestly, this tester seems to do everything shy of certifying speed, and measuring how far down the cable the fault is, which is VERY impressive considering the Fluke had NO CCTV/ video features, and costs close to 5 figures..
Absolutely, while this certainly isn't close to a fluke when it comes to certification - the cable continuity and TDR testing are a massive timesaver and have come in extremely useful in the time I've been using this! This also can actually tell where a break is by performing a TDR test - it'll show the length of each pair so if there is a break, one of the pairs will show a shorter distance which will be approximately the distance to the break. Not sure how it'll handle a bad connection rather than a break but it came in super useful where I was going mad trying to terminate a cable which was constantly showing a disconnected wire - ran a TDR test which instantly showed the break was around 2m into the run which coincidentally lined up with what looked like a nail mark in the wall!
@@camerongray1515 awesome, I’m mostly just a hobbyist, and will probably grab one at some point anyway (maybe wait for them to get a little cheaper because the prices in Australian Dollars are a little steep). As for a partial fault, what the fluke detected that time was a bunch of the screw on splice connections that were common on phone lines, (literally one per wire) the actual network buy replaced it with a proper join (as it was existing cabling in the house) and it passed 10 Gig just fine, was a weird thing to find though
@@camerongray1515 I've observed that Cat6 cable terminations aren't as forgiving as Cat5 terminations when put into Jacks at the Patch Panel end. We've used Keystone Jacks because they can always be moved around later if we ever upgrade a Switch to one with more Ports, or use one that have different Port numbering (like 1 up, 2 down, 3 up, etc. instead of 1, 2, 3, etc. across). One of our Contractors moved around the Keystone arrangement when we went from a 24-Port to 48-Port Switch, and around 4 of the Jacks had to be re-terminated again due to either outright line breaks or intermittent faults being detected on the lines in those. So, be careful with moving Cat6 terminations!
In the analogue CCTV world, RS-485 is used for remote Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) control, so the serial app would be useful for testing and verifying this older equipment.
That port up/down test would be extremely useful for identifying/testing for a crashing/faulty NIC port as I have had a need for this in the past. Better than plugging and unplugging constantly
I have a different model with analogue outputs but the ui is identical. The port flashing is very useful when you take over a cctv job with 100 cameras and nothing labeled when you need to find out what port a camera is connected into without staring to plug things out of the switch.
You can get PoE-to-12V barrel jack adapters, handy for powering or charging devices like that when working on equipment racks in the field. I also carry a PoE-to-5V USB adaptor for charging my phone from PoE!
I wish I had seen this last year, what a great IP Tester, the one I got does not have the VGA in, that is the best part. Great tutorial, I am getting one and making the one I got for a back up.
Well if that was the case it would not hit the 480 Megabit but then he did say it was about 400 Megabit or so which would make sense. Were it actually 480 Megabit then I'd have put that down to likely being a bottleneck elsewhere since that would be impossible on USB 2.0 due to USB itself having some overhead. But a reading around 400 Megabit or so would be consistent with the expected throughput over USB 2.0 with the USB overhead excluded which would be the value iPerf would see. Considering that USB 2.0 uses I think 8b/10b encoding that is 20% gone already which leaves some 384 Megabit assuming a completely error free transfer and ignoring that USB also has some small overhead from its use of a form of lightweight packetization also (This of course is how USB Hubs etc can be a thing).
I have the test set. I had this issue last week and didn’t even know I had this feature. Thank you! I love learning new stuff. I love buying new tools. But I feel dumb for already having it and not knowing. Bro, thank you for the heads up!!!!!
Awesome share mate, appreciate the in depth review. I always had access to and used Fluke tools in university, but I certainly don't have that kind of coin. This little thing looks like it'll do all I really need, and save me heaps of time. The big ones are TDR and iPerf - So much better to get more details on cable condition then just a yes/no. Esp TDR... Knowing within a metre of where a break is or if a cable has poor performance will save me so much time, as I'll know if it is something within my responsibility, or if it is time to call my cable running grunts in. The CCTV stuff is nice, even though with IP cams I can just use my phone to log into one, once I have it up on the network. Still the DHCP aspect saves time as I can focus on aiming and mounting the camera, and then do config at my desk later, instead of back and forth. VGA and HDMI in is sweet! Sooo many times I really needed that in data centres... So many times there are no monitors, or bad ones, or missing cables etc. Dport would be nice too as most of the stuff I deal with now only has Dport, but that is resolved with an adapter. Port flashing I reckon would accomplish what I do with my toner now... On some Cisco switches, if I get a call for no connection... A majority of times I find it is due to the port needing to be 'woke'. Connecting my toner in data mode, and cycling the test a few times does the trick. I would have loved to have one of these a long time ago, I reckon I know what my next purchase will be! Much less to carry on me, which is a godsend in large datecentres where my van is a PITA to walk back to if I need or forget something (not to mention all the security checkpoints etc etc each time I have to go back) Now... if the toner wand can just not set off retail store theft alarms when I come on a service call, that would be great too! Sensormatic systems seem the most sensitive to my current toner tools.
Fantastic bit of kit, bought one of these for connecting to headless servers/PCs amongst other things at work and am loving it so far! Thanks for the share. :)
Actually, with the ability to install other APKs, you could probably just install a HID emulation app designed just for this purpose, such as the remote.hid.keyboard.client package one? (If you search for that string, you'll find it. There are several similarly-named ones, but I've used that apk in particular with an old LG phone to use it as a keyboard/mouse for a game console, so I recommend at least starting there in your search. It IS possible!)
That was one of the large selling points of the GPD pocket3 was HDMI input and keyboard mouse override to an external device. I think I've seen some other devices do this but it's rare. Personally I got one of those cheap trackpad wireless keyboards off Amazon and leave it in my bag is a crash keyboard. Then I can use it with either a portable monitor or the laptop mentioned above without having to lose keyboard on the laptop. depending on what I'm doing it's handy.
