these install vids are always a welcome sight. really down to earth with actual useful tips for a home owner. no flashy shouting vids from a fancy studio, but the real thing.
Cameron, you are the best IT channel on yt. No talking head with rgb lights at every corner, no time-wasting rambling about stuff we already know. Plus, you're more knowledgeable than most, and you delve into more advanced and fun projects
Wasn't sure where to put this comment so I'll leave it here... Mostly thanks to your videos I was inspired (and gained the confidence) to do my first Cat6 run in my house; having acquired 100m of Cat6 as well as some faceplates and back boxes and with my grandad's very useful past experience in running cables (electrical and phone) in his house, we managed it! The run was from the ISP router downstairs through the stairs, up the wall and into the loft, along a couple of joists and down into my bedroom through some trunking that had previously contained some Cat5 to a different room run by a previous resident. So now I have replaced the rubbish powerline adapter with a reliable Cat6 link from the router to my switch, feeding my PC, RasPi, access point and smart lighting gateway. Now I really want to replace the router... unfortunately we are with NowTV Broadband so you can't just use PPPoE but I have extracted the credentials using some useful online guides. Thanks for inspiring me to take on some more ambitious projects and keep up the incredibly cool videos 🙂
I swear all your videos are something ive thought about and wondered how I could get it to work. Please keep doing these install videos. You're the only one on YT showing in-depth residential installs. I live in the U.S. and when I search youtube the closest thing i can find are your videos. You even did an alarm system video! As an alarm tech we are always looked over in the networking field.
Another great and informative video, thanks. Last time I pulled some cable through a void, I pulled through nylon string as well (leaving plenty at each end), so if I needed to pull another cable through in the future I could do it while leaving the extant cable in place.
Very nice instal!! As for the aches and pains, welcome to the installers world. I did 2 way radios and alarm installs in the states some 20 years ago. Now in the EU and home construction here is a total pain! Brick walls, no fishing through drywall. Thank goodness I planned ahead and ran Cat 5 cables to key points outside that I use for conventional video cameras with 75 to 600 ohm baluns. If I ever go to network cameras they will only be available on the home intranet with zero connection to the outside world. As for car radio installs for my ham gear, OH THE PAIN! I can’t flex like I used to.
I like this a lot! Everything done here is correct, compact, and necessary. A lot of the videos people make are just totally impractical and unecessary! Nice.
Great video Cameron, as cool as large set ups are, they majority of people who aren't tech nuts want something like this, and it just demonstrates with some non managed switches and some POE how easy it can be.
Great work on both setting up the network and documenting it on a video as well. I'd honestly just terminate that big black cable directly onto the AP and wouldn't be able to consider the issues it might arise. Also if I were you, I'd put that upstairs switch no later than tomorrow, because when it's in the "eh everything is working but this can be done later" stage, it usually will not be done until its time to upgrade again or something breaks down..
I use the PoE splitters everywhere for all my 12V and 5V connections. They work great, just have to make sure that you purchase isolated output versions, to prevent ground loops and or direct shorts. Having large UPS on the network side, all those devices can stay powered up as long as they can. I am running about three hundred watts worth of power all over for devices, from hubs to Rpi's to many 12V devices and LED lighting. On many of them I just cut the end off (USB side) and then wire on correct connector. Many of them I am not even using the Ethernet side, just power.
I was also lucky to have access under my downstairs, I put my av/server cab out in the garage with all the home cinema kit, servers gaming pc. Gave me the ability to run all the cabling from garage under the house and up to the different rooms. Bonus on the draw wire from upstairs though great video!
pretty neat and "simple" install ! i'm stealing a few ideas for when i'll do my parent's network. Right now they struggle with wifi repeaters goodness so it's just a matter of time before we wire the whole thing. The only thing i'd be worried about in what you did is lightning strikes in the vicinity. Even some way away, with that amount of cable outside, they can pick up enough energy to fry components in the cabinet. But it's rare occurrences, and doing outdoors fibre runs would add to the cost quite a bit. It's something to keep in mind for people with larger properties.
Thanks! Lightning isn't really an issue around here and strikes are extremely rare so I'm not too worried. The house's TV antenna and satellite dish would become an issue long before the network cables which are much lower down. While fibre is potentially a solution for some outdoor runs (e.g. between buildings) when it comes to things like cameras and outdoor APs, copper is really your only option due to requiring PoE. If you were really concerned about lightning, what I'd probably do is have a switch dedicated to all of your outdoor devices (e.g. cameras) and then uplink this to the rest of your network over fibre. That way, if a lightning strike did cause an issue, at worst it would damage this switch and the devices connected to it, but not extend to the rest of your network.
How are the temps inside the cabinet? It's got a lot of tech inside and i'd be worried you'd end up with the door open to keep stuff from over heating.
Temps are fine, nothing in the cabinet is particularly power hungry or hot running and at least some of the heat will be able to exit the cabinet through the slot cut for the cables and rise up into the wall. You wouldn't want to shove a tonne of powerful equipment into something like this, but for some pretty basic hardware it's absolutely fine.
You should have used 3M Command Strips for that switch in the garage, they work VERY well and you can get Velcro ones too, I used them to mount a Unifi AP on the wall and they worked great. But a very nice neat little install.
Great video. Any idea if the Tenda 5 Port PoE Passthrough Switch also passes through VLAN tags? Cant find much out there about it, suspect answer is no!
Yep, that's all a phone line needs - at the point that the DSL extension wires are connected, all it is is a phone line that has had the "voice" frequencies filtered out.
Not really, lightning strikes are really rare around here, and if lightning were to strike, it would almost certainly hit the much higher up TV antenna or satellite dish long before hitting the network cable.
I bought the same patch panel a few years ago and did the extact same thing, such a bad design for the label. It's like they spent time trying to make it confusing.
Another awesome bit of content, Cameron. Love the way you provide so much useful info, methods and the challenges between- Honestly, I have to look at ‘professional’ installs everyday in my world and you put some of the trades to shame with how far you go! Always really enjoy. Ever fancy a career change into the exciting & rewarding world of Building Services Engineering, give me a call 😅
Very well done mate and educational as well as entertaining 👍ignore comments about it being too long this is my type of video and i'm sure many more people will agree.
