Home Assistant is a free Open Source device integration platform enabling a wide range of sensors and automations to make life that bit more smart and enabling data to be displayed in a way that suits you.
I’m a late starter with Home Assistant and after watching loads of YouTube videos’ I bought the bits in February 24.
I must make it clear to start with, I’m a novice and not a programmer all my information comes from forums and YouTube.
The image above is the brains of Home Assistant and as you can see it is very compact, the enclosure houses a Raspberry Pi4B and fan, beneath the unit is an external SSD Hard Drive.
Home Assistant is powered by a PoE adapter, to the right of the picture you can see a Conbee II Zigbee Gateway used to receive data from wireless devices.
How do I use it?
Home Assistant is so incredibly adaptable, only your imagination is the constraint, my needs are a lot simpler and I wouldn’t know how to do half of the stuff its capable of 🙂
My main use is data collection to allow me to monitor performance after that I have a few alerts set up and linked automations.
The above is a portion of my main dashboard which is accessible anywhere on my home network, it is also available to me via the internet by subscribing to an inexpensive service.
From this one dashboard I can monitor a large number of variables to builds trends and performance management also there are of automations, the obvious one is for Octopus Free Energy, once a period of free energy is known and its duration, I enable the automation and a number of power hungry devices automatically turn on for the duration to make best use of the power, items turned on are the Immersion Heater, tumble dryer and underfloor heating, but it could be anything with a Home Assistant linked device.
A less obvious automation is based on Mains Water Pressure as where I live the water pressure can drop very low, so being alerted to this is very useful.
The automation is set so that if the water pressure drops to less than 1 bar for 1 minute, my mobile phone is sent a notification, I also get similar phone notifications if my leak detectors trigger, (Kitchen, Boiler and Irrigation System enclosure).
This is just a small introduction as to what Home Assistant can do, go enjoy!
Disaster!
18 October 2024 – A local underground joint failed causing a 4 hour power outage, on restoration of supply a number of Shelly devices blew there surge protection and rendered them no longer serviceable, (I did try and change the Varistor and fuse link but still U/S).
Process now ongoing to replace them and fit RC Snubbers to inductive loads in case this was a cause for at least one of the Shelly’s to fail, the one below was connected to the 1kW pump for my irrigation system, (all connections were tight).
November 2024 – All damaged Shelly devices now replaced, while I was ordering a Shelly EM I bought an additional 50A CT to supplement the CT I already had, however, the new CT channel read really low.
I raised a service ticket with Shelly Support and they were superb, guiding me through the diagnostic process culminating in a free part including postage being sent out to me.
The above rig has both CT’s measuring the same load resistive load of the kettle, the faulty CT was measuring 6.7w whist the other was reading 2.17kW, you guess which was faulty 🙂
Pyronix Alarm link to HA via Shelly i4DC
So as not to mislead anyone, this is a simple hardwired interface enabling selected Pyronix Euro46 output states to be displayed on Home Assistant.
On my home alarm system I have a Euro-OEM8r8c output node which has 8 relay and 8 transistorized outputs, I wanted Home Assistant to display when certain areas of the alarm were set and also the status of my water softeners salt level.
The positive and negative transistorised output on the node both had a voltage on them, therefore I used an Optocoupler to isolate this from the Shelly i4DC.
The Shelly i4DC was the perfect addition to allow this interface, I programmed the output nodes with the appropriate ‘Follow me’ trigger and this enabled the switching of the Shelly inputs via the optocoupler.
I have blogged extensively on Netomnia coming to my home town HERE, and I didn’t take up the service earlier for various reasons, however, my TalkTalk email account was hacked and I needed to rapidly distance myself from it, so better late than never, here we go!
First job for me was to cancel my contract with TalkTalk, I was contracted until August 2024 after taking their fibre upgrade, so this cost £90.54 penalty for early cancellation.
Due to my hacked TalkTalk email being used for fraudulent activities, this is a cost I was prepared to pay in order to totally disassociate myself from TalkTalk.
Next step was to ask and existing You subscriber if I could use their You referral code, the package I wanted was You 1000 which gives an average upload and download speed of 900mbps, using the referral code at the point of ordering will give each of us £50 after the first bill has been paid, which makes my early TalkTalk cancellation fee slightly more bearable.
The You ordering online was easy with an installation date within 3 weeks of ordering (15 November 2023), I did add to the order a static IP, this took my monthly total to £32.99 for a 24 month contract period which is only marginally more than TalkTalk for a 6x faster service.
Pre Installation
My existing Openreach fibre carrying the TalkTalk service terminates in an upstairs cupboard and this is where I wanted the You fibre to terminate as well.
The route from where the Openreach duct stops at the house to the upstairs cupboard is rather protracted and I have used PVC conduit for most of the run, this was no problem for the Openreach engineers and they helped me to thread the fibre, I wasn’t sure if the You engineers would be as equally amenable on installation day.
As luck would have it, I spotted an installation in progress further down the road, so stopped and asked them if I could install my own fibre in advance of the installation date, the guy was great, he walked to my house and had a look at the fibre route and gave me a 20m roll of In/Out fibre for me to install.
With domestic assistance, the fibre was quickly installed, in the cupboard picture you can see the terminated end ready for connection into the router when its installed, the other end is coiled up by the duct for splicing.
Installation Day
The appointment was scheduled between 8am and 1pm and I had plenty of email reminders in advance, the installation engineer arrived at 9.45, Mikolaj was the same engineer who gave me the cable to install, so he was very familiar with my layout.
He checked each end of the fibre I had installed, and whilst in the house, he installed the Optical Network Terminal, (ONT), which in my case was an Adtran SDX 631q 2.5GBE XGS and the eero6 wifi router.
Installation mirrored my Future Fibre install by Openreach engineers, a flexible rod (Cobra), was pushed down the duct at the house emerging in a footway box some 50m away.
A fibre ‘Drop Wire‘ was taped onto the Cobra and then pulled back to the house, once the drop wire had been fully pulled through, an optical signal test was carried out on the Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT) in the footway box and the pre-connectorised end of the drop wire connected to one of the tested ports on the CBT.
Back at the house, a ‘Drop Box‘ was drilled and screwed to the wall, this is also referred to as the ‘Customers Splice Point’ or CSP, the purpose of the CSP is where the fibre splice between the external ‘drop wire’ and the internal ‘outside/in‘ cable is located.
Mikolaj carefully preparing the fibre for splicing.