This is a great set up if you don't want to speed hundreds on 'proper' cctv equipment. Especially for IP, the rj45 tester and cable tracer is invaluable
6:00 it looks like that battery is just an enclosure for 2x 18650 cells, so worst comes to worst you should just be able to take it apart and replace the cells themselves (or 3d print a replacement). Theres only 2 terminals so the battery charging logic is inside the device itself too, and it uses pogo pins for the connection so tolerances dont look too tight. its a neat little thing!
One nice feature of the Fluke One Touch or Link Runner is that it can read CDP or LLDP port information so it can say something like you're connected to port gi4/0/33 on Cisco 3650 IP: 10.10.1.1
You can swipe down from the top too, like every android device, there you have access to some window-in-window tools like a tinly hdmi input window or cctv and a speedmeter, nothing revolutionary but still neat.
Ooh some interesting other features such as video recording - came to this vid after your recent 'network install at a friend's house' one 👍 Getting sorely tempted lol
As an Video Tech for Events the SDI Version is probably the perfect all in one tool to have for testing and troubleshooting, never heard of these before but now I'm definitely getting one Edit: Saw there are some bigger Versions, that also have an HDMI Output to test more sfuff, that's great. But dont know if it has all the other features
Link monitor (53:30) - with a switch that has vlans, and where you can configure a port in promiscuous mode, you could possibly sniff traffic and catch it no matter which vlan its on. Also, on the RTSP stream where its sharing the devices screen, test it with the VGA input and see if it shares the VGA input on the rtsp stream and think of a situation where you need tech support on whatever it is you're VGA connected to - or when you have a tech in the field and they are sharing the server screen with you remotely where you can help them troubleshoot the problem.... nice device, great find for under £200.
These are definitely cool. I've owned 2 triplite versions. Both died at 18 and 21 months. For me this is a little bit too much money to throw out in that time frame. I've switched to using a bunch of cheaper things to do the same jobs. All together the price is a little more. But they have lasted a lot longer. So far 48 months.
Been there, done that. A few years ago, I was experimenting at work with a new server application. Didn't realise (and this wasn't clearly documented, in my defence) that it ran it's own DHCP server by default. That led to an interesting conversation with our networks team, and the result that I stopped the experiment..
Love your review Cameron! I have one of these (and check it against my Fluke LinkIQ on occasion just as a test to see how the results compare). A recent free App update for this very unit for the Cable Tester App now (finally) shows 568A and 568B configuration (switchable - so you can set beforehand what type of Standard you are using as well as see the Wiring Diagram Layout for each), STP/UTP or Both, and it can generate a Report also. Interestingly with this latest update, when I plug in a cable into the Port underneath the unit (and not into the Remote Connector), it shows Pins 2 - 8 on the Left (ie: Unit side) as Green but not Pin 1 - which shows a red X. They all show as Green though when the Remote Connector is plugged in the other end though, so not sure what is going on (maybe a bug?).
On the Link monitor, click the ADD button. I think that may reveal what it's going to do. It seems like it will monitor an IP and status the device up/down connected/disconnected.
Looks very good, but for anyone who wants somethint cheaper , look at the SC8108 Network Cable Tester , has some of the features here, as in port flasher, and detects length untill break to find which end fault on...
Constructive criticism: since you appear to have a mount for your camera/phone once auto-focus is complete lock the focus or turn off auto-focus so that the object remains clear when your hands are in the shot
Great video, really interesting, maybe i'm not gonna buy it because i dont work with those things but i followed till the end, it was really fascinating seeing the capabilities of that tool!
This would have been the perfect budget friendly tool if it also can do CDP and LLDP. I have the pockethernet which is also at the same price range. Yes the cctv tester can do other things that pockethernet can’t but happy to pay extra for the cdp/lldp addition.
i am glad i bought that device, as my current peice of cr/p, (like the one Cameron showed in the video at 26 minutes give or take a few seconds) has decided that pin one doesn't exist. it starts at 2 proceeds to 8, skips 1 and continues from 2... Unless, i force the rj45 into the main bit and twist it in the socket. then no1 miraculously works. the joy of passthrough rj45's is that as long as you get the order right at both ends, it is in all likelyhood, going to work. which means that i have a fairly good chance of a good cable. Update 01 September 21 See my earlier update on the other post. I have my device now, and it is a game gamechanger. Thanks to Cameron for recommending it.
I bought one of these recently. Haven't really used it much yet. I bought it mainly for CCTV but it having wifi/lan and running android will be a help for other tasks. Replacing my previous CCTV tester which was much more basic. Sadly it doesn't have a colorbar generator like my old tester. I frequently encounter HD TVI/AHD hd over coax cameras and my old tester was analog only. Plus the benefit of IP camera testing, and POE output which I could use to power other POE equipment on installation. I do wish it did have a POE input so you could test POE output from switches/injectors. I've been looking at the 7" models for years which some have that feature but they are typically much higher priced.
I was doing something where I had a lot of issues with bad terminations and crossed pairs. I really wanted to get a puck ethernet but they've been out of stock for the past 4 years and supposedly no longer in existence. The TDR and cable testing functions or some thing that I really need but I don't wanna pay for a fluke because that's way more than I need. Would be nice if they had a smaller version of this that just some of the cable testing stuff.
I've had mine for over a year. Because of your video, I understand the functions much better. Thank you. Does anybody know where I can purchase the additional cable verifier?
25:40 I feel obligated to point out that if you get one of those testers. find or make up a bad cable and figure out which side shows the fault. I have used 4 different versions almost identical but with different casing color. Some of them will show the fault at the remote and in some will show the fault at the sending end. So you might be going oh all the lights are blinking it's fine when the end that you don't have is the one where the fault is showing. Depending on how they designed it there must be different revisions of the board and one side will just show all the lights as it goes through and the other side will actually not light if a wire is broken.