Nice setup. When i did mine i wasnt aware of 10 inch racks so i carefully sawed a 24w 19” in half! Agree about plugs on solid cable. I avoid doing this too. You will be getting fibre before 2026 and digital Voice. VOIP as the UK network changes and analogue is decommissioned.
Ahh the mum and dad tech. Hit the thumbs up if anyone else is their parent's bridge to the internet. Ive even installed a KVM for when Mum has a tech melt down haha
Once again, a great video 🎉 I really like the way you make labels for connections, etc. in your projects. Any advice with label makers as I’m planning to pick one up.
Thanks! It was definitely interesting content to make, and I still have most of the retro machines (including a few in a display cabinet) but it's just not something I really have a huge interest in getting more of nowadays. It's a pretty expensive hobby when it comes to purchasing retro machines and they end up taking up a tonne of storage space. Never say never when it comes to me making future retro tech videos, and I do still have a tonne of machines that I haven't covered but it's probably not going to really be my main focus long term unfortunately.
21:06 well i would say by looking at the picture that the circles with the inner white is for the cable with the white and with the collored inner circle ist for the color, okay just watched it alittle further now and yes your absolutly rightthat is really confusing..
I have, although it's unlikely to be an issue, nothing in this cabinet is particularly power hungry, and the router and switch are both rated for environments of up to 40c, this cabinet will come nowhere close. Metal cabinets generally aren't too bad at dissipating heat and the slots in the top of this one combined with the slot cut into the wall will further allow a way for heat to escape.
That would definitely help - I use them at home but ended up using old cables that I had spare for this project, will probably get some slim ones to swap in next time I'm ordering some.
Great video Using a surface mount box at the device end of a run then a patch cord is absolutely the way to go The 10” rack gear is interesting. Not sure if available in the US Is a 10” blank keystone panel available vs the traditional patch panel?
They were aware of the video yeah, although admittedly (although rather shamefully) the behind the couch mess was also my doing - the result of quickly upgrading/fixing things using spare hardware that I had sitting around.
Can you get RJ11 keystones? I know on this patch panel you can'y really change them thanks to the design of it (this is more of a "note to self"), but if you had a modular one which had individual keytones, having a RJ11 keystone for the DSL line would stop any confusion as your RJ45 physically won't fit in it.
You definitely can - I actually used one on my own keystone patch panel back when I had the DSL line extended up to the cabinet. I normally do prefer to use keystone patch panels, with this project it was just a case of trying to order from as few retailers as possible so ensure everything would arrive on time and the place I was ordering from didn't have a 10" keystone patch panel. Although, in hindsight, it has been a while since I terminated a punch down style patch panel like this and it really reminded me why I tend to use keystone ones!
I wish that my house could be done like this... solid concrete floors and brick walls. All of my cables run outside and up the wall in a 3inch sewage pipe...
I did, although it's really not the huge issue that people make it out to be unless you're dealing with huge high current cables in industrial settings. Look at the dado trunking used in most offices - the network and power run in the same trunking, separated at most by a plastic divider. The cable in the garage is also only the switched feed to the light, so it's powered extremely rarely.
the problem with your power setup is if they have a problem with the cameras, they will power cycle everything, including the modem. You should put a separate switch for the unifi things
That's true, although power to individual devices can always be cycled by just unplugging the relevant device. The point here was that my parents aren't hugely technical so "turn this switch off and on again if anything goes wrong with the cameras or network" is by far the simplest option. Sure, it does result in devices being unnecessarily restarted but it avoids them needing to understand what everything does and decide which device needs restarted.
Hey! Nice video, long time viewer but havent commented. Like your work, really chill with lots of details and really useful for us home owners. Your parents had a Mikrotik 2011, hows that been? Im debating getting a pfsense or a mikrotik in the future. Ill have a 1gig connevtion for wan and planning on 10gig backbone for LAN with VLAN-segmentation. It seems to be a bit up in the air wether 10gig with rules are feasable or not while the rb5009, seen from their offcial benchmarks seem to handle that though it's not as flexible as pfsense.
It's been good although it's definitely way overkill for them, it was purely just something I had spare so ended up using it. I ran a different RB2011 (with built in WiFi) as my main all in one router and AP for many years and was always happy with it. MikroTik routers are great and I'm pretty tempted to get one to try out as my main home router for a while. Can't really speak for the performance although it does look reasonably powerful. Performance benchmarks of MikroTik routers tend to be reasonably accurate although with some of their devices, especially switches, you do need to be careful as, while all of their switches technically support all Layer 3 features, on some those are handled by the switch ASIC at full wire speed whereas on others those are handled by the switch's CPU which is essentially the same as having a low spec router plugged into the switch over a gigabit link, not remotely the same as a Layer 3 switch. They're awesome devices, but do require a fair bit of research before purchasing.
@@camerongray1515Thanks for your thorough answer. Om leaning towards mikrotik for both routing and switching though I'lll only do L2 switching and let the router do what it does best, routing. Mostly because I want to firewall off different sections of the network. Glad to hear you've had good experience with them. I'm also looking towards maybe testing out their new WiFi 6 APs but I've not yet decided yet. I'd like to get away from Unifi but haven't found anything compelling yet that is not 3-4 times as expensive as Unifi.
I'm using a Sennheiser HSP Essential headset mic with a Sennheiser EW-DP wireless system connected to the camera. Although the stuff filmed under the floor was just my phone - no way my camera would fit under there!
The cupboard is basically a game of Tetris when it comes to fitting everything in. What doesn't' really show up in this video, is that this is their understairs cupboard, so the ceiling slopes meaning there isn't actually much space above the cabinet before it hits the ceiling. At the top of the wall (towards the front of the cupboard) is where their alarm panel is mounted so it couldn't go there and then their ironing board is a perfect fit between the alarm panel and network cabinet so moving the network cabinet anywhere else would prevent that from fitting.
