SYNACK Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 One of my schools is having all sorts of issues with dodgey unwarrentied cabling vageuely strung in a new classroom block by a pack of butcher electritions. At any rate these keep failing randomly and we are looking for a decent cable tester that can scan the cables for faults like cross-talk, signal bounce, cable length and wire mapping. I know of Fluke gear that does this really well but even the second hand stuff is a bit outside the price range that I can allocate in this particular school. Does anyone know of any decent testers that have the above features but are not as costly as the Fluke range or any good / bad experiences with other brands of cable testers?
plexer Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 What about hiring a fluke tester for a week to test it all? Ben 1
SYNACK Posted October 18, 2011 Author Posted October 18, 2011 What about hiring a fluke tester for a week to test it all? Ben Possible if I can find a place here that does so but I have the sinking feeling that the problems will be ongoing so a week may not be long enough. These faults occour randomly when it's too hot or rains to heavily, I think that the temperature change expands or contracts the building and faulting the cable but cant be sure or precise without decent testing gear at the right times. I'd dearly love to rip the whole lot out and make the dodgey company that installed it and tacked together the excuses for buildings but its not my call.
m25man Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 @synack if you were not so far away I would lend you mine, but contact the NZ rep Im sure they will be happy to lend you one to evaluate it. Kalooma Technologies Limited PO Box 35771 Auckland Auckland 0753 Main: +64 9 360 8098 Fax: +61 2 9037 1354 [email protected] MPA (NZ) Ltd Level 1, 4 Waipuna Road, Mt. Wellington Auckland Main: 64 9 570 2233 Fax: 64 9 520 9419 [email protected] Link Runner Pro, Cable IQ or Etherscope, Fluke have equipment available through the dealers for evaluation just tell them you are interested in evaluating the usefulness of such a device in NZ Schools. 1
pete Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 We have a Lanscaper kit from Test-Um. About £350-400 iirc. 1
SYNACK Posted October 18, 2011 Author Posted October 18, 2011 Thanks, all good ideas and some brands that I had not heard of to investigate further.
bossman Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 @SYNACK: We have used this for years and it still remains one of the best tools in our armoury. Inexpensive as well 2
sted Posted October 18, 2011 Posted October 18, 2011 if you have any asus pcs knocking around a lot of them can do some testing of cables in bios not sure if its detailed enough but might be worth a quick look it definately gives you things like distance etc 1
SYNACK Posted October 18, 2011 Author Posted October 18, 2011 if you have any asus pcs knocking around a lot of them can do some testing of cables in bios not sure if its detailed enough but might be worth a quick look it definately gives you things like distance etc Good thought, some of the old intel proset applications offer this facility right in windows. Probably after a bit more detail though as I have had some of these cables pass simple pair testing but simply not get an ethernet link despite replacing the switch and changing the computer.
Cybercrime Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 One of my schools is having all sorts of issues with dodgey unwarrentied cabling vageuely strung in a new classroom block by a pack of butcher electritions. We used this: SC8108 Cable Tester Bought used at £40 Works well for use. They may well throw you in a free spell checker as well - Dodgy unwarranted vaguely electricians 1
Oaktech Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 (edited) we have a test-um validator, it may be outside your price range, but it is still cheaper than fluke gear - and easier to use. we also have a £10 maplin tester for continuity tests... you'd be suprised how often that comes out! just seen the post for the peak tester - i've not used the ethernet one but the electronic component analyser has been in my toolbox since uni and is amazing. also peak's service is second to none, i dropped, stood on and broke the casing on my analyser, emailed peak and 2 days later a new shell appeared in the post, free gratis and for nothing. Edited October 19, 2011 by Oaktech 1
pete Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 If your connected switch is half-decent, it can probably do length tests (+/-10%) and may flag up miswires depending on how much you spent. For example - on a HP Procurve switch-name# show fault-finder Fault Finder Fault ID Sensitivity Action ------------------- ----------- ---------------- bad-driver medium warn bad-transceiver medium warn bad-cable medium warn too-long-cable medium warn over-bandwidth medium warn broadcast-storm medium warn loss-of-link medium warn duplex-mismatch-HDx medium warn duplex-mismatch-FDx medium warn Problems would be accessible by looking in the logs (show logging) 1
SYNACK Posted October 19, 2011 Author Posted October 19, 2011 If your connected switch is half-decent, it can probably do length tests (+/-10%) and may flag up miswires depending on how much you spent. For example - on a HP Procurve switch-name# show fault-finder Fault Finder Fault ID Sensitivity Action ------------------- ----------- ---------------- bad-driver medium warn bad-transceiver medium warn bad-cable medium warn too-long-cable medium warn over-bandwidth medium warn broadcast-storm medium warn loss-of-link medium warn duplex-mismatch-HDx medium warn duplex-mismatch-FDx medium warn Problems would be accessible by looking in the logs (show logging) Good thought, it is attached to a procurve so the logs might flag up at least when the fault is occouring. Not sure how powerful the testing bit is as it drops with no connection possible at all randomly but totally worth a shot and something I had not considered.
pete Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 You can turn up the sensitivity on "bad-cable" and "too-long-cable" for a couple of days and see what happens. On medium sensitivity (iirc) it has to be pretty broken to show up, on high if you're not using audiofool-grade "plaited-by-virgins and glued using unicorn tears" cable, faults should pop up. 1
soveryapt Posted October 19, 2011 Posted October 19, 2011 @SYNACK: We have used this for years and it still remains one of the best tools in our armoury. Inexpensive as well Useful to know about! I've been looking for something similar as I just have a bog standard cable tester with a toner and trace built in, but always good to be able to check all wiring and what not.
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