Fibre being prepared for cleaving
Fibre cleaved to give a perfect face for fusion
Fusion slicer lining up both fibres
Fibers automatically aligned for fusing together
YouTube video of correct splicing process for CSP – LINK
At this point Bobby the apprentice arrived and Mikolaj asked him to go to the ONT to check the quality of the optical signal which was a pass, (this test confirmed the splice was good).
Mikolaj then plugged in and powered up the ONT and eero6, also he connected a Cat 6 RJ45 into the eero6 and ONT, after making a phone call, the service was enabled.
The eero6 serial number is used as a validation for service on initialization, once this had been done the eero6 was set up as a new network on my phones App.
You must have a smartphone to enable and manage the eero6, I’m sure virtually everybody has one, but one is needed if you haven’t.
The OLT indicator lights were explained to me and the system was left working after a speedtest giving me:
The guys were here for 21/2 hours and when they had gone, I used some BT Capping 25 and a Connector Bend #4 I had bought from Telenco to cover and neaten up the external cables.
Overall Impression
The guys were respectful of my property, removing shoes inside and being very courteous.
Installation and billing communications were on point as is the speed.
The thing I need to get used to is that you don’t have an individual user portal online so you can’t check your account, thats said, I would defiantly recommend Youfibre.
29 September 2022 – Trooli scheduled works keeps coming up on One-Network but their is no sign of any activity yet.
4 October 2023 – Trooli scheduled works in Station Street, maybe its getting closer 🙂
8 January 2024 – Infrastructure work started!
Trooli
Well 2022 is a very busy year for broadband in Chatteris, Openreach now deliver Ultrafast broadband with fibre to the premises (FTTP), Virgin Media are expanding their 2017 network in the town to include homes and business not previously included, Netomnia started work in May to lay down its own independent FTTP infrastructure and now Trooli are making a presence all with their own independent network.
What is interesting is that Trooli have an agreement with UK Power Networks to run their fibre optic cables across certain power poles, enabling them to reach many more customers. The write up on this can be found HERE.
I just wonder where all these customers are coming from to give payback on the huge investment these companies are outlaying?
Screen grab from www.one-network 10 Aug 2022
Work Commenced – 8th Jan 24
Checking on Onenetwork, Trooli works were highlighted, (telephone symbol), from the 8th to 15th Jan at:
Wenny Road
Old Huntingdon Road
Huntingdon Road
Iretons Way
I knew that Trooli had been working in Sutton, so checked the Wenny Road location first as the fibre to Chatteris comes from there on route to Warboys, and saw the fibre engineers van, I obviously must have missed the earlier fibre pull from Sutton and the one on route to Warboys.
Chatting to the guy who was very cordial, he told me that a 48 core fibre runs from Sutton, and from this they splice off into either pole or footway box Connectorised Block Terminal which Trooli refer to as an ‘FPs’.
The lockable FP used has an inbuilt optical splitter, splitting a single fibre into 16 customer ports.
FP in the process of being spliced into the main trunk fibre before being placed into the footway box for customer connection at a later date.
In chatting, it appears, (at this stage of my understanding), that the Trooli topography is different to Netomnia or Openreach where they have either aggregation nodes or differing levels of fibre dissemination with plenty of spare fibres taken to the exchange.
Trooli seem to simply reduce the trunk fibre by one each time they connect a 16 port FP, I must be missing something otherwise that will give a maximum customer number of 46 x 16 = 736, leaving 2 fibres to pick up Warboys.
8 June 2022 – Netomnia press release regarding full fibre broadband to Doddington – details HERE, (doesn’t mention Chatteris, but in the current infrastructure works permission from Cambridgeshire County Council, Netomnia have used the Project Reference as – J032025-172553-Doddington).
Letter from Netomnia
Dated 13th June 2022, addressed simply to ‘The Occupier’, warming people up to minor disruption due to civil works, with the end advantage of FTTP Ultrafast broadband.
I was informed on the 28th June 2022, that the Youfibre website was allowing certain Chatteris postcode areas to pre-order the service, this early tranche looks that the selected properties have connectivity to the buried Openreach duct system, those properties with overhead or directly buried cabling are not included as yet.
I used Postcode Checker to determine service eligibility at the moment.
If you want to ‘dip your toe’ in the Youfibre pool, you can sign up for a ‘no contract’ service, instead opting for a 30 day rolling renewal option.
1 July 2022 – For Info: Direct Debit set up with my bank using the name of “GC re Youfibre Limited”, the GC stands for GoCardless the company they use for Direct Debit collections.
30 June 2022, I’ve pre-ordered 150Mb service and received my confirmation, the key points are:
Pre-order early and get 6 months free
150Mb package costs £25 inc VAT for 18 month contract
As its a pre-order, no monies are taken until service is delivered
As this is a pre-order, I can cancel my intention for installation without penalty
I can take up this offer, at this set price for up to 24 months into the future, this will allow time for my existing service contract to expire and it will also allow me to let people know of my gmail email address, rather than the one tied into Talktalk.
19 June 2022 – Youfibre ‘door to door’ canvasser called, informing me that Youfibre is coming to the area and was looking to see if I was interested so that I could receive a’ follow up call’ and newsletter, I did say I was already signed up, but I think she needed my details for her ‘quota’.
20 February 2023 – I decided to renew with TalkTalk for a few reasons:
Uncertain that Youfibre will be live when my current TalkTalk contract expires, meaning the loss of any bargaining power,
TalkTalk offered 150Mb service for £23 per month on an 18 month contract, which is cheaper than I was paying for 65Mb,
I reflected on how I felt ‘locked in’ to the TalkTalk email service, for example the number of accounts where my password resets link to this,
My home network would need a static IP from Youfibre at an additional cost of £5 per month making the overall cost unattractive,
Youfibre in the town helped me negotiate a competitive price from TalkTalk.
23 February 2023 – Netomnia network is now live to certain parts of Chatteris as the roll out continues.
FTTP Rollout
Yet more choice for broadband provision in Chatteris, with the rollout of XGS-PON. 100% fibre to the premises, (FTTP) supplied by wholesaler Netomnia, whose mission is to become the third largest national, full fibre infrastructure operator.
The main difference with Netomnia is that it is a totally independent network, synchronous or symmetrical speeds, (same uploading speed as the downloading speed), resilient fibre optic design and with speeds up to 10Gbps(10,000Mbps)!!.
Netomnia sister company, YouFibre, are the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for this Ultra Fast Broadband FTTP, although it is expected that other ISPs may take advantage of the services that this wholesaler offers and partner with Netomnia.