Well I still think my idea for a setup bests your idea. I think lost interest when you said about using a Draytek router. Personally I am looking at Pfsense for the router, OpenWRT for the wireless AP, Piehole for add blocking and plan is to use Proxmox to host it all. I am going to use 19" rackmount and do all wiring internally between floors.
It entirely comes down to the particular install. There is no "best setup", just the "best option for a specific use case." Most of the time, sure, I'm going to use a full size 19" rack with high end equipment and internal wiring. However, not everyone needs the most ridiculously powerful setup, people like my parents (who couldn't care less about networking) just need something simple and more importantly, reliable. Over the years I've learned to never deploy technology for friends/family if I'm not willing to be dragged in to provide complete, free IT support for on an ongoing basis - this is why I almost never build/repair/setup PCs for friends/family nowadays. Setting up a Proxmox host and a bunch of VMs is a recipe for me needing to constantly run over to support them with it whenever anything goes wrong. Likewise PiHole, while great for people who care about it, is just going to cause them to have issues with certain websites not working properly, and me needing to run over to add exclusions.etc. Sure the Draytek router isn't the most "extreme" thing in the world, but given all they need is something to provide internet access for an, at most, 80mbps connection, it's a decently reliable option that also includes a VDSL modem and fits nicely in the cabinet (unlike their old modem) and is a decent step up from an ISP provided router. If in the future they moved to a new router (The UniFi UXG-Lite looks interesting) the Draytek can then be switched to work purely as a VDSL modem. For this setup we had very limited space, hence the 10" rack - there literally wasn't space for a 19" one and my parents weren't willing to lose any cupboard storage space. As for the wiring running externally - their house is solid brick - running any of the camera cables internally would have involved chasing walls and requiring major redecoration. If in the future they were to be redecorating a room or digging up the garden then I'd absolutely be looking to chase the cables into the walls and bury the cable to the garage but for now, running them externally was the best way to get the cameras up and running quickly.
The Draytek router is fine until it goes out of support and then it becomes a security vulnerability. Personally I think your setup is ham stringing you into making certain choices due to size of equipment. I am also thinking around similar lines to you about supporting my parents however I opted to use open source options (Debian, Pfsense, OpenWRT, Proxmox, ZoneMinder, etc etc). As I will be administering mine remotely I want to connect in via either/or a VPN tunnel and administer it either by SSH or internal web server).
Sure, there is a security risk to running an out of date router, but given that none of the router's services are exposed to the internet, the risk is pretty low for such a basic home setup. The same exact risk would apply if they were using basically any off the shelf consumer router, and at least Draytek do actually offer software updates, unlike most consumer routers! The Draytek is also likely to be a relatively short term solution that I picked up cheaply second hand when I found the existing modem and MikroTik router were too tight for the cabinet. Longer term I'd like to try out the UniFi UXG-Lite (with the Draytek just acting as a VDSL modem) since this would give me pretty decent remote access and monitoring of their network. And yes, I am making certain choices due to the space that I had to work with, I can't just magically make the cupboard larger or get my parents to get rid of the stuff that's normally stored in there! The cupboard holds boring household objects - vacuum cleaner, ironing board, clothes airers and there is nowhere else they could reasonably be stored. A huge part of designing a network involves working with the particular environment that you have - If I had space for a full size cabinet I'd have done this very differently - Likely a UniFi UDM Pro SE handling basically everything, but it simply wasn't going to happen here. As for supporting a more complex setup - that's entirely up to you, but for me, the last thing I want to end up with is a situation where I'm relaxing on holiday and get a call from my parents because "nothing is working" and be stuck having to support them. With this setup, realistically almost any issues can be solved by turning it off and on again - which is why everything is being powered from a single socket including the remote PoE powered switches - they have the simple instruction of "If anything stops working, turn that plug off and on again." I can absolutely guarantee that as soon as I mention to my parents about them having a server, or "just connect to this VPN to access your CCTV" they're going to immediately want a different setup. This setup here isn't to be viewed as a homelab style setup that's been heavily cut down to fit in a tight space, it should be viewed as the next step up from an ISP provided router and cloud recording cameras from the likes of Ring.
Reliable security camera for an apartment. I am in a bachelor's apartment in a social housing building. It's about 475 square feet. I also needed something ultra-low cost with cloud recording (In breaking the cameras are the first things to get trashed and stolen the computers are the second. I ended up getting a $CDN49 TP-Link TAPO PTZ. The app is great and easy to use, can handle multiple cameras and supports cloud storage and downloading easily. I only have two cameras. One in the living room and one in the kitchen. I used to use D-Link, but they stopped supporting my cameras also I stopped supporting them. It's difficult to find good products for apartments. I am working on a door lock system that looks just like the regular key lock but lets me have a fob, fingerprint or key to open the door. If there is a visible camera it's likely to get smashed by a baseball bat in the middle of the night or spray painted by someone hired by a drug dealer so I must have one that is 100% stealth and looks just like every other lock on all the other doors on my floor.
It won't, nothing in that cabinet runs particularly hot. It's common to have multiple high power switches in a comms cabinet, the equipment installed here is nowhere close in terms of power consumption and heat output.
It really won't, nothing in that cabinet is particularly power hungry or produces much heat. Look at how many high powered switches are commonly installed into small network cabinets in commercial settings without issue. Sure this cabinet is smaller than those, but the power consumption of this is also several times lower.
Feel free to check back but I'm certain it'll still be running fine. The router and switch are both rated to operate in environments of up to 40c, the inside of the cabinet is nowhere close to that. The CloudKey is currently reporting a CPU temperature of 49c which is pretty standard for a CloudKey Gen2+, and that's with it actively running and recording the cameras. Remember, just because something "gets hot" to the touch, doesn't mean that it's overheating. Wait until you've experienced how hot many commercial comms rooms are, this cabinet is nowhere close!
@@camerongray1515 I am little more paranoid about heat i guess but even low heat generating devices in an enclosed like that can turn that into a hot box. I would probably cut a hole in the top for some type small case fan even if it move very little air. Def want to keep an eye on it to make sure it will won't warm up cause 40c isn't really that hot when it comes to enclosed space of hardware.
