Title: Cat 5 to fiber
Post by: pentium on March 13, 2008, 12:35:50 PM
Post by: pentium on March 13, 2008, 12:35:50 PM
Recently in our house we (well more like I) started switching over from BNC and Cat 5 networking to Wi-Fi and SC or ST Ethernet over fiber.
Because of that I will now have to either route a new Cat 5 cable for the cube or I can get a media converter so that I can switch the fiber connection back to a Cat 5 connection.
That gave me an idea.
For a while they made these little compact media converters that you put in a spare slot in a computer and plugged into a regular 5/12V connection inside the computer.
By the looks of it, it's small enough to fit on one of the blanking slots on the back of the cube. Since I want my cube to look as tidy as possible I am planning on (don't kill me here) cutting the needed holes on one of the rear blanking plates and mounting one of these converters in the plate and with a pass through power cable I can draw the needed power off the hard drives power cable.
Then I can make a really small Cat 5 cable to go between the converter and the port on the motherboard (the cable will be black).
I'll post photos when it's all done and I will do my best to make it look nice.
Here is one on ebay. They are pretty tiny as well as cheap. (http://cgi.ebay.ca/IMC-McPC-TP-FO-55-12126-Transceiver-media-converter_W0QQitemZ5739379104QQihZ009QQcategoryZ11182QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem)
Because of that I will now have to either route a new Cat 5 cable for the cube or I can get a media converter so that I can switch the fiber connection back to a Cat 5 connection.
That gave me an idea.
For a while they made these little compact media converters that you put in a spare slot in a computer and plugged into a regular 5/12V connection inside the computer.
By the looks of it, it's small enough to fit on one of the blanking slots on the back of the cube. Since I want my cube to look as tidy as possible I am planning on (don't kill me here) cutting the needed holes on one of the rear blanking plates and mounting one of these converters in the plate and with a pass through power cable I can draw the needed power off the hard drives power cable.
Then I can make a really small Cat 5 cable to go between the converter and the port on the motherboard (the cable will be black).
I'll post photos when it's all done and I will do my best to make it look nice.
Here is one on ebay. They are pretty tiny as well as cheap. (http://cgi.ebay.ca/IMC-McPC-TP-FO-55-12126-Transceiver-media-converter_W0QQitemZ5739379104QQihZ009QQcategoryZ11182QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem)
Title: Cat 5 to fiber
Post by: helf on March 13, 2008, 01:01:40 PM
Post by: helf on March 13, 2008, 01:01:40 PM
that's actually a pretty cool idea. Hope it works out well. :)