Unforeseen Delay to Delivery
The expected go live date was September/October 2022 and availability and rollout details can be checked HERE, this has been delayed due to unforeseen duct blockages or lack of duct capacity necessitating significant civil works.
PartialGo live for Chatteris is February 2023 as I understand it.
The Openreach duct route from Doddington has been extensively damaged over time due to it being made of clay, this has led to investment in repairs and new ducting to be installed.
The above images are just one example of what Netomnia are up against, the installer of the street lights in a section of Doddington Road have damaged and blocked the clay Openreach ducts, meaning that the main spine fibre cannot continue to Chatteris until repaired (Taken 1/12/22).
Infrastructure Enabling Works
Flurry of broadband activity in the town, as Virgin Media are expanding their existing infrastructure at the same time as Netomnia are installing theirs.
Netomnia infrastructure works started in early May, with the installation of Netomnia double size footway boxes to house either the Level 1 (L1), Level 2 (L2) or both splice enclosures for there dedicated fibre network around the town.
These will be interconnected by sub ducts which will ultimately connect to the main spine bringing the fibre service into Chatteris via Doddington.
Details from – https://one.network. The telephone handset symbol shows areas of of work by both Virgin Media (Orange circle) and Netomnia (Green circle) contractors for 26th to 30th May 2022
The fibre sub ducts are being drawn into Openreach’s existing ducts as a result of OFGEMS Physical Infrastructure Access agreement which permits Communication Providers access, this means there is not a lot to see as the splicing nodes will be in the cable chambers in the pavements as I understand it.
By using Openreach ducts, just like Virgin Media are doing, the micro duct which brings the blown fibre to your house, uses the existing duct which is used for your landline telephone. If the service is via an overhead line, a fibre cable can also be used, Netomnia have, in other towns, installed telephone poles where otherwise customers would not have been able to get a service.
The ducts Virgin Media use are Green in colour, whereas Netomnias ducts are Purple and Openreach are Grey, all for ease of identification.
Netomnia are using Opals Group to undertake the work of installing the physical infrastructure to allow the fibre cables to be blown in at a later date.
24th May 22 – Fiber optic sub duct being drawn into Openreach footway joint box.
24th May 22 – Second sub duct being pulled in to chamber
25th May 22 – Sub duct through connection point using push fit coupling.
25thMay 22 – New Netomnia Footway Box installed in the verge, very neat job with the area re-seeded, this box is ducted to the Openreach footway box to allow interconnection. The two grey boxes belong to Virgin Media with the nearest one also being ducted to the Openreach footway box by the Green Openreach cabinet (PCP – Primary Cross Connection Point).
26th May 22 – Linking of an Openreach footway box with a new Netomnia footway L2/3 node point.
23 January 2023 – Purple Netomnia main spine micro-ducts looping through footway box.
27th May 22
Another new footway box going in, connected to an existing Openreach box, this activity is being replicated in many places across Chatteris and demonstrates considerable investment in infrastructure.
Netomnia network backbone fibre microtube link to carry a single fibre optic cable with 288 cores, being pulled in from Chatteris to the Doddington local head end ,or Level 0 which is in the Telephone Exchange.
Doddington Telephone Exchange
The microtube journey is in Openreach existing duct routes along Doddington Road, when Virgin Media followed the same route in 2017, they had to dig a new trench all the way, this is the massive benefit of the Physical Infrastructure Agreement.
Guide on installation of fibre cables by blowing – HERE.
6 July 2022
Opal engineers installing a Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT) in Farriers Gate footway box, the CTB which is stood up. belongs to Openreach, (I’m connected to it!), whilst the one lying on its side, belongs to Netomnia.
6th July 22
What is interesting to note is that both companies are using the same manufactures CBT, this must mean that the consumers installation process will be the same as that used by Openreach and described in my Talk Talk Future Fibre Blog.
6th July 22
8 August 2022
Civils contractors have started to excavate pavements to install new ducts (or tracks as Opal refer to them), where the existing Openreach ducts are either blocked or congested.
Blockages/congested routes are indicated by a red ‘B’ and direction arrows have popped up across the town ready for remedial works:
New Road, Netomnia ductwork infrastructure being installed where the existing Openreach route was congested.
13 September 2022
Installation underway of Netomnia Connectorised Block Terminals (CBT) on the existing telephone poles where the duct to the local footway box is available, this will enable subscribers with overhead lines access to ultrafast fibre optic broadband.
This images show two different versions of Netomnia installed standard 8 port CBT’s, details on fibre equipment can be found HERE, it is interesting to note that Openreach install up to 12 port units.
Pole evolution
Pole mounted splice enclosure, the two fibre cables on the right are from CBT’s, one on this pole, the other on another pole linked by an overhead connection.
One down, loads left to do
May 2022
Jan 2023
Jan 2023
All around town a number of footway markings are appearing at the base of telephone poles, indicating that a new duct link (pole bend), to the nearest footway box is due to be made if no existing duct exists, or if the existing one is blocked or damaged.
The last three picture in the slide show above show the existing copper telephone cables feeding the pole are above the surface of the pavement, causing Netomnia to install a new pole bend bend:
Advance notice of civil works in New Road to the pole pictured in the slide show above.
Netomnia advance notice indicating new poles are to be installed:
I contacted Netomnia on 16 September to gain further information, confirmation of 5 new poles to be installed was provided by Opals Senior Project Coordinator on the 28 September, the proposed ROUGH locations are:
Corner of West Street and Gibside Avenue
Newlands Road
St Martins Road – Installation delayed – new pole application 13 Feb 23
Victoria Street
Pound Road – Installation not required, used long overhead span
Update 27 October 22 – Netomnia Pole Installed, Gibside Avenue
Installed 27 October 2022
31 October 2022 – Newlands Road –
Ian and Steven were the technicians installing the 9 meter high pole working for Instalcom Ltd, they did a great job, were really friendly and customer focused. Brilliant ambassadors for Instalcom Ltd.
1 December 2022
With the imminent fibre spine link to Doddington being established after several delays due to duct damage/blockages meaning extensive civil works to rectify, their are at least two teams installing CBTs on existing telephone poles and a fibre technician has started splicing works from the CBT (Level 4) to the Level 3 node.