Of course I'll be keeping an eye on it, but I've never seen an issue even with comms cabinets containing much more equipment - metal cabinets are generally pretty reasonable at dissipating heat - it's not like it's wooden or something like that. There are also slots in the top as well as the slot at the rear that would allow heat to rise up into the wall. I've previously ran a cabinet containing a reasonably powerful server, network switch and a few other bits of hardware and it comfortably stayed under 40c, I only needed to add active cooling once I lined it with sound insulation which prevented the cabinet from dissipating heat through the metal sides.
Wow. What a mess this looks like (not your cabinet but all the main cable management under and outside the house). Even the oldest houses in the Netherlands situated in the “middle of nowhere” have a decent 1Gbs fiber optic connection already in the main distribution box. Sorry but the UK is definitively years behind. Nothing you can do about it off course. At least you try to make the best of it.
The UK is definitely behind when it comes to telecoms although fibre should be rolled out everywhere in the next few years when the copper phone network is turned off. As for the house - this is just a classic case of a house from the 1960s where things have been bodged repeatedly by contractors over the years. The house would have originally been built without central heating, phone service and a relatively limited electrical setup so everything has been retrofitted and expanded over the years. As for the wiring outside the house - those are TV antenna and satellite cables that will have also been retrofitted over the years including a few redundant cables to feed TV to other rooms that are no longer in use and should probably be tidied at some point. The actual phone line is completely buried and comes in underground and pops up under the floor of the house.
when you understand in time that the need to add anything will open your eyes to why you didn't make a 19" rack right away and not such a 10". The minimum should be 9U, unless you are dealing with a larger space. For me, if someone is lazy and stingy, then on the wall in an emergency, with the fact that it will logically take up a lot of space. I'll pay more for it. and the basic rule is: have everything in the rack, not in several places in the house. that's the way to hell. one or two cables to each location / data socket, but they must always end in the rack. no intermediate link.🙃
If you've seen my other videos, you'll see that I generally do always use regular 19" racks and centralise all cable runs as much as possible. However, this install was for my parents who really don't care about the tech side of things and simply didn't want to dedicate so much cupboard space to a larger cabinet. That cupboard is used for storage and a cabinet even slightly larger would have made it impossible to fit their vaccuum cleaner and ironing board into the cupboard.
My style is to produce videos that are basically a live vlog of whatever I'm doing in full detail. For me, overly planning and scripting a video to make it as condensed as possible removes all of the enjoyment I get from making videos.
@@camerongray1515fair enough. Some more aggressive editing might help, but hey, it’s free content, who am I to argue! Thanks for making them one way or the other!
Wow, could you talk any faster! I am a native English speaker and in a few places I really struggled to hear precisely what you were saying. Had to stop watching.
Little bit surprised you didn't go with the Vigor166 or 2766 for g.fast support. g.fast has replaced the VDSL2 equipment in the phone cabinets for a few years now (at least round my way).
I use G.Fast at home, although it's not available in my parents area. They're also relatively far from the cabinet so I suspect they'd be too far for G.Fast anyway. I don't think they're really rolling out G.Fast anymore so the likely next phase for them will be FTTP.
Once again, a great video 🎉 I really like the way you make labels for connections, etc. in your projects. Any advice with label makers as I’m planning to get one and there are all sorts available.
Thanks! I keep meaning to do a dedicated video on my label maker but never get around to it! I'm using a Brother PT-E550W and while it's expensive, it's been an absolute game changer! Can create labels of exact sizes including labels for patch panels which can have equally spaced boxes. It also has a "cable wrap" feature which combined with special "Flexible ID" tape makes those labels that I have wrapped around the individual cables. It can also automatically cut labels to the correct size whereas cheaper printers with manual cutters will let you cut the label off after printing, but you'll then need to go in with scissors afterwards to trim down or separate individual labels.
![[IP20 Downlights in Bathroom?!] Lights and Switches in a terraced house in Canterbury, UK](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_7L51nPLn40/mqdefault.jpg)
Buy on Amazon (Affiliate):
- UniFi CloudKey Gen2 Plus: geni.us/TzLBQ
- UniFi AC-LR Access Point: geni.us/d2uhn
- Tenda 5 Port PoE Passthrough Switch: geni.us/Ldg95OR
- Mercusys 8 Port PoE Switch: geni.us/5gnzvo2
All cables were tested using an IPC-5200 CCTV & Network Tester from AliExpress (Affilate): geni.us/8kCNqG
Network hardware, cabinet and cable from: www.cablemonkey.co.uk/
these install vids are always a welcome sight. really down to earth with actual useful tips for a home owner. no flashy shouting vids from a fancy studio, but the real thing.
Cameron, you are the best IT channel on yt. No talking head with rgb lights at every corner, no time-wasting rambling about stuff we already know. Plus, you're more knowledgeable than most, and you delve into more advanced and fun projects
>RGB
look guys, I'm a professional because I hate RGB
@@theglowcloud2215 Yes.
This is probably the most realistic home tech nerd network setup I’ve ever seen. I love it, took lots of notes for my own!
How is heat dissipation in something so small?
Wasn't sure where to put this comment so I'll leave it here...
Mostly thanks to your videos I was inspired (and gained the confidence) to do my first Cat6 run in my house; having acquired 100m of Cat6 as well as some faceplates and back boxes and with my grandad's very useful past experience in running cables (electrical and phone) in his house, we managed it! The run was from the ISP router downstairs through the stairs, up the wall and into the loft, along a couple of joists and down into my bedroom through some trunking that had previously contained some Cat5 to a different room run by a previous resident. So now I have replaced the rubbish powerline adapter with a reliable Cat6 link from the router to my switch, feeding my PC, RasPi, access point and smart lighting gateway. Now I really want to replace the router... unfortunately we are with NowTV Broadband so you can't just use PPPoE but I have extracted the credentials using some useful online guides. Thanks for inspiring me to take on some more ambitious projects and keep up the incredibly cool videos 🙂
I wish I knew racks like that existed when I did my parents Wireless
I swear all your videos are something ive thought about and wondered how I could get it to work. Please keep doing these install videos. You're the only one on YT showing in-depth residential installs. I live in the U.S. and when I search youtube the closest thing i can find are your videos. You even did an alarm system video! As an alarm tech we are always looked over in the networking field.