This would be perfect if it also had a DVB-T decoder for testing TV cabling and why not have SDR app on it for fun. A bit out of scope but would be a cool
You do realise that almost every product I show I have bought myself unless I explicitly state that it was supplied by the manufacturer? I have also never "begged" a company to send a product, I will only ever take a review sample if a company reaches out first and even then I only accept a fraction of what is offered, focusing only on items that I feel would be interesting. Now compare that to other much larger channels that actively charge a company to review their products and don't make the slightest hint of declaring this to their viewers.
Now if only I can find this for the US. Looking at other products like this. I will never trust Aliexpress as I hear nothing but horror stories of getting ripped off. Just trying to create a user name has been like pulling hair.
@@MikeHarris1984 Generally...using a link or reference of a particular product or seller like he does will point you to an ok seller. Pay with a credit card giving you additional protections. Or you could get one of these with a name brand on it for 6x the cost
@@efad3215both! I have an audio recorder that requires 12V so I picked up a trigger cable that tells my battery bank to output 12V it's a little finicky with load and occasionally shut off if I don't have it turned on but negotiates the 5V up to 12V and once the recorders on it stays on. It's using a resistor in the connector to tell the power supply I am a device that needs 12V. I also have some USB cables that have boost converters in them to get 9v or 12V for things, they tend to be marketed for power your router with USB. There are even some that are selectable between 5-9-12V. the trigger QC PD cables on the other hand are capable of negotiating whatever the supply you plug into has, so there are some that will negotiate 19V and convert USB-C to barrel for laptops. very handy, the days of forgetting your laptop charger and being the only one with that proprietary connector are thankfully lessening. to the point where I offered a power brick to somebody knowing that most of their devices were USB-C. I have a radio scanner that's 9V I'm able to charge it off of any USB socket with a boost cable. There are also just basic cables that just passed the basic 5V USB to a barrel connector for things that already require just 5V. I have older Apple laptops with original magsafe and I was able to pick up a MagSafe to USB-C adapter for both varieties to keep in my bag in case I accidentally forget a brick or have one that stops working. The current USB specifications offers 5, 9, 12 and 19V built into the cube to negotiate prior to that required boost converter's rather than trigger cables and us was limited to some extent of what you could do. Now you more or less get 3A of current or up to 100W with the slight downside that you have to negotiate for the appropriate voltage.
It looks good, but is there a risk that you're taking something where you can't be 100% sure about the software, and plugging it into switches and network ports inside a firewall?
Definitely a risk so not something I'd recommend doing on live network that hosts anything sensitive. My main use is for cable testing and the monitor functionality which wouldn't require connection to a live network.
I had a simple tester like you showed in the beginning, then switched to a better one with tone, but it doesn't work well with sftp (very weak) and i just recently wasted a lot of time with exactly the problem you're discussing - which end (or maybe it's the middle) that is faulty.
Man thats a really cool tool. I love finding out about stuff like this. I probably wont buy it unless my use case changes a lot though. Cuz I already have the cheap 5$ one and its like once every 5 years I need to test a cable. And usually thats done by my internet not working and then me just plugging a different cable in and then it working lol. plus wifi is so common now. i 100% want the tool though. if it was cheaper id buy it just to have it.
Got a similar device, probably a bit older version shaped more like a digital multimeter - which in fact it has a digital multimeter feature, but only thing lacking is VGA in. It has 3 RJ45 ports on it and I haven't quite figured out all of it's functionality.
This is a nice tool with so many advanced features, but my understanding is that it is missing the most basic networking features to use its as a network tool (with the exception of small home and small business) lldp/cdp and the ability to set vlan tags is missing,802.1x that is the basics off almost any bigger network and the ability to test what Poe a switch offers would be nice (the link runner) is a much more basic device but does these things I hope for a more professional tool aimed at networking.
The way I look at it is that this is designed for testing cabling during installation - continuity tests, TDR tests, identifying cables with the toner - basically a much more advanced version of the cable testers with the blinking LEDs and for that it's been invaluable. The ability to use it as a VGA/HDMI monitor is also an added bonus. With the exception of PoE, most of the other features you've mentioned would be required for administering a network once it has actually been set up and at that point, sure, you'd need a more advanced device although in my experience I've never felt the need and have always just done everything you've mentioned using a laptop. Bearing in mind that this device is under £250 and a LinkRunner is over £1400, I'll gladly stick with a combination of using this device along with a laptop.
I do agree that it is a very nice tool at this price point, it has a lot of good features. But standing on a latter or some other place very inconvenient it is so nice not to use a computer just unplug camera plug it in the fluke, and get Switchname. Switch IP, and the info about the port it is attached. Yes the Fluke is overpriced for what it is, but again it is almost 10 years old and did this from the start. I do hope they could add it via an update (the software side) some of the higher end models have lldp, so for the 5000 series to have a cdp/lldp client does not sounds impossible. 802.1x is not needed for small home networks or small businesses, but most bigger organizations do use it.
Hi happy new year, and this is a great review you have done very interesting, Please can you tell me is this tester still working well, have you found any problems with it, Thanks Dave
Lol, I bought one of these for IP camera installation... Unfortunately it has been so finicky for that purpose, I've basically only used the analog viewer function. If you're running Axis cams, I can't recommend this for installation
The audio recording from the mic makes sense. It needs to hear how impressed you are while it reports home with all the network information it can gather from inside the network. Better start learning Cantonese or Mandarin (or both, who knows what job our supreme overlord will choose for you! Exciting!