The image above is a fibre splicing enclosure (Level 3 Point), this example has 5 fibre cables, these are broken down as follows:
Two fibre cables are from two 8 port pole mounted CBTs (Level 4 ), depending on the CBT manufacture, of which Netonmia use two, either there will be one fibre spliced supplying all 8 ports due to an inbuilt optical splitter in the CBT or 8 fibres from each CBT port will need to be individually spliced to the fibre cable from the upstream Level 2 splicing connection.
Once completed, the enclosure will be stowed in a footway box making for a neat installation.
For clarity as I understand it, Level 0 is the origin of the fibre service which is Doddington Telephone Exchange, the main trunk cable from Doddington comprising of 288 fibres is terminated in a number of Level 1 hubs in Chatteris, 7 in total, 4 on the journey from Doddington and 3 in Chatteris.
Level 2 branches further sub divide into multiple Level 3 connections as above, before final connection to individual 8 port CBTs, Level 4.
8 Port Netomnia Connectorised Block Terminal ready for pole mounting.
From the CBT, this is the last leg of the fibre cable before it enters your property.
Each trunk single fibre can accommodate 32 properties, therefore the maximum number of properties served by one trunk cable is 9,216!
23 January 2023
The Netomnia network in Doddington is now LIVE and there is a real push to get Chatteris online after significant investment in installing new ducts due to the existing ducts being blocked/congested/damaged.
Technician fibre splicing the 288 core trunk fibre cable from Doddington exchange mid-way to Chatteris, the design of the system will allow for future expansion, to illustrate this, the whole of the current Doddington and Chatteris scheme only use 60 fibres in the exchange!
26 January 2023
Start of the Level 1 Chatteris core distribution fibre splicing to other L1 nodes, not all fibres are spliced through, only the ones required for this phase of the scheme as this saves both time and money:
L1 node being through spliced for distribution linking other L1 nodes to the network.
29 January 2023
Level 2 (L2) Distribution node being spliced in the rear of a specially adapted vehicle, in the picture you can see a 44 core fiber which is black with a yellow tracer, this is from a L3 node, the other two black fiber cables are 288 cores linking further L2’s.
The L2 node will be located in a new Netomnia installed double footway box which was installed in May 2022.
1 February 2023
Caught up with the second splicing team who were working on the Level 3 (L3) terminations:
The picture shows two black with yellow tracer cables, each of which has 48 fibres, these are the interlinks to other L3 node fed from the L2 distribution node.
The tiny coloured tubes in the picture contain 12 fibres and each 48 core has 4 of these tubes.
The four clear tubes in the enclosure are from the pole mounted CBTs (L4), looking closely, one of these is a smaller diameter than the other three, this is due to the smaller tube only has one fiber in it as the 8 way pole CBT has an inbuilt splitter, whereas the other three have 8 fibers in the tube, one to each CBT port.
I did ask the reason for two differing types of CBT and the chap said is was due to how the network was designed.
Footway hardware ready to mount the completed L3 node so it can be neatly stowed.
9 February 2023
Plenty of continued activity by Opals Group, Netomnias infrastructure contractor, in New Road a footway box CBT was being relocated to another footway box due to the original box being over congested and not meeting the space requirements required by Openreach.
Further down the same road, a splicing technician was busy with a complicated L3 node.
10 February 2023
Notification of new pole installation in St Martins Road posted on the 10 February 2023, the first notification of a new pole in this location was on the 13 September 2022, but installation could not proceed as the proposed location did not give the required amount of room to pass on the pavement.
New pole position is on the opposite side of the road to the originally proposed location, position marked on the ground, (circle with a cross in it), next to the Virgin Media cabinet.
Around town, I also noticed a new sign dated 8 Feb 23, has been posted indicating the installation a new pole in Station Street.
14 February 2023
Lots observed today, L3 splicing by Aldi, fibre being blown in New Road, Level 2 (L2) splice being made off at the top of New Road and preparations being made by St Peters Drive/New Road for another L2 splice..
Big push to get Chatteris online me thinks!
Picture taken in May 2022 just after the Netomnia Footway Box had been installed.
Taken 9 months from the installation of the above footway box in New Road to L2 splicing.
Further down New Road, scoping for a L2 spice to be undertaken over the next day or so.
Junction of St Peters Drive/New Road.
The above picture shows the In & Out main 288 fibre core cable from/to other L2 splice enclosures (blown in purple duct), also you can see two 48 fibre core cables from L3 distribution splice enclosures all ready to be dressed ready for termination.
17 February 2023
Level 2 splice feeding Farriers Gate being undertaken, the fibres are live from Doddington, so as each fibre is spliced the light continues onto the next L2 /L3 & CBT.
Network deployment is progressing well in Chatteris, a few duct blockages to clear before the L3 fibres can be drawn in and connected.
In another part of the towns deployment is delayed due to scaffolding being built directly on top of a footway box, the Netomnia infrastructure team need to get a spine sub duct pulled through this in order to connect a Level 2 node.
Netomnia progress halted due to scaffolding in London Road.
The testing team for my area is due on Monday 20th February, where they will confirm satisfactory light levels at the CBT’s ready for customers connections.
19 February 2023
Sunday and three splicing teams are on the go in town, by Spectacular a Level 2 node was being spliced, the picture also shows a completed Level 1 node which feeds the Level 2 being worked on.
In the footway box is two empty purple sub ducts ready for the spine fibre to be blown in once the obstructing is cleared as written about on the 17th February.
23 February 2023 – NETWORK LIVE
The Netomnia network in Chatteris is now officially live after testing.
Netomnia technician removing a dust cap protecting a port on a CBT prior to connecting his test equipment.
Plugging his Exfo Optical Power Meter into the port he noted the reading of -20.35dB which was a pass, anything greater than -22.75dB is a fail.
His test confirms the correct optical signal level at the CBT from the Doddington exchange enabling sign off with the next step being canvassing for subscriber uptake.
1 March 2023
Opals engineers working to unblock a duct route to Fenton Way business area, the equipment costs £10k and is designed to push a heavy duty rod through obstructions, but not in this case 🙁 meaning a civils team will need to excavate and manually repair the ducting.
Just before coming across the guys rodding, I saw a Youfibre ‘door to door’ sales representative hard at work selling the benefits.
16 March 2023
Still lots of civil works bring Netomnia’s fibers to parts of the town once the duct restrictions have been resolved, as parts of Chatteris are now live, a mail drop has occurred enclosing the following leaflet:
This is probably the most important section of the blog as customer satisfaction in such a crowded marketplace is crucial, as bad news travels fast.
