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Isn't the expensive part more the assembly aspect? For Cat 6 the plugs and keystone jacks add up to a few dollars per port, and the crimper is like $20. I und
by hakfoo 2y ago
Isn't the expensive part more the assembly aspect? For Cat 6 the plugs and keystone jacks add up to a few dollars per port, and the crimper is like $20. I understand building your own fibre cables-- if you don't want to thread them through walls without the heads pre-attached, for example-- involves more sophisticated glass-fusion tools that are fairly expensive.
A rental service might help there, or a call-in service-- the 6 hours of drilling holes and pulling fibre can be done by yourself, and once it's all cut to rough length, bring out a guy who can fuse on 10 plugs in an hour for $150.
- Dylan16807 2y agoIf you particularly want to use a raw spool, then yes that's an annoying cost. If you buy premade cables for an extra $5 each then it's fine.
- hakfoo 2y agoA practical drawback to premade cables is the need for a larger hole to accommodate the pre-attached connector. There's also a larger gap that needs to be plugged around the cable to prevent leaks into he wall. My ordinary home-centre electric drill and an affordable ~7mm masonry bit lets me drill a hole in stucco large enough to accept bare cables with a very narrow gap to worry about.
- inferiorhuman 2y agoWhere are you finding them for that cheap? OP is talking about 20GBP for a run of fiber. If I look at, for instance, Ubiquiti their direct attach cables start at $13 for 0.5 meter cables.
- Dylan16807 2y agoI was looking at patch cables. Ubiquiti's start at $4.80
- inferiorhuman 2y agoRight you're still going to need a module at each end, that's what really drives up the cost compared twisted copper pair. That means either direct attach cables (starting at $13 for a half meter) or standalone modules (starting at $38 for a pair of 10G modules).
- Dylan16807 2y agoBut that also applies to a spool of fiber, and I was talking about the specific cost difference between fusing and premade. The price of modules was built into the first post mentioning fiber up here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41891559 The worry was that the actual fiber would be "stupid expensive", and nah it's fine.
- chgs 2y agoMy single mode keystones pass through were about the same price as cat5, and pre-made cables were no harder to run than un terminated cat5.
- maccard 2y agoThanks - I genuinely didn't know. I assumed that you could "just" crimp it like CAT6, but a quick google leads me to spending quite a few hundred pounds on something like this[0]. That said; > A rental service might help there, or a call-in service-- the 6 hours of drilling holes and pulling fibre can be done by yourself, and once it's all cut to rough length, bring out a guy who can fuse on 10 plugs in an hour for $150. If you were paying someone to do it (rather than DIY) I'd wager the cost would be similar, as you're paying them for 6 hours of labour either way. [0] https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/fibre-optic-tool-kits-accessories/41906-fibre-optic-tool-kit.html https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/fibre-optic-tool-kits-accessor...