You can block the IP of the tester on the firewall at your border router, if you believe the thing phones home, which is a valid concern. You can also plug it into a dual-homed machine running Wireshark configured in bridge mode to have a closer look.
Like Brigitte said, you can certainly sniff its traffic to determine if it has a phone home feature. If you're playing it super safe, you can always dump the ROM to compare the OS files against an AOSP or other Android build (and run a checksum/comparison) and deconstruct APK's to check for obfuscation and odd functions etc.. A lot of work, probably not worth it - not sure if there is a Infosec expert that does youtube vids that might take a look.
Thx for video … electrician has installed ethernet cat 6 cables in my house. When doing a speed , adjacent cables have speeds at 900mbits but others 100mbits. The switch ports are reading 900mbits . The basic connectivity meter test passes. Would this meter help to understand why some cables only provides 100mbits
The CCTV Tester shown in this video can be found on AliExpress here: geni.us/8kCNqG (Affiliate)
unfortunately this link doesn't appear to work anymore. any update? excellent video!
As cables get longer, you _should_ see different lengths for each pair in TDR. This is because each pair has different twist rates, and the tighter the twist, the more actual wire there will be between the end points. The different twist rates are a part of the specification for the cable with the intent of reducing or eliminating cross talk between pairs in the cable. If you want to see this in action, terminate the end of a spool of Cat 6 and note the different lengths for each pair. In time you'll very likely be able to recognize when someone has flipped the entire set of wires at both ends, or wired for 'a' vs 'b' of the spec, without having to actually look at the colors of the wires sticking the end of the plug, or opening up the wall plate.
TDR will tell you length to a cable break :) super useful when you're trying to find a break of a conductor inside a cable that's already in a wall or floor.
@@AnIdiotAboard_ lol there is some truth to your comment there regarding usage.
Though it still will tell you length to a break. ;)
That used to be something exclusive to those expensive flukes?
@@AnIdiotAboard_ Here is a situation where TDR telling you that you have a break somewhere in the middle of a span may be useful. If you are wiring multiple floors, and not putting a switch on each floor, but do have a wiring closet on each floor that you home run all of the wall plates on the floor to, you can use the TDR to validate that someone hasn't gone into the closet and broken a punch down or broken a between floors span. Yes, you can then work out which inter floor span to move over to, or check the punches, or re-terminate the patch cable, but you will generally know whether the break is on the same floor, or down at the network switch, or even at the wall plate.
Not all network implementations home run all connections, uninterrupted, to the switch for the entire facility. Whether that's best practice, or not, may depend on various factors. Some regulations may bar having a powered switch sitting in a closet no one checks with any regularity. And it may very well make sense to run a bundle of cables between floors to floor level patch panels, so you're not pulling more wires between floors every time you put in a new set of devices in some previously unused room.
Now here, I've got a managed switch on each floor with a trunk link connected per floor, and then redistributed from the office that switch is in. On the other hand occasionally testing the spans on the off chance that there just might be mouse damage seems like a good idea. The cats seem to take a bit longer than desired to find those mice at times.
Not so useful for standard ethernet like this to my mind but certainly comes in handy for inter-site fibre and such. Generally once your cables get into the multi kilometre range or more and most of them are buried under roads or underwater etc the only real practical options for repair are to cut out the failure portion and splice in a replacement. But this is more because the costs of gaining access are so high that it is not economical to replace the perfectly good portions.
@@seraphina985 Yes, phone companies have been using this technique since long before I worked for them (and I haven't in over 20 years.) There are some oddities that become an issue on the really long spans though, as you can encounter issues with what are called 'nulls' for various frequencies, and a lot of the old 2-wire feeders had 'bridge taps' running in various directions that would introduce spurious bounces as well. As part of that, it wasn't unusual to find a couple thousand feet of wire coiled up in a vault under a man-hole cover a couple miles out from a telco central office, which could also cause odd returns.
I just wanted to look for a network cable tracer and now I want one of these even though I don't really have much use for it. It seems bloody amazing.
Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough review - watched the whole video and this looks super useful and just what I've been looking for. Have ordered one via your affiliate link.
Damn, if only these would've been about when I had a datacentre job, this would've been perfect rather than trundling a trolley full of tools, keyboards and monitors around. Thanks for the excellent and comprehensive review.
Fluke DSX-5000 for data center use. You are gonna certify anyway.
I have one of these too but without the toner or VGA/HDMI inputs
I bought it for testing cameras like Hikvision ones mostly and it works great for that. very quick to test.
But the network cable checker is my goto now as its far better than the cheapo testers without paying Fluke/Ideal prices. Just seeing it visually is a game changer for wrapping your head around how a cable is broken
I been using this tool for 2 years now best one in my Arsenal
i just ordered one via your affiliate link, i don't do a lot of CCTV stuff, but lately i've been doing a lot of network troubleshooting and cabling so this looks like it will be super useful for what i need it for, useful information, and a great review, i cant wait for it to arrive so i can start using it to debug network cabling and maybe identify some of the odd-ball cables that have found their way into my comms box while i'm at it
Great thorough review from someone who understands the practical issues of testing! This looks like a great bit of kit that II would have found so useful a few years ago. I ordered one halfway through the network section, thinking 'wow, that does almost all I need - pity it doesn't do TDR, but you wouldn't expect it at that price' Bingo - it does!!! I did many years in networking before retiring and we spent thousands on Fluke kit - this would have been in each of my tech's toolkit for fairly comprehensive diagnostics before having to bring in the big guns. That port up/down function is really useful (as others have said) Identfying a connection to a switch through a rat's nest of poorly documented patch panels was always a nightmare. Looking forward to playing with this.