I’ve attached, (with the authors permission and my thanks), unabridged Facebook comments on their experience and performance using YouFibre:
Mr Green
Mr Naisbett
Mr Thompson
My order was delayed by quite a bit, (original install date in September last year) but it finally got put in a couple weeks ago. There was the big hold up at the other end getting it connected but once things were rolling and I got the all green, they came and did the outside line (annoyingly without prebooking, but whatever) that took like 10 minutes. Much less faff than Virgin Media. And then their install lads came and sorted me out a few days later of an evening.
Polite and friendly on all occasions, they made it clear they don’t actually work for YouFibre though, and that at times they don’t get all the information they should have, so please do be patient with them if they don’t have 100% correct info, that sounds like it’s on YouFibre’s call centre.
I wasn’t aware of them using a strange NAT setup so thanks whoever it was pointed that out, I was hoping to avoid getting a static IP but if I need that to break through a forced NAT then sobeit.
Speed has been excellent so far, I got their YouMesh thing with the 1Gb Service, which is a bit paradoxical given you can only get 250Mb from the ‘Nodes’ even if you use a cable, which is a bit silly, so I’ve unplugged those and just use the Eero main hub for now. I’ll be plumbing it into my own Mesh later once I’ve got the time, but for now, happily getting 750Mb + both ways via WiFi on a WiFi 6 connected device that’s not exactly right next to it, so pretty pleased with that.
Haven’t tested the latency extensively, given I’m on WiFi currently that seemed pointless to do yet, may report back with findings at a later point.
Definitely recommend them, they’re less than half the price of Virgin Media and that’s excellent for a symmetrical line in the UK. I just hope they prove to be as popular as they should be and spread to other areas, the UK needs more competition in the broadband Market, BT only do the bare minimum and VM are just pricing things stupidly.
18 April 2023 – Another New Pole
Two new poles were installed today on behalf of Netomnia, (Park Street and St Martins Road), these will be used as transit poles to reduce the overhead fibre span distance to the next pole/other poles having CBTs fitted.
Guys setting up for the installation, the difference between these poles and the one installed in Newlands Road is that it came complete with pole hardware already fitted, (steps & top ring), and it also bears the name of the provider.
11 October 2023 – New Poles
Two new transit poles have been installed today carrying overhead fibre optic cables to enable service connections to be available on existing poles:
Corner of Railway Lane and Horsegate Gardens.
New pole outside The Ship, a further pole is due for installation in the town but I do not have the location at the time of this update.
Their are only two options, the fibre either goes above or below ground!
Netomnia are able to use existing Openreach underground ducts which brings your telephone line to your house, these same ducts are used to draw in a new fibre optic cable which terminates directly inside your home.
It might be the case that your existing telephone cable does not use a duct and the cable is ‘directly buried’ in the ground, I’m not sure how Netomnia would tackle this if you wanted the service, they may opt to install a new telephone pole, and use overhead lines to your house from this.
Above ground junction box is a typical indication that the phone lines to properties are directly buried.
Virgin Media use ‘directly buried’ micro ducts from the pavement ‘Toby boxes’ to your house external wall to bring their fibre to the house, but they are the only provider to do so as I understand it.
If your telephone line comes in overhead, then a fibre optical cable will use the same method, as long as the pole has been enabled with the network hardware.
This telephone pole is nearest to where I live so it was quite easy to monitor its progress:
25th May 22, Sub Duct installed to upstream footway box
26th May – 29th May, New double footway box installed near pole DP262
11th June, floor markings appear indicating the pole needs a new duct installing
22nd August, Opals civils install new duct to pole DP262
11th October, pole CBT installed
17th February 23, L2 splicing to make pole live for testing on the 20th February.
24 August 22, work to install new duct to pole
Opals engineer installing the CBT, no ladders are used on the pole, all work was carried out from the vehicles bucket.
23 January 2023, fibre cable being blown to L2 node in New Road.
For a sense of scale, the Chatteris scheme including DP262 is fed from Doddington Exchange.
23 January 2023 – Netomnia trunk fibre being spliced through in Doddington Road, you might just be able to make the technician out in the copse.
Pole Mounted CBT Connection to L3
The fibre cable to the pole CBT in the above image was neatly clipped down the pole and ran in a new duct to a footway box for splicing and this method is adopted where duct access is available.
Another method Netomnia employ to get a CBT fibre cable to a pole or number of poles is overhead, this could be due to duct blockages, duct capacity issues or financial considerations based on time.
The above picture is of an existing Openreach Pole in Fairway with three telephone lines fanning out to the right, the horizontal cables at the top of the pole are fibre cables to other pole mounted CBTs, from this pole you can see that six CBTs will be spliced here.
Another example from New Road where the fibre for five other pole CBTs are fed overhead and will be terminated in a footway box near the base of the main pole in the picture.
14 December 2022, external temperature -5oC and fibre splicing continues.
Technician splicing 6 fibres, (5 plus 1 from the poles CBT), New Road.
Fibre/Broadband equipment in the home
Based on information from forums on Youfibre installation, the feedback is very positive in other towns.
Very little information regarding Youfibre installations exists currently on the internet, probably due to the company only relatively recently formed.
The fibre can get to the property either via the existing telephone duct or via overhead from the same pole as your phoneline,.
The externally graded fibre is spliced in an enclosure to a fibre cable suitable for installation into the property.
Youfibre standoff bracket designed to bring an overhead fibre from the nearest pole whilst coping with the gutter overhang.
Images of different Customer Service Points used by Netomnia.
Simon kindly sent the image of his YouFibre CSP which was cabled from a footway box CBT.
I saw this article on hiding the reCaptcha v3 badge which automatically displays on the bottom right hand corner of the screen if reCaptcha is enabled in your Contact Forms.
I needed to hide the v3 badge was as it clashed with the location of a ‘Scroll to Top’ button, the implementation of the code to hide the badge was very simple:
Locate Appearance on Dashboard
Select – Customise
Click on – Additional CSS
Add the text in the box and save, then check you can send mail.
Google does allow the badge to be hidden, but their are conditions which the linked article above refers which need to be implemented.
In my case I added the statement – ‘This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply’, to my left hand sidebar, directly under the Contact Form using the Wiget menu.
This blog is to document the process, equipment, installation and performance of TalkTalk’s Future Fibre 65 Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) and not to be confused with Fibre 65 which is a Fibre to the Cabinet and then a copper cable to your home.
