forum.excito.org

Well, I don't have that issue as I "arm-wrestled" the builder to add some additional tubing for custom wiring (he charged me of course) and I ran CAT5 through them to give me access points around the house.

I realize that the wiring inside a CAT5 cable is quite small in diameter, so it won't handle