That fault detection is pretty sweet, I got to play with a fancy Fluke tester for a few days and the full Time Domain Reflectometer stuff is AMAZING, it will tell you exactly how far down the line a fault is, even if it's not a full break, even if it's just a shoddy join that would pass most testers completely, but because I was testing for 10 Gig it showed us the problem. (so freaking cool)
Honestly, this tester seems to do everything shy of certifying speed, and measuring how far down the cable the fault is, which is VERY impressive considering the Fluke had NO CCTV/ video features, and costs close to 5 figures..
Absolutely, while this certainly isn't close to a fluke when it comes to certification - the cable continuity and TDR testing are a massive timesaver and have come in extremely useful in the time I've been using this! This also can actually tell where a break is by performing a TDR test - it'll show the length of each pair so if there is a break, one of the pairs will show a shorter distance which will be approximately the distance to the break. Not sure how it'll handle a bad connection rather than a break but it came in super useful where I was going mad trying to terminate a cable which was constantly showing a disconnected wire - ran a TDR test which instantly showed the break was around 2m into the run which coincidentally lined up with what looked like a nail mark in the wall!
@@camerongray1515 awesome, I’m mostly just a hobbyist, and will probably grab one at some point anyway (maybe wait for them to get a little cheaper because the prices in Australian Dollars are a little steep).
As for a partial fault, what the fluke detected that time was a bunch of the screw on splice connections that were common on phone lines, (literally one per wire) the actual network buy replaced it with a proper join (as it was existing cabling in the house) and it passed 10 Gig just fine, was a weird thing to find though
@@camerongray1515 I've observed that Cat6 cable terminations aren't as forgiving as Cat5 terminations when put into Jacks at the Patch Panel end. We've used Keystone Jacks because they can always be moved around later if we ever upgrade a Switch to one with more Ports, or use one that have different Port numbering (like 1 up, 2 down, 3 up, etc. instead of 1, 2, 3, etc. across). One of our Contractors moved around the Keystone arrangement when we went from a 24-Port to 48-Port Switch, and around 4 of the Jacks had to be re-terminated again due to either outright line breaks or intermittent faults being detected on the lines in those. So, be careful with moving Cat6 terminations!
In the analogue CCTV world, RS-485 is used for remote Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) control, so the serial app would be useful for testing and verifying this older equipment.
That port up/down test would be extremely useful for identifying/testing for a crashing/faulty NIC port as I have had a need for this in the past. Better than plugging and unplugging constantly
I have a different model with analogue outputs but the ui is identical. The port flashing is very useful when you take over a cctv job with 100 cameras and nothing labeled when you need to find out what port a camera is connected into without staring to plug things out of the switch.
You can get PoE-to-12V barrel jack adapters, handy for powering or charging devices like that when working on equipment racks in the field. I also carry a PoE-to-5V USB adaptor for charging my phone from PoE!
Do you have a link? Interesting!
So you can recharge this from one of the ports from a switch? Cool
I wish I had seen this last year, what a great IP Tester, the one I got does not have the VGA in, that is
the best part. Great tutorial, I am getting one and making the one I got for a back up.
480 MB on your iPerf test probably indicates a USB 2.0 to gigabit ethernet controller
Well if that was the case it would not hit the 480 Megabit but then he did say it was about 400 Megabit or so which would make sense. Were it actually 480 Megabit then I'd have put that down to likely being a bottleneck elsewhere since that would be impossible on USB 2.0 due to USB itself having some overhead. But a reading around 400 Megabit or so would be consistent with the expected throughput over USB 2.0 with the USB overhead excluded which would be the value iPerf would see. Considering that USB 2.0 uses I think 8b/10b encoding that is 20% gone already which leaves some 384 Megabit assuming a completely error free transfer and ignoring that USB also has some small overhead from its use of a form of lightweight packetization also (This of course is how USB Hubs etc can be a thing).
I have the test set. I had this issue last week and didn’t even know I had this feature. Thank you! I love learning new stuff. I love buying new tools. But I feel dumb for already having it and not knowing.
Bro, thank you for the heads up!!!!!
Awesome share mate, appreciate the in depth review. I always had access to and used Fluke tools in university, but I certainly don't have that kind of coin. This little thing looks like it'll do all I really need, and save me heaps of time.
The big ones are TDR and iPerf - So much better to get more details on cable condition then just a yes/no. Esp TDR... Knowing within a metre of where a break is or if a cable has poor performance will save me so much time, as I'll know if it is something within my responsibility, or if it is time to call my cable running grunts in.
The CCTV stuff is nice, even though with IP cams I can just use my phone to log into one, once I have it up on the network. Still the DHCP aspect saves time as I can focus on aiming and mounting the camera, and then do config at my desk later, instead of back and forth.
VGA and HDMI in is sweet! Sooo many times I really needed that in data centres... So many times there are no monitors, or bad ones, or missing cables etc. Dport would be nice too as most of the stuff I deal with now only has Dport, but that is resolved with an adapter.
Port flashing I reckon would accomplish what I do with my toner now... On some Cisco switches, if I get a call for no connection... A majority of times I find it is due to the port needing to be 'woke'. Connecting my toner in data mode, and cycling the test a few times does the trick.
I would have loved to have one of these a long time ago, I reckon I know what my next purchase will be! Much less to carry on me, which is a godsend in large datecentres where my van is a PITA to walk back to if I need or forget something (not to mention all the security checkpoints etc etc each time I have to go back)
Now... if the toner wand can just not set off retail store theft alarms when I come on a service call, that would be great too! Sensormatic systems seem the most sensitive to my current toner tools.
Fantastic bit of kit, bought one of these for connecting to headless servers/PCs amongst other things at work and am loving it so far! Thanks for the share. :)
A great addition would be to have the device act as as a USB keyboard and mouse. Thanks to the VGA and HDMI inputs, it would then be a KVM of sorts.