FAQ
What size is the Customer Service/Splice Point (CSP)
H:166mm W: 144mm D: 33mm
What size is the Optical Network Terminal (ONT)
H:90mm W:82mm
How near does the power socket need to be to the ONT
1m
Typical distance from external CSP to ONT
10m
What diameter is the Customer Lead Outside/In Cable
The cable is 5mm diameter, best to drill a 10mm hole to avoid any damage
Customer Lead Outside/In Cable kit diameter hole needed
12mm
What is the minimum bending radius of the Lead Outside/In Cable
the radius of a £2 coin is the minimum bend
What is the physical size of the Sagemcon FAST 5364-3. TB/AV3/C1
260mm Width, 170mm Height & 60mm Thickness compared to the Huawei HG633 – 200mm Width, 130mm Height & 30mm Thickness.
Timeline of installation:
4th December 2021, TalkTalk cold called and said I was eligible for an upgrade to FTTP, after sleeping on it, I called them back the next day.
5th December 2021, Ordered TalkTalk Future Fibre 65 FTTP after confirming the details and a provisional installation date of 4th January 2022 was given. A pre-installation survey will need to be undertaken and I will be contacted regarding this.
14th December 2021, Rang TalkTalk Future Fibre team on 0345 172 5221 to check that a new router will be sent out as my existing router does not have a WAN port, they confirmed a new one would arrive a week before the installation date.
21st December 2021, Text from Openreach confirming installation appointment on the 4th January 2022 between 8am – 1pm. As a side note, I have since ordering FTTP from TalkTalk on the 5th, received 3 separate calls from TalkTalk sales asking me about upgrading to FTTP!!
23rd December 2021, email from Yodel letting me know the TalkTalk router will be delivered on the 30th December.
28th December 2021, Text from Openreach confirming installation appointment, the text also includes a link to an Openreach Fibre Checklist.
29th December 2021, Yodel delivery of TalkTalk Wi-Fi Hub (Sagemcom Fast 5364)
30th December 2021, Swopped my existing TalkTalk HG633 router with the new Sagemcon router and added device Port Forwarding rules for my CCTV and games console.
4th January 2022, Openreach knock on the door at 8:30, and all done by 11:30, very pleased 🙂
5th January 2022, Checked my TalkTalk account which has not yet been updated, however, Openreaches online availability checker has been.
8th February 2022, TalkTalk account not updated to show I’m on Future Fibre 65, but it does show I have a bill for £0.45p to pay, ironically TalkTalk upgrade team called again (third time!) regarding FTTP , also I received an email for customer experience on Future Fibre, so at least someone knows I have it :-).
26th February 2022, Not a clue how they have worked the bill out, my account still shows my original package but they have made adjustments so that I pay the agreed amount, not ideal but as long as it works I’m happy.
1st August 2022, Replacement Sagemcom Router (FAST 5464 -2.T4) sent out as my original router could not be seen on my account dashboard or at TalkTalk Tech support:
Unfortunately, as of a few hours in, it is still the same 🙁
This router is an improvement on the one it replaces as I have a future connection on the rear for VOIP:
2nd August 2022, Spoke to TalkTalk tech support and they can see the router and logs, so I’m ignoring the error message on my system status dashboard.
20th February 2023, My existing contract was coming to an end in March, contacting TalkTalk I upgraded to 150Mbps for £23pm/18m contract.
22nd February 2023, eero 6 mesh router arrived via Yodel.
23rd February 2023, Service speed increased from 75Mbps to 150Mbs:
Background
I have previously blogged on the installation of Virgin Media to my home and this can be found HERE, unfortunately Virgin Media did not match up to their performance promise and I therefore cancelled within the cooling off period, and I stayed with the TalkTalk FTTC service, which is a copper pair from the house the a roadside cabinet (Fibre to the Cabinet), to add to the confusion, this is referred to as ‘Standard Fibre’ in the diagram below.
My existing FTTC service delivers a download speed of 60Mbps and Upload of 17Mbps which is more than adequate for my needs.
Speedtest carried out on 9th December 2021 using Ookla
the other benefit of a copper cable service is that I retain a land line phone, although the only calls I receive are from scumbag spammers :-(.
Future Fibre
Openreach Roll Out Map which misses out Chatteris but has been done, go figure! – LINK
1st July 2021, BT Openreach started installing the fibre infrastructure to support full fibre broadband in my road, TalkTalk have named this ‘Future ‘Fibre’ and is the differentiation between the FTTC & FTTP fibre services.
Moving forward five months to 4th December 2021, TalkTalk got in touch with an upgrade offer to FTTP which was a surprise as I mistakenly thought the Openreach Full-Fibre Broadband was only open to BT customers (Openreach’s Full Fibre network is open access – ISP choice is BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, EE, Zen, Andrews and Arnold, Aquiss, Cerberus, Fibre Net, Giganet, Orbital Net, Pine Media, Spectrum, Structured, Syscomm and Uno and growing).
Based on what I was told (and recorded) during my follow-up call back to TalkTalk on the 5th December, I accepted the offer of Future Fibre 65 for £23.50 for an 18 month contract, this also includes retaining my landline and Youview box.
The average TalkTalk download speed on Fibre 65 is 67Mbps and the average upload speed is 18Mbps.
Openreach FTTP Network
Infrastructure
I like to gather and be informed as much as possible on the technology and installation methods for this new service into my property.
I have an aversion to cables being on show, so if I can gain an understand of the end to end process, I may be able to do enabling works which will not only make the installation easier for the engineer, but will meet my needs for equipment location and neatness.
The above schematic shows the Openreach FTTP infrastructure which TalkTalk will carry my fibre broadband service, I was assured that my copper cable wired landline will still work, (I do know that all BT copper phones will cease by 2025), so if it does stop before that, I will go over to VOIP using Sipgate.
To check on what BT know about my existing service I used the Broadband Availability Checker, this gave the information below:
I used this LINK to check if the Full-Fibre service was available to me.
My house was built circa 2002/3 and the developer installed a dedicated BT duct from the house to a pavement manhole where the connections are made.
In the broadband checker document, the duct is identified as being a Type 56 with a dimension of 2.5″, so, as long as the duct hasn’t collapsed or is blocked, getting a Customer Lead In new fibre cable to the house should be fairly easy.
For Information :If you have an overhead telephone service, a 12.5mm ladder securing point hole/s will need to be drilled in the wall, following the Tetra Ladder Safety System.