Another great and informative video, thanks.
Last time I pulled some cable through a void, I pulled through nylon string as well (leaving plenty at each end), so if I needed to pull another cable through in the future I could do it while leaving the extant cable in place.
Very nice instal!! As for the aches and pains, welcome to the installers world. I did 2 way radios and alarm installs in the states some 20 years ago. Now in the EU and home construction here is a total pain! Brick walls, no fishing through drywall. Thank goodness I planned ahead and ran Cat 5 cables to key points outside that I use for conventional video cameras with 75 to 600 ohm baluns. If I ever go to network cameras they will only be available on the home intranet with zero connection to the outside world. As for car radio installs for my ham gear, OH THE PAIN! I can’t flex like I used to.
I like this a lot! Everything done here is correct, compact, and necessary. A lot of the videos people make are just totally impractical and unecessary! Nice.
Great video Cameron, as cool as large set ups are, they majority of people who aren't tech nuts want something like this, and it just demonstrates with some non managed switches and some POE how easy it can be.
Great work on both setting up the network and documenting it on a video as well. I'd honestly just terminate that big black cable directly onto the AP and wouldn't be able to consider the issues it might arise. Also if I were you, I'd put that upstairs switch no later than tomorrow, because when it's in the "eh everything is working but this can be done later" stage, it usually will not be done until its time to upgrade again or something breaks down..
That garage switch is mounted tamper-resistant now ;)
Why you not use mikrotik 2011 for example, or somethink newer ? Due to poe ?
Who on earth thought that colour code on the patch pannel was a good idea? Anyway suppose it's not a big deal now. Thanks for another great video!
I use the PoE splitters everywhere for all my 12V and 5V connections. They work great, just have to make sure that you purchase isolated output versions, to prevent ground loops and or direct shorts. Having large UPS on the network side, all those devices can stay powered up as long as they can. I am running about three hundred watts worth of power all over for devices, from hubs to Rpi's to many 12V devices and LED lighting. On many of them I just cut the end off (USB side) and then wire on correct connector. Many of them I am not even using the Ethernet side, just power.
Quite a nifty wee setup, nice job dude
I was also lucky to have access under my downstairs, I put my av/server cab out in the garage with all the home cinema kit, servers gaming pc. Gave me the ability to run all the cabling from garage under the house and up to the different rooms. Bonus on the draw wire from upstairs though great video!
I'd have got the Patch panel wrong too. Nice tidy job.
pretty neat and "simple" install !
i'm stealing a few ideas for when i'll do my parent's network. Right now they struggle with wifi repeaters goodness so it's just a matter of time before we wire the whole thing.
The only thing i'd be worried about in what you did is lightning strikes in the vicinity. Even some way away, with that amount of cable outside, they can pick up enough energy to fry components in the cabinet. But it's rare occurrences, and doing outdoors fibre runs would add to the cost quite a bit. It's something to keep in mind for people with larger properties.
Thanks! Lightning isn't really an issue around here and strikes are extremely rare so I'm not too worried. The house's TV antenna and satellite dish would become an issue long before the network cables which are much lower down. While fibre is potentially a solution for some outdoor runs (e.g. between buildings) when it comes to things like cameras and outdoor APs, copper is really your only option due to requiring PoE. If you were really concerned about lightning, what I'd probably do is have a switch dedicated to all of your outdoor devices (e.g. cameras) and then uplink this to the rest of your network over fibre. That way, if a lightning strike did cause an issue, at worst it would damage this switch and the devices connected to it, but not extend to the rest of your network.
How are the temps inside the cabinet? It's got a lot of tech inside and i'd be worried you'd end up with the door open to keep stuff from over heating.
Temps are fine, nothing in the cabinet is particularly power hungry or hot running and at least some of the heat will be able to exit the cabinet through the slot cut for the cables and rise up into the wall. You wouldn't want to shove a tonne of powerful equipment into something like this, but for some pretty basic hardware it's absolutely fine.
Excellent video Cameron. Recently discovered your channel and love the network setups
Great video. Id love to attempt something similar. Would to see more tech upgrades at your parents place
Great install, nice and clear guidance. Just curious about the neat yellow labels - which system is this?
You should have used 3M Command Strips for that switch in the garage, they work VERY well and you can get Velcro ones too, I used them to mount a Unifi AP on the wall and they worked great. But a very nice neat little install.
Great video. Any idea if the Tenda 5 Port PoE Passthrough Switch also passes through VLAN tags? Cant find much out there about it, suspect answer is no!
20:16 DSL just uses one pair of the twisted wires?
Yep, that's all a phone line needs - at the point that the DSL extension wires are connected, all it is is a phone line that has had the "voice" frequencies filtered out.
yep that's all
Very nice setup. Great video and thanks for sharing. Greetings from Nova Scotia Canada
Are you concerned with the wires running outside to garage with a lightning strike?
Not really, lightning strikes are really rare around here, and if lightning were to strike, it would almost certainly hit the much higher up TV antenna or satellite dish long before hitting the network cable.
Good to hear. My place was hit by lightning and most things with a circuit board were fired.@@camerongray1515
What is that cabinet like with keeping it cool, my sky router gives off a lot heat.
14:27 I would have attach a piece of string that can be used as a draw for further cabling later
I bought the same patch panel a few years ago and did the extact same thing, such a bad design for the label.
It's like they spent time trying to make it confusing.
Another awesome bit of content, Cameron. Love the way you provide so much useful info, methods and the challenges between- Honestly, I have to look at ‘professional’ installs everyday in my world and you put some of the trades to shame with how far you go! Always really enjoy. Ever fancy a career change into the exciting & rewarding world of Building Services Engineering, give me a call 😅
Very well done mate and educational as well as entertaining 👍ignore comments about it being too long this is my type of video and i'm sure many more people will agree.
Nice setup. When i did mine i wasnt aware of 10 inch racks so i carefully sawed a 24w 19” in half!
Agree about plugs on solid cable. I avoid doing this too.