Actually, with the ability to install other APKs, you could probably just install a HID emulation app designed just for this purpose, such as the remote.hid.keyboard.client package one? (If you search for that string, you'll find it. There are several similarly-named ones, but I've used that apk in particular with an old LG phone to use it as a keyboard/mouse for a game console, so I recommend at least starting there in your search. It IS possible!)
buy 1 and MOD it
Haha, maybe even add serial to console in to switches and routers
That was one of the large selling points of the GPD pocket3 was HDMI input and keyboard mouse override to an external device. I think I've seen some other devices do this but it's rare. Personally I got one of those cheap trackpad wireless keyboards off Amazon and leave it in my bag is a crash keyboard. Then I can use it with either a portable monitor or the laptop mentioned above without having to lose keyboard on the laptop. depending on what I'm doing it's handy.
Thanks for your in depth review. This helped me out a lot because I do part time cctv camera work on weekends . Thanks again
This is a great set up if you don't want to speed hundreds on 'proper' cctv equipment. Especially for IP, the rj45 tester and cable tracer is invaluable
6:00 it looks like that battery is just an enclosure for 2x 18650 cells, so worst comes to worst you should just be able to take it apart and replace the cells themselves (or 3d print a replacement). Theres only 2 terminals so the battery charging logic is inside the device itself too, and it uses pogo pins for the connection so tolerances dont look too tight. its a neat little thing!
Thanks so much for this video - I have a big home project - going to make it more fun than a chore
You should be paid for this review! Thanks for sharing.
One nice feature of the Fluke One Touch or Link Runner is that it can read CDP or LLDP port information so it can say something like you're connected to port gi4/0/33 on Cisco 3650 IP: 10.10.1.1
Yeah, it would be trivial to add that feature to this device as well.
Thank you for a nice concise, and instructive, video. It's long, but you don't waste time.
I brought this one and the 4 inch one I like them a lot. Still learning the features for these.
You can swipe down from the top too, like every android device, there you have access to some window-in-window tools like a tinly hdmi input window or cctv and a speedmeter, nothing revolutionary but still neat.
Ooh some interesting other features such as video recording - came to this vid after your recent 'network install at a friend's house' one 👍 Getting sorely tempted lol
As an Video Tech for Events the SDI Version is probably the perfect all in one tool to have for testing and troubleshooting, never heard of these before but now I'm definitely getting one
Edit: Saw there are some bigger Versions, that also have an HDMI Output to test more sfuff, that's great. But dont know if it has all the other features
Link monitor (53:30) - with a switch that has vlans, and where you can configure a port in promiscuous mode, you could possibly sniff traffic and catch it no matter which vlan its on. Also, on the RTSP stream where its sharing the devices screen, test it with the VGA input and see if it shares the VGA input on the rtsp stream and think of a situation where you need tech support on whatever it is you're VGA connected to - or when you have a tech in the field and they are sharing the server screen with you remotely where you can help them troubleshoot the problem.... nice device, great find for under £200.
Thanks for the in depth review/demo.I just bought one !
These are definitely cool. I've owned 2 triplite versions. Both died at 18 and 21 months. For me this is a little bit too much money to throw out in that time frame.
I've switched to using a bunch of cheaper things to do the same jobs. All together the price is a little more. But they have lasted a lot longer. So far 48 months.
Been there, done that. A few years ago, I was experimenting at work with a new server application. Didn't realise (and this wasn't clearly documented, in my defence) that it ran it's own DHCP server by default. That led to an interesting conversation with our networks team, and the result that I stopped the experiment..
Love your review Cameron! I have one of these (and check it against my Fluke LinkIQ on occasion just as a test to see how the results compare).
A recent free App update for this very unit for the Cable Tester App now (finally) shows 568A and 568B configuration (switchable - so you can set beforehand what type of Standard you are using as well as see the Wiring Diagram Layout for each), STP/UTP or Both, and it can generate a Report also. Interestingly with this latest update, when I plug in a cable into the Port underneath the unit (and not into the Remote Connector), it shows Pins 2 - 8 on the Left (ie: Unit side) as Green but not Pin 1 - which shows a red X. They all show as Green though when the Remote Connector is plugged in the other end though, so not sure what is going on (maybe a bug?).
Thanks. I was wondering how useful it's just from the general description about the device.
I didn't realize I needed this until I saw this video.
iv been a sub for a few years and i just love the neat things you fined now and then amazing content please never ever stop :D i love your videos :D
On the Link monitor, click the ADD button.
I think that may reveal what it's going to do.
It seems like it will monitor an IP and status the device up/down connected/disconnected.
Looks very good, but for anyone who wants somethint cheaper , look at the SC8108 Network Cable Tester , has some of the features here, as in port flasher, and detects length untill break to find which end fault on...
Nice price. I may have to get one. Has TDR which the Klein testers don't. I just miss the color screen and the intelligent remote of this tester.
Constructive criticism: since you appear to have a mount for your camera/phone once auto-focus is complete lock the focus or turn off auto-focus so that the object remains clear when your hands are in the shot
I have their network toner and it's pretty cool so far you can tone and test without so much back and forth kinda like the fluke intellitone 200
Great video, really interesting, maybe i'm not gonna buy it because i dont work with those things but i followed till the end, it was really fascinating seeing the capabilities of that tool!
This would have been the perfect budget friendly tool if it also can do CDP and LLDP. I have the pockethernet which is also at the same price range. Yes the cctv tester can do other things that pockethernet can’t but happy to pay extra for the cdp/lldp addition.
i am glad i bought that device, as my current peice of cr/p, (like the one Cameron showed in the video at 26 minutes give or take a few seconds) has decided that pin one doesn't exist. it starts at 2 proceeds to 8, skips 1 and continues from 2... Unless, i force the rj45 into the main bit and twist it in the socket. then no1 miraculously works.
the joy of passthrough rj45's is that as long as you get the order right at both ends, it is in all likelyhood, going to work. which means that i have a fairly good chance of a good cable.