My understanding is that the Customer Lead In cable is a pre- terminated cable which is plugged into either a pole or chamber mounted CBT (connectorised block terminal), the unterminated end is the one which is outside your house for termination to the customers Lead Out/In Cable.
The above picture shows a Customer Service Point this is also can be known as a Customer Splice Point where the Customer Lead In fibre cable is spliced to the Lead Inside/Out cable which passes through the wall using a Cable Lead In Protector Kit to connect to the Optical Network Terminal (or Optical Network Termination Point).
From the wall mounted ONT, an Ethernet cable cable plugs into a modem, the ONT needs power which should be within 1m of a socket.
If the ONT does need relocating, a DIY kit is available from HERE.
My Installation – Pre Works
The phoneline to my house comes via an underground duct to an external junction box which connects to the internal house phone wiring which was installed when the house was built.
I wanted the neatest possible installation with the ONT going upstairs, so I decided to buy EZbend fibre optic cable, install conduit and get everything ready for the engineer to (hopefully) terminate and test.
I ran 20mm heavy duty PVC conduit from where the BT duct surfaces round to the side gable wall observing Openreach guidance document regarding minimum bending radiuses and avoiding any sharp bends:
I used a 16mm flexible conduit to get from the ground floor to the loft, this gave plenty of room for the fibre cable and a spare draw cord should it be needed in the future.
The best location for the ONT was in a small room which houses my IT cabinet.
EZbend fibre (20m) was bought off eBay for £13 and is surplus from a builders home developers kit, I could have waited for Openreach to arrive rather than buying the fibre, but I thought it prudent to install it, if all goes well, Openreach will connect it, if not, I will use my fibre to pull theirs in, not really a big deal.
With the fibre all pulled in, slack was taken up in the loft.
The above picture shows the fibre emerging from conduit, also their is a green Cat6 cable which will go from the ONT to the WAN port of the Router, also their is a low voltage extension to supply the ONT from within the IT Cabinet as this is UPS backed up.
Brushed outlet with the required connectors all ready for the ONT installation.
The Sagemcom router is a lot larger than the Huawei HG633 it replaces.
New router LAN cable ready for connection to the ER605 gateway.
I have left 2 meters of fibre ready for the engineer to connect to in the Customers Service Point (CSP), I have measured the space needed by the CSP and its going to be a snug fit.
Future Fibre Installation Day
Not sure what happened to texting before the appointment or an initial visit first, but it didn’t matter, knock on the door at 8:30 on the 4th Jan by Andy from Openreach to install and commission my Full Fibre broadband.
His first job was to rod from my house, through the existing duct to the JBF104 (Joint Box Footway – Type 104) which was approximately 50 meters away and contains the 12 port Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT).
It was during the pushing of the rod that Mark joined Andy for the installation.
Once the rod was in the JBF104, the pre connectorised customer lead-in cable was attached to the rod and drawn back to the house.
The pre terminated lead-in connector is simply coupled to an allocated port on the CBT, in my case port 1.
At the house end, a customers slice point (CSP) was mounted on the wall, ready to accept the incoming fibre from the CBT.
The lead-in cable was striped ready for splicing, the next job was to install the internal Nokia Optical Network Terminal.
All did not go exactly as planned here, I had originally ran in some EZBend fibre from the CSP to the ONT location, it turned out that fibre tools that are issued for stripping lead-in/lead-out cables, were not compatible with EZBend fibre outer sheath as the fibre did not have a rip cord to aid sheath removal, consequentially, it was decided to use the EZBend fibre as a draw, and pull in a Openreach supplied fibre optic cable which was my fall-back plan anyway.
Openreach supplied fibre cable was not all pulled through to the CSP deliberately from the upstairs ONT, the excess is stowed neatly in the loft allowing me to relocate the ONT should I ever need to.
Drawing in the new fibre using the draw fibre only took a short time as the cable was ran in containment making the installation very easy, plus of course, many hands making light work.
Once the new fibre from the ONT was at the CSP, Andy and Mark started working on the fusion splicing of the two fibres.
Once the splice was completed and the cable neatly stowed in the CSP enclosure, the ONT status lights were checked for service, a speed check was undertaken and Andy explained what the status lights on the ONT meant.
Light
State
What it means
Power
On
The ONT has power
Power
Off
There is no power to the ONT. Check the power cable is properly in (the left-hand most one) and that the mains connection on the other end is switched on.
LOS
Off
You have a working fibre connection
LOS
On
You have a fibre connection issue – check the fibre connection in the bottom of the ONT.
PON
Off
No network connection has been made.
PON
On
You have a working network connection.
PON
Flashing
The ONT is negotiating a connection on the network. You’ll find this might happen a few times after initial installation.
LAN
Off
There is no data transmitter to your router – check the LAN cable!
LAN
Flashing
The shows that data is transmitting successfully to your router
So, a full working connection should look like this…
My package with TalkTalk is Future Fibre 65, so I’m very pleased with my speeds:
Speedtest 4th January 2022 – day of installation
Speedtest 18th January 2022 @ 21:40, TalkTalk suggest average speeds settle after 10 days of service.
The last job was to put capping over the cables to the CSP making the installation look very neat.
Job complete, the guys left at 11:30, so the installation took 3 hours.
I was very impressed with the Openreach engineers, nothing was too much trouble for them and they were respectful of my property, removing boots before coming in etc.
The whole process (to date) has been hassle free and everything asked has been delivered 🙂
Once the guys had gone, I re-routed the power to the ONT and Router so that it is fed from a UPS supply in my IT cabinet, this meant extending the 12v power cables.
The ONT uses a 2.1mm x 5.5mm type and the Router needs a 2.5mm x 5.5mm one, both available from Kenables, I also disabled the Routers Wi-Fi and connected one of the Routers LAN ports to my ER605 WAN port supplying my home network.
Updated Openreach details highlighted the day after installation.
Neighbours Installation Woes
My neighbour three doors down was having FTTP installed on the 11 Jan and I noticed a lot of head scratching by the Openreach engineers as they walked back and forth to the Joint Box, and it transpires that the duct from his property to the Joint Box Footway is blocked, meaning that a civils crew will need to come out, excavate and clear to obstruction once all permissions and permits have been obtained.
X marks the spot of the duct blockage
The distance to the Joint box is a lot further than me and the blockage is just upstream of my connection to the common duct, in talking to the install guys they mentioned that the ducting swept Tee to my property was fitted incorrectly and they said I was lucky that they managed to get my fibre installed.