You will be getting fibre before 2026 and digital Voice. VOIP as the UK network changes and analogue is decommissioned.
Ahh the mum and dad tech. Hit the thumbs up if anyone else is their parent's bridge to the internet. Ive even installed a KVM for when Mum has a tech melt down haha
That small patch panel is FK cool! 😎
Once again, a great video 🎉 I really like the way you make labels for connections, etc. in your projects. Any advice with label makers as I’m planning to pick one up.
miss your retro stuff dude!
Thanks! It was definitely interesting content to make, and I still have most of the retro machines (including a few in a display cabinet) but it's just not something I really have a huge interest in getting more of nowadays. It's a pretty expensive hobby when it comes to purchasing retro machines and they end up taking up a tonne of storage space. Never say never when it comes to me making future retro tech videos, and I do still have a tonne of machines that I haven't covered but it's probably not going to really be my main focus long term unfortunately.
21:06 well i would say by looking at the picture that the circles with the inner white is for the cable with the white and with the collored inner circle ist for the color,
okay just watched it alittle further now and yes your absolutly rightthat is really confusing..
looks good man! i love doing this kinda work myself. that network rack is cool!
Beautiful, compact install!
Amazing work as always Cameron ✌️
Nice setup. I think the CK2+ will get very hot though.
Another great video. Have you considered the overheating potential of that enclosed metal box with those power bricks within a cupboard in the house?
I have, although it's unlikely to be an issue, nothing in this cabinet is particularly power hungry, and the router and switch are both rated for environments of up to 40c, this cabinet will come nowhere close. Metal cabinets generally aren't too bad at dissipating heat and the slots in the top of this one combined with the slot cut into the wall will further allow a way for heat to escape.
You might want to use short slim patch cables for your patch panel...
That would definitely help - I use them at home but ended up using old cables that I had spare for this project, will probably get some slim ones to swap in next time I'm ordering some.
Great video
Using a surface mount box at the device end of a run then a patch cord is absolutely the way to go
The 10” rack gear is interesting. Not sure if available in the US
Is a 10” blank keystone panel available vs the traditional patch panel?
Does your mother know her 'behind the couch' mess is available to view from anywhere in the world?
They were aware of the video yeah, although admittedly (although rather shamefully) the behind the couch mess was also my doing - the result of quickly upgrading/fixing things using spare hardware that I had sitting around.
@@camerongray1515 We've all got them and not always behind the couch.
Great install Cameron! What was the full cost of this install including the cameras etc?
Where is your NVR? i dont understand where you Store the Video
The UniFi CloudKey G2 Plus contains a 1TB hard drive and acts as an NVR running the UniFi Protect software.
Amazing video, like the other comments say, nice and down to earth, very helpful.
Can you get RJ11 keystones? I know on this patch panel you can'y really change them thanks to the design of it (this is more of a "note to self"), but if you had a modular one which had individual keytones, having a RJ11 keystone for the DSL line would stop any confusion as your RJ45 physically won't fit in it.
You definitely can - I actually used one on my own keystone patch panel back when I had the DSL line extended up to the cabinet. I normally do prefer to use keystone patch panels, with this project it was just a case of trying to order from as few retailers as possible so ensure everything would arrive on time and the place I was ordering from didn't have a 10" keystone patch panel. Although, in hindsight, it has been a while since I terminated a punch down style patch panel like this and it really reminded me why I tend to use keystone ones!
I wish that my house could be done like this... solid concrete floors and brick walls. All of my cables run outside and up the wall in a 3inch sewage pipe...
Great video! Looks like you ran the network cable next to a power cable in the garage!
I did, although it's really not the huge issue that people make it out to be unless you're dealing with huge high current cables in industrial settings. Look at the dado trunking used in most offices - the network and power run in the same trunking, separated at most by a plastic divider. The cable in the garage is also only the switched feed to the light, so it's powered extremely rarely.
Should have pulled through some additional drawstrings at the same time.
I just don't understand how that bulb is staying there at 10:54 the unlit one on the right
I'd like to say it's magic, but it's just inside one of those annoying plastic blister packs that are impossible to open
@@camerongray1515 ohhhhhh makes sense
Neat little install!
the problem with your power setup is if they have a problem with the cameras, they will power cycle everything, including the modem. You should put a separate switch for the unifi things
That's true, although power to individual devices can always be cycled by just unplugging the relevant device. The point here was that my parents aren't hugely technical so "turn this switch off and on again if anything goes wrong with the cameras or network" is by far the simplest option. Sure, it does result in devices being unnecessarily restarted but it avoids them needing to understand what everything does and decide which device needs restarted.
Great work!
Hey! Nice video, long time viewer but havent commented. Like your work, really chill with lots of details and really useful for us home owners. Your parents had a Mikrotik 2011, hows that been? Im debating getting a pfsense or a mikrotik in the future. Ill have a 1gig connevtion for wan and planning on 10gig backbone for LAN with VLAN-segmentation. It seems to be a bit up in the air wether 10gig with rules are feasable or not while the rb5009, seen from their offcial benchmarks seem to handle that though it's not as flexible as pfsense.
It's been good although it's definitely way overkill for them, it was purely just something I had spare so ended up using it. I ran a different RB2011 (with built in WiFi) as my main all in one router and AP for many years and was always happy with it. MikroTik routers are great and I'm pretty tempted to get one to try out as my main home router for a while. Can't really speak for the performance although it does look reasonably powerful. Performance benchmarks of MikroTik routers tend to be reasonably accurate although with some of their devices, especially switches, you do need to be careful as, while all of their switches technically support all Layer 3 features, on some those are handled by the switch ASIC at full wire speed whereas on others those are handled by the switch's CPU which is essentially the same as having a low spec router plugged into the switch over a gigabit link, not remotely the same as a Layer 3 switch. They're awesome devices, but do require a fair bit of research before purchasing.
@@camerongray1515Thanks for your thorough answer. Om leaning towards mikrotik for both routing and switching though I'lll only do L2 switching and let the router do what it does best, routing. Mostly because I want to firewall off different sections of the network. Glad to hear you've had good experience with them.