Update 01 September 21
See my earlier update on the other post.
I have my device now, and it is a game gamechanger.
Thanks to Cameron for recommending it.
TDR function should also help you determine how far down a wire its open.
You can get dc barrel jack to female type c trigger board plugs so you could plug it straight into a power bank
I bought one of these recently. Haven't really used it much yet. I bought it mainly for CCTV but it having wifi/lan and running android will be a help for other tasks. Replacing my previous CCTV tester which was much more basic. Sadly it doesn't have a colorbar generator like my old tester. I frequently encounter HD TVI/AHD hd over coax cameras and my old tester was analog only. Plus the benefit of IP camera testing, and POE output which I could use to power other POE equipment on installation. I do wish it did have a POE input so you could test POE output from switches/injectors. I've been looking at the 7" models for years which some have that feature but they are typically much higher priced.
I know this review was 2 years ago but. You can get
ethernet cable adapter to mobile phone . Try for FTP transfer. Over your mobile phone network
Great useful tips, but I was told you can find the password of an IP camera as well
I was doing something where I had a lot of issues with bad terminations and crossed pairs. I really wanted to get a puck ethernet but they've been out of stock for the past 4 years and supposedly no longer in existence. The TDR and cable testing functions or some thing that I really need but I don't wanna pay for a fluke because that's way more than I need. Would be nice if they had a smaller version of this that just some of the cable testing stuff.
I've had mine for over a year. Because of your video, I understand the functions much better. Thank you. Does anybody know where I can purchase the additional cable verifier?
25:40 I feel obligated to point out that if you get one of those testers. find or make up a bad cable and figure out which side shows the fault. I have used 4 different versions almost identical but with different casing color. Some of them will show the fault at the remote and in some will show the fault at the sending end. So you might be going oh all the lights are blinking it's fine when the end that you don't have is the one where the fault is showing. Depending on how they designed it there must be different revisions of the board and one side will just show all the lights as it goes through and the other side will actually not light if a wire is broken.
This would be perfect if it also had a DVB-T decoder for testing TV cabling and why not have SDR app on it for fun. A bit out of scope but would be a cool
Thanks, this is a great video. Thank you for your very detailed explanations
Wow, you actually brought something and not begged for it!!
You do realise that almost every product I show I have bought myself unless I explicitly state that it was supplied by the manufacturer? I have also never "begged" a company to send a product, I will only ever take a review sample if a company reaches out first and even then I only accept a fraction of what is offered, focusing only on items that I feel would be interesting. Now compare that to other much larger channels that actively charge a company to review their products and don't make the slightest hint of declaring this to their viewers.
holy crap... the amount of cables i make and find chasing a bad termination this would save me hours!!!
Now if only I can find this for the US. Looking at other products like this. I will never trust Aliexpress as I hear nothing but horror stories of getting ripped off. Just trying to create a user name has been like pulling hair.
@@MikeHarris1984 Generally...using a link or reference of a particular product or seller like he does will point you to an ok seller. Pay with a credit card giving you additional protections. Or you could get one of these with a name brand on it for 6x the cost
It’s available on Amazon…
I just ordered one and I *SUBSCRIBED!*
Does VGA input work in combination with the remote screen mirroring? Could be useful as a remote desktop for servers
I wonder if this is based off some chinese board that is easily rootable and install a Kali chroot env onto it as well.
Id save that for something beefier
The nice thing about DC barrel Jack's is you can pick up quick charge trigger cables for USB-C/USB-A
But is that 5v over DC or 12v over usb?
@@efad3215the USB pd trigger usually lets you pick the voltage
@@BoraHorzaGobuchul Depends on the cable.
@@efad3215 and on the charger, so one would have to get the right ones
@@efad3215both!
I have an audio recorder that requires 12V so I picked up a trigger cable that tells my battery bank to output 12V it's a little finicky with load and occasionally shut off if I don't have it turned on but negotiates the 5V up to 12V and once the recorders on it stays on. It's using a resistor in the connector to tell the power supply I am a device that needs 12V. I also have some USB cables that have boost converters in them to get 9v or 12V for things, they tend to be marketed for power your router with USB. There are even some that are selectable between 5-9-12V. the trigger QC PD cables on the other hand are capable of negotiating whatever the supply you plug into has, so there are some that will negotiate 19V and convert USB-C to barrel for laptops. very handy, the days of forgetting your laptop charger and being the only one with that proprietary connector are thankfully lessening. to the point where I offered a power brick to somebody knowing that most of their devices were USB-C. I have a radio scanner that's 9V I'm able to charge it off of any USB socket with a boost cable. There are also just basic cables that just passed the basic 5V USB to a barrel connector for things that already require just 5V. I have older Apple laptops with original magsafe and I was able to pick up a MagSafe to USB-C adapter for both varieties to keep in my bag in case I accidentally forget a brick or have one that stops working.
The current USB specifications offers 5, 9, 12 and 19V built into the cube to negotiate prior to that required boost converter's rather than trigger cables and us was limited to some extent of what you could do. Now you more or less get 3A of current or up to 100W with the slight downside that you have to negotiate for the appropriate voltage.
It looks good, but is there a risk that you're taking something where you can't be 100% sure about the software, and plugging it into switches and network ports inside a firewall?
Definitely a risk so not something I'd recommend doing on live network that hosts anything sensitive. My main use is for cable testing and the monitor functionality which wouldn't require connection to a live network.
Might be interesting to check with a test network, connecting the device to a passthrough wireshark pc ;-)
I had a simple tester like you showed in the beginning, then switched to a better one with tone, but it doesn't work well with sftp (very weak) and i just recently wasted a lot of time with exactly the problem you're discussing - which end (or maybe it's the middle) that is faulty.
