Mentioned in the Wifi Mesh thread, I need to find the live end to an ethernet port in the house. Switch will be in the basement, any suggestions on an easy to use tester? It will probably be just me, don't think I can hold the Wife's attention long enough to help out.
I'm sure you can find a tone generator on amazon but the question is price. I have one here but I've never used it so that's not much help. I wonder if you can use a multimeter and the pins to trace. In theory it would work, just make an adapter that creates a low voltage signal and then find what cable is carrying the voltage and that should be the one you need.
Mind you that's is you happen to have a multimeter (I have 4) and some networking stuff hanging around. I never throw anything out so a punchdown block is kicking about somewhere.
You can also try playing nice with IT and see if they have a tone generator. If they don't know what it is, back away slowly and never call them again since they don't know what they are doing. I may not always know what I'm doing but I can fake it well enough until I can google it.
I have this one. Works fine. You won't need a second person.
Ethernet Tester (https://www.amazon.com/Generic-sfg-Network-Tester-Telephone/dp/B00G55ZGZ8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1501677367&sr=8-3&keywords=Ethernet+Tester)
My search sure didn't turn that one up. Damn, that's super cheap. I wouldn't expect it to last long term but for your project it should work fine.
I may pick one up just to have it at home.
I've had mine for 5 years and it still has the original battery in it. Sure is handy to have around if you have a bunch of spaghetti cables and need to find both ends of the same cable.
Quote from: Joe on August 02, 2017, 06:38:32 AMI have this one. Works fine. You won't need a second person.
Ethernet Tester (https://www.amazon.com/Generic-sfg-Network-Tester-Telephone/dp/B00G55ZGZ8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1501677367&sr=8-3&keywords=Ethernet+Tester)
over at the last place we used the Fluke brand, but I can see there is a small difference in price of yours to the Fluke.
:shocked:
We have one at work that cost about $75. The one at Amazon does the job though.
If I were doing wire traces as a main part of my job, I'd have a Fluke. One of my multimeters is a Fluke that I've had for years.
The 2 meters I use the most are from radio shack mainly because my big one likes to eat batteries. The 2 shack ones might be on their original batteries and they're 8-10 years old.
If what you're doing is responsible for putting food on your table, spend the money to get quality tools. If you're a mechanic your whole box doesn't have to be Snap-On but you're going to want what you're using daily, like ratchet handles, to be of high quality and reliable. It's a lesson that's hard learned at times but when that car didn't leave that day and the customer is pissed because your shit harbor freight tool broke, smart people make sure that doesn't happen again.
Agreed. That is why I have the cheap one at home. I use it maybe twice a year.. We bought the really good one at work because I use it a lot at work.
The ethernet testers are better than to trying to use a regular volt/ohmmeter. Once you crimp the plugs if something isn't right it tells you which wire(s) you screwed up. Though once crimped your only option is too cut it off and do all of the wires again.
I bought a multimeter from Radio Shack when they were going out of business. If it were a Fluke, it'd probably have cost me $300 but I got it for $35. I immediately set it to test voltage, and went to test our crappy wiring in our kitchen, which I suspected wasn't grounded properly. Within seconds, I had fried the meter, melted the probes and was probably lucky I hadn't started a fire or electrocuted myself. Glad we sold that house. And I'm probably better off without a meter.
:facepalm:
You definitely weren't doing something right.
:lmao:
Umm, yeah. I have a feeling you may not have read the manual on that one. For house wiring I have a non contact induction meter that will tell me if the line is hot. Then I power it down and check the wiring. 110 can easily kill you and electricity is not a hobby. I have friends in the public service sector and you don't fuck around with high tension shit. I've heard enough horror stories to make me careful as hell when playing with house voltage.
It isn't the voltage that kills you:
QuoteHow many volts does it take to kill a human?
Its not the volts that kill you, it's the amps. Dragging your feet across the carpet can generate as much as 25,000 volts. There are companies on the internet who routinely sell 50,000 volt Tesla coils to play with. However, it only takes a current between 100 and 200 mA (0.1 to 0.2 amp) to be lethal.
Quote from: Joe on August 02, 2017, 06:38:32 AMI have this one. Works fine. You won't need a second person.
Ethernet Tester (https://www.amazon.com/Generic-sfg-Network-Tester-Telephone/dp/B00G55ZGZ8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1501677367&sr=8-3&keywords=Ethernet+Tester)
Awesome thanks! One-click purchase on Amazon is a dangerous thing, usually.
Yeah I have one click ordering turned off at Amazon to save me from myself!
Quote from: Joe on August 02, 2017, 01:32:33 PM:facepalm:
You definitely weren't doing something right.
:lmao:
Our house wiring was
that bad. We're seriously lucky that we didn't have any electrical issues. We did end up re-wiring some stuff and the guy that did it commented about some "strange" things he saw with the wiring. The house was originally a 4 bedroom and had two living rooms, but walls were taken down and stuff moved around to make it a three bedroom with a master suite and one ginormous living room. I'm not joking - both the master and the guest bath had wiring in the same area of the wall shared with plumbing, and I know that's a big no-no.
Yeah but if you put the probes on two wires and it fried the meter and melted the probes you were still doing something wrong. :tongue:
You are lucky you survived. Seriously.
Quote from: Joe on August 02, 2017, 02:23:05 PMIt isn't the voltage that kills you:
QuoteHow many volts does it take to kill a human?
Its not the volts that kill you, it's the amps. Dragging your feet across the carpet can generate as much as 25,000 volts. There are companies on the internet who routinely sell 50,000 volt Tesla coils to play with. However, it only takes a current between 100 and 200 mA (0.1 to 0.2 amp) to be lethal.
Yes, it's the amps that does the killing but 110v has this interesting effect of locking all your muscles sticking you to whatever is electrocuting you. Higher voltage tends to blow you off whatever you stupidly touched and you stop getting electrocuted.
So yeah Digi, you're damn lucky. Protip, if you see someone getting electrocuted don't run up and try to pull them off. You'll just have 2 people getting electrocuted. Find something non-conductive like a 2x4 and use that to seprate them from death.