They discovered this after sending a camera down the common ducting to locate the exact position of the blockage.
The swept Tee should go in the direction of the Joint Box so as not to impede the pulling off the cable:
Example of buried duct system showing the duct elements.
18 January 2022
Openreach civils turned up and excavated where the previous engineers had indicated, unfortunately no telecoms ducting could be found.
The civils guys re-rodded from the Joint Box back towards the blockage and they think the duct blockage is a metre in from the pavement on the neighbours property, so this will need his permission to dig his drive and find the damaged section, this will be done on a return revisit.
30 January 2022
Openreach civils were out on a Sunday to try and locate and repair the blocked duct. The duct was only a few feet away from the first excavation on the 18th Jan and they made a small hole in the duct in order to push a rod into it, from this they could determine accurately the distance to the blockage.
Openreach civils returned and finally located the damaged section of the duct, it appears that at some point in time, a large amount of concrete was poured which crushed the duct and partially filling it!
Damaged section located under concrete.
The picture below shows the number of tries to locate the damage, the good news is that once the section has been repaired it should be plain sailing for my neighbours installation of FTTP.
1 February 2022
Success – Openreach returned and finally managed to get a rod from the neighbours property, through the open, damaged section, to the Joint Box, they then used this to pull in the fibre cable.
While they were their, they applied forward thinking and pulled in a draw rope from the neighbouring property to the Joint Box in case its needed by them in the future.
Blue draw rope being tied onto a flexible rod enabling future proofing of the neighbouring property should a cable needs to be drawn in from the joint box.
All the guys were great, very approachable and amenable to me asking questions 🙂
Excavations made good, shrubs all replanted and the area grass-seeded, great job Openreach.
Web Addresses
https://dexgreen.com/collections/single-dwelling-unit Dexgreen Single Dwelling Equipment
I’ve had a Homebase portable air conditioning unit (Model 636212) for ages, the unit removes 9000BTU of heat and is ideal for my home office, especially with the hot weather we are experiencing at the moment (May, June July 2018).
I have a number of Sonoff devices so I thought I’d add remote control to the air conditioning unit, using a Jog Switch (SKU437888).
The Homebase unit is turned on and off via a simple push to make button, wiring the Sonoff relay normally open contacts in parallel across the on/off switch allows a single pulse from the relay contacts to either start or stop the air conditioning unit.
The low voltage to the Sonoff is from the internal Power Supply Board, this gives out 17v DC which is well within the operating range of the device (7v -30v AD/DC).
The picture above shows the unboxed module fixed for testing, total cost was £6.50 and took about 30 minutes, what makes this more impressive is that the EWeLink App allows ‘Scenes’ to be setup with other Sonoff devices.
I have set the Server Cabinet Sonoff which operates the internal fan to trigger the air conditioning at 34°C, turning OFF when the temperature falls below 31°C.
Sonoff POW is a WiFi switch with the added facility of monitoring power consumption to the load it switches also it can run trends over time and give instantaneous readings.
I currently use a Belkin power meter inline with my home network UPS so the Sonoff POW is a great addition enabling remote monitoring.
The first job was to attache the IEC plug and socket to the Sonoff POW, I had a small IEC extension cord which I simply cut in half and used that.
Stripping the cable back, I used bootlace ferrules on the wires going under the spring connection terminals for a neat job.
Once the connections were made, the lid was fitted which has integral cable grips to keep the cable from being pulled out.
Making sure that the socket is used for the Input and the plug for the Output, I powered the unit up and paired it with my iPhone and the internet.
To connect to the UPS, I simply unpluged the IEC plug suppling the UPS and placed the Sonoff POW inbetween, using the plug from the Sonoff POW output to reconnect to the UPS and thats it!
The reading from the Sonoff POW and the Belkin seem to tally up, so well pleased, regarding the On/Off switching function, I will be using this test the operation of the UPS by simulating mains failure, the Sonoff App software allows for a detailed schedule to be created, so may well automate this as some point.
If you have a weather site using Saratoga and Leuven scripts and are considering moving server from North America to European servers….DON’T DO IT!!!!
The story started on 15 Oct 17, looking through cPanel on my GoDaddy site, it suggested that speed might be increased by moving to a server nearer to my location, this meant moving data from North America to Europe, as the transfer was free, what did I have to lose.
The data migration took 3 hours on 16 Oct 17, filled with high expectations that my site would load super fast, I clicked on chatteris.biz and waited, and waited and waited, the site took nearly a minute to load.
I rang GoDaddy service desk and spoke to an assistant who suggested it was due to the SSL certificate needing to be rekeyed on the new server and he sent me the details on how to do it, being nervous of breaking the site even more, I called back and they said they can rekey the certificate for £100 in 10 days time, I declined.
A great friend came round and together we rekeyed the SSL certificate, guess what,…..nothing changed!
I posted on WXForum and started this WXForum Topic , it turns out that their is a known issue with European servers and the only way to resolve it is to go back to North American server.
So, on the 23 Oct 17 after paying £19.20, my data was once again whistling over the big pond, and this time it worked 🙂
The moral of the story is that if it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it, the second moral is don’t move GoDaddy servers to other GoDaddy servers unless you want a world of pain.
Update 23rd February 2022
Due to increasing costs and charging for an SSL certificate, I decided to jump ship and join Hostgator, the blog of the transfer is HERE.
I was perusing the internet and came across a niffty idea to quickly identify which Cat5 outlet was connected to which port on a patch panel, so, as I had the parts, I thought I’d have a go.
The principle is very easy, in the patch panel, RG45 plugs are inserted into each port, within the RG45 plug is an LED connected to pins 3 &6.
At the remote faceplate, a RG45 is plugged in which has power to pins 3 & 6 via a battery battery, the LED in the patch panel will now light, quickly identifing what is connected to what.
Test faceplate with pins 3 & 6 bridged across each outlet
The parts were from ebay:
LEDS – 100 for £2.32
RG45 connectors – 100 for £2.95
Battery Holder – £0.99
To make the LED plug, I first marked the Cathode of the LED so I got the polarity correct when inserted into the plug.
The next step was to flatten the LED capsule so that it fits within the cable entry of the connector.
The LED is now pushed into the connector and crimped, hot glue is then used to seal the LED in place.
The battery pack is powered by 2 x AA batteries, with a current limiting resistor terminated in the plug.
I made 24 of the LED plugs as that was the number of ports on my patch panel.
Finished LED connectors and battery pack
A blog about stuff that interests me or I have done.
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