12V/1A is easy - you can get pre-made USB PD cables that will do that, then charge off a battery bank.
"Does more than the name implies" reminds me of that HDMI thing you got!
The RS485 monitoring would actually be useful for inspecting DMX (used in Commercial/Theater lighting control)
Interesting, never even thought of that! Shame that I don't have any RS485 devices to hand, will need to find something to give it a go with.
I believe RS485 is also used for transmitting the data to train platform displays at UK rail stations.
Awesome, honestly would want to hack the firmware of this to put in LLDP client, message bus to ship measurements etc. and more funny basic features.
This is a great video. Very informative. I don't use aliexpress however. I just dont trust anything that comes from them.
Wish I had this thing when I accepted a job of installing a camera system for a client.
Man thats a really cool tool. I love finding out about stuff like this. I probably wont buy it unless my use case changes a lot though. Cuz I already have the cheap 5$ one and its like once every 5 years I need to test a cable. And usually thats done by my internet not working and then me just plugging a different cable in and then it working lol. plus wifi is so common now. i 100% want the tool though. if it was cheaper id buy it just to have it.
I have one of these and it really does work great.
there is an audio input... likely that the internal mic would bypass when 1/8th jack is plugged in
APPROVED - Handy time saver.
thank you
it does say create report on the network tester
The TDR test will also give you the approximate location of a mid-span break, as the signal reflection time will be different.
Got a similar device, probably a bit older version shaped more like a digital multimeter - which in fact it has a digital multimeter feature, but only thing lacking is VGA in. It has 3 RJ45 ports on it and I haven't quite figured out all of it's functionality.
I would assume your 3x RJ45 Ports will be LAN, UTP/SCAN & PSE (PoE Input Test)
@@gazfrc4754 Indeed, unfortunately the POE IN/detection isn’t working but POE OUT works fine.
Do you know if it can read CDP and LLDP packets to identify switch ports and VLANs?
Your review puts the others to shame well done 🎉
We're ready for a smart city 🙂
IT NEEDS A FLASHLIGHT!
Amazing detail, thanks Cam
This is a nice tool with so many advanced features, but my understanding is that it is missing the most basic networking features to use its as a network tool (with the exception of small home and small business)
lldp/cdp and the ability to set vlan tags is missing,802.1x that is the basics off almost any bigger network and the ability to test what Poe a switch offers would be nice (the link runner) is a much more basic device but does these things
I hope for a more professional tool aimed at networking.
The way I look at it is that this is designed for testing cabling during installation - continuity tests, TDR tests, identifying cables with the toner - basically a much more advanced version of the cable testers with the blinking LEDs and for that it's been invaluable. The ability to use it as a VGA/HDMI monitor is also an added bonus. With the exception of PoE, most of the other features you've mentioned would be required for administering a network once it has actually been set up and at that point, sure, you'd need a more advanced device although in my experience I've never felt the need and have always just done everything you've mentioned using a laptop. Bearing in mind that this device is under £250 and a LinkRunner is over £1400, I'll gladly stick with a combination of using this device along with a laptop.
I do agree that it is a very nice tool at this price point, it has a lot of good features. But standing on a latter or some other place very inconvenient it is so nice not to use a computer just unplug camera plug it in the fluke, and get Switchname. Switch IP, and the info about the port it is attached. Yes the Fluke is overpriced for what it is, but again it is almost 10 years old and did this from the start. I do hope they could add it via an update (the software side) some of the higher end models have lldp, so for the 5000 series to have a cdp/lldp client does not sounds impossible.
802.1x is not needed for small home networks or small businesses, but most bigger organizations do use it.
Very random observation : 👍👍👍
Extremely handy !
Really appreciate and enjoyed your video.
Thank you.
Hi happy new year, and this is a great review you have done very interesting,
Please can you tell me is this tester still working well, have you found any problems with it,
Thanks Dave
great review im definitely gonna buy 1
Very useful. Would like to make one with an old android phone
Lol, I bought one of these for IP camera installation... Unfortunately it has been so finicky for that purpose, I've basically only used the analog viewer function. If you're running Axis cams, I can't recommend this for installation
Nice video, thanks bro.
Really nice video thanks for that.
The auto focus changing every 2-3 seconds is really annoying though.
The audio recording from the mic makes sense. It needs to hear how impressed you are while it reports home with all the network information it can gather from inside the network. Better start learning Cantonese or Mandarin (or both, who knows what job our supreme overlord will choose for you! Exciting!
You can block the IP of the tester on the firewall at your border router, if you believe the thing phones home, which is a valid concern. You can also plug it into a dual-homed machine running Wireshark configured in bridge mode to have a closer look.
Like Brigitte said, you can certainly sniff its traffic to determine if it has a phone home feature.
If you're playing it super safe, you can always dump the ROM to compare the OS files against an AOSP or other Android build (and run a checksum/comparison) and deconstruct APK's to check for obfuscation and odd functions etc.. A lot of work, probably not worth it - not sure if there is a Infosec expert that does youtube vids that might take a look.
Well explained. Great video
good stuff, nice demo
Is there bit rate error tester on this? I've trying to find a network diagnostic tool that tests for EMI on Ethernet.
Is it good tool to invest in , if you fix cameras for a living
Is there a CDP (Cisco discovery protocol) host/port lookup function? This would make it a contender in campus level work like a Fluke Linkrunner
came down to the comments to ask exactly this. like if this could have a built in netool it would be perfect
I have the same device, good tester.
Thx for video … electrician has installed ethernet cat 6 cables in my house. When doing a speed , adjacent cables have speeds at 900mbits but others 100mbits. The switch ports are reading 900mbits . The basic connectivity meter test passes. Would this meter help to understand why some cables only provides 100mbits