I'm also looking towards maybe testing out their new WiFi 6 APs but I've not yet decided yet. I'd like to get away from Unifi but haven't found anything compelling yet that is not 3-4 times as expensive as Unifi.
What mic are you using while doing the install. I guess it has to be mobile.
I'm using a Sennheiser HSP Essential headset mic with a Sennheiser EW-DP wireless system connected to the camera. Although the stuff filmed under the floor was just my phone - no way my camera would fit under there!
Why not place it on the top side of the wall, it have more empty space?
The cupboard is basically a game of Tetris when it comes to fitting everything in. What doesn't' really show up in this video, is that this is their understairs cupboard, so the ceiling slopes meaning there isn't actually much space above the cabinet before it hits the ceiling. At the top of the wall (towards the front of the cupboard) is where their alarm panel is mounted so it couldn't go there and then their ironing board is a perfect fit between the alarm panel and network cabinet so moving the network cabinet anywhere else would prevent that from fitting.
Nice, tidy job!
Great install thanks for sharing
Yeeeeyy, I recently started sub. And must say I love these cabling videos
this room looks like the small room where Whalter White has his washing mashine
Well I still think my idea for a setup bests your idea. I think lost interest when you said about using a Draytek router. Personally I am looking at Pfsense for the router, OpenWRT for the wireless AP, Piehole for add blocking and plan is to use Proxmox to host it all. I am going to use 19" rackmount and do all wiring internally between floors.
It entirely comes down to the particular install. There is no "best setup", just the "best option for a specific use case." Most of the time, sure, I'm going to use a full size 19" rack with high end equipment and internal wiring. However, not everyone needs the most ridiculously powerful setup, people like my parents (who couldn't care less about networking) just need something simple and more importantly, reliable.
Over the years I've learned to never deploy technology for friends/family if I'm not willing to be dragged in to provide complete, free IT support for on an ongoing basis - this is why I almost never build/repair/setup PCs for friends/family nowadays. Setting up a Proxmox host and a bunch of VMs is a recipe for me needing to constantly run over to support them with it whenever anything goes wrong. Likewise PiHole, while great for people who care about it, is just going to cause them to have issues with certain websites not working properly, and me needing to run over to add exclusions.etc. Sure the Draytek router isn't the most "extreme" thing in the world, but given all they need is something to provide internet access for an, at most, 80mbps connection, it's a decently reliable option that also includes a VDSL modem and fits nicely in the cabinet (unlike their old modem) and is a decent step up from an ISP provided router. If in the future they moved to a new router (The UniFi UXG-Lite looks interesting) the Draytek can then be switched to work purely as a VDSL modem.
For this setup we had very limited space, hence the 10" rack - there literally wasn't space for a 19" one and my parents weren't willing to lose any cupboard storage space. As for the wiring running externally - their house is solid brick - running any of the camera cables internally would have involved chasing walls and requiring major redecoration. If in the future they were to be redecorating a room or digging up the garden then I'd absolutely be looking to chase the cables into the walls and bury the cable to the garage but for now, running them externally was the best way to get the cameras up and running quickly.
The Draytek router is fine until it goes out of support and then it becomes a security vulnerability.
Personally I think your setup is ham stringing you into making certain choices due to size of equipment. I am also thinking around similar lines to you about supporting my parents however I opted to use open source options (Debian, Pfsense, OpenWRT, Proxmox, ZoneMinder, etc etc). As I will be administering mine remotely I want to connect in via either/or a VPN tunnel and administer it either by SSH or internal web server).
Sure, there is a security risk to running an out of date router, but given that none of the router's services are exposed to the internet, the risk is pretty low for such a basic home setup. The same exact risk would apply if they were using basically any off the shelf consumer router, and at least Draytek do actually offer software updates, unlike most consumer routers! The Draytek is also likely to be a relatively short term solution that I picked up cheaply second hand when I found the existing modem and MikroTik router were too tight for the cabinet. Longer term I'd like to try out the UniFi UXG-Lite (with the Draytek just acting as a VDSL modem) since this would give me pretty decent remote access and monitoring of their network.
And yes, I am making certain choices due to the space that I had to work with, I can't just magically make the cupboard larger or get my parents to get rid of the stuff that's normally stored in there! The cupboard holds boring household objects - vacuum cleaner, ironing board, clothes airers and there is nowhere else they could reasonably be stored. A huge part of designing a network involves working with the particular environment that you have - If I had space for a full size cabinet I'd have done this very differently - Likely a UniFi UDM Pro SE handling basically everything, but it simply wasn't going to happen here.
As for supporting a more complex setup - that's entirely up to you, but for me, the last thing I want to end up with is a situation where I'm relaxing on holiday and get a call from my parents because "nothing is working" and be stuck having to support them. With this setup, realistically almost any issues can be solved by turning it off and on again - which is why everything is being powered from a single socket including the remote PoE powered switches - they have the simple instruction of "If anything stops working, turn that plug off and on again."
I can absolutely guarantee that as soon as I mention to my parents about them having a server, or "just connect to this VPN to access your CCTV" they're going to immediately want a different setup. This setup here isn't to be viewed as a homelab style setup that's been heavily cut down to fit in a tight space, it should be viewed as the next step up from an ISP provided router and cloud recording cameras from the likes of Ring.
Nice job!
Nice! I take it you'll be admin for them then
Reliable security camera for an apartment. I am in a bachelor's apartment in a social housing building. It's about 475 square feet. I also needed something ultra-low cost with cloud recording (In breaking the cameras are the first things to get trashed and stolen the computers are the second. I ended up getting a $CDN49 TP-Link TAPO PTZ. The app is great and easy to use, can handle multiple cameras and supports cloud storage and downloading easily. I only have two cameras. One in the living room and one in the kitchen. I used to use D-Link, but they stopped supporting my cameras also I stopped supporting them. It's difficult to find good products for apartments. I am working on a door lock system that looks just like the regular key lock but lets me have a fob, fingerprint or key to open the door. If there is a visible camera it's likely to get smashed by a baseball bat in the middle of the night or spray painted by someone hired by a drug dealer so I must have one that is 100% stealth and looks just like every other lock on all the other doors on my floor.
Exellent😊
That ethernet cable is really thick.
Great video
Yeah that patch panel is daft, I wouldn't have got it right either.
I just wired my (older) house and decided I love networking but hate running cable. What absolute misery!
Dang, can you do my house next
That's terrible labeling on the patch panel, I'd have assumed the same as you.
connetix logo looks like the proxmox logo lol
Ha I guessed the colors correctly.
Grill - Setup )) U will smell it :))
Huh?
@@camerongray1515 it will be too hot inside.
It won't, nothing in that cabinet runs particularly hot. It's common to have multiple high power switches in a comms cabinet, the equipment installed here is nowhere close in terms of power consumption and heat output.
@@camerongray1515 we will see.
That kit will overheat and fry in no time !
It really won't, nothing in that cabinet is particularly power hungry or produces much heat. Look at how many high powered switches are commonly installed into small network cabinets in commercial settings without issue. Sure this cabinet is smaller than those, but the power consumption of this is also several times lower.
@@camerongray1515 I'll check back in 6 months. Anything poe gets hot, anything ubitquiti gets hot, especially with zero airflow.
Feel free to check back but I'm certain it'll still be running fine. The router and switch are both rated to operate in environments of up to 40c, the inside of the cabinet is nowhere close to that. The CloudKey is currently reporting a CPU temperature of 49c which is pretty standard for a CloudKey Gen2+, and that's with it actively running and recording the cameras. Remember, just because something "gets hot" to the touch, doesn't mean that it's overheating. Wait until you've experienced how hot many commercial comms rooms are, this cabinet is nowhere close!
@@camerongray1515 I am little more paranoid about heat i guess but even low heat generating devices in an enclosed like that can turn that into a hot box. I would probably cut a hole in the top for some type small case fan even if it move very little air. Def want to keep an eye on it to make sure it will won't warm up cause 40c isn't really that hot when it comes to enclosed space of hardware.
Of course I'll be keeping an eye on it, but I've never seen an issue even with comms cabinets containing much more equipment - metal cabinets are generally pretty reasonable at dissipating heat - it's not like it's wooden or something like that. There are also slots in the top as well as the slot at the rear that would allow heat to rise up into the wall. I've previously ran a cabinet containing a reasonably powerful server, network switch and a few other bits of hardware and it comfortably stayed under 40c, I only needed to add active cooling once I lined it with sound insulation which prevented the cabinet from dissipating heat through the metal sides.
Wow. What a mess this looks like (not your cabinet but all the main cable management under and outside the house). Even the oldest houses in the Netherlands situated in the “middle of nowhere” have a decent 1Gbs fiber optic connection already in the main distribution box. Sorry but the UK is definitively years behind. Nothing you can do about it off course. At least you try to make the best of it.
The UK is definitely behind when it comes to telecoms although fibre should be rolled out everywhere in the next few years when the copper phone network is turned off. As for the house - this is just a classic case of a house from the 1960s where things have been bodged repeatedly by contractors over the years. The house would have originally been built without central heating, phone service and a relatively limited electrical setup so everything has been retrofitted and expanded over the years. As for the wiring outside the house - those are TV antenna and satellite cables that will have also been retrofitted over the years including a few redundant cables to feed TV to other rooms that are no longer in use and should probably be tidied at some point. The actual phone line is completely buried and comes in underground and pops up under the floor of the house.
Good install but you speak too fast
rooter
he said router not rowter.
@@RWL2012 he says rooter not router
when you understand in time that the need to add anything will open your eyes to why you didn't make a 19" rack right away and not such a 10". The minimum should be 9U, unless you are dealing with a larger space. For me, if someone is lazy and stingy, then on the wall in an emergency, with the fact that it will logically take up a lot of space. I'll pay more for it. and the basic rule is: have everything in the rack, not in several places in the house. that's the way to hell. one or two cables to each location / data socket, but they must always end in the rack. no intermediate link.🙃
If you've seen my other videos, you'll see that I generally do always use regular 19" racks and centralise all cable runs as much as possible. However, this install was for my parents who really don't care about the tech side of things and simply didn't want to dedicate so much cupboard space to a larger cabinet. That cupboard is used for storage and a cabinet even slightly larger would have made it impossible to fit their vaccuum cleaner and ironing board into the cupboard.
duhs
Your videos are interesting content but just too long. An excess of exposition!
My style is to produce videos that are basically a live vlog of whatever I'm doing in full detail. For me, overly planning and scripting a video to make it as condensed as possible removes all of the enjoyment I get from making videos.
@@camerongray1515 You should think of your audience.
@@camerongray1515you don't have to watch it on one go. You can split it into episodes of any length to your choosing
@@camerongray1515fair enough. Some more aggressive editing might help, but hey, it’s free content, who am I to argue! Thanks for making them one way or the other!
@@camerongray1515I like the full in depth detail.
Wow, could you talk any faster! I am a native English speaker and in a few places I really struggled to hear precisely what you were saying. Had to stop watching.
Little bit surprised you didn't go with the Vigor166 or 2766 for g.fast support. g.fast has replaced the VDSL2 equipment in the phone cabinets for a few years now (at least round my way).
I use G.Fast at home, although it's not available in my parents area. They're also relatively far from the cabinet so I suspect they'd be too far for G.Fast anyway. I don't think they're really rolling out G.Fast anymore so the likely next phase for them will be FTTP.
Once again, a great video 🎉 I really like the way you make labels for connections, etc. in your projects. Any advice with label makers as I’m planning to get one and there are all sorts available.
Thanks! I keep meaning to do a dedicated video on my label maker but never get around to it! I'm using a Brother PT-E550W and while it's expensive, it's been an absolute game changer! Can create labels of exact sizes including labels for patch panels which can have equally spaced boxes. It also has a "cable wrap" feature which combined with special "Flexible ID" tape makes those labels that I have wrapped around the individual cables. It can also automatically cut labels to the correct size whereas cheaper printers with manual cutters will let you cut the label off after printing, but you'll then need to go in with scissors afterwards to trim down or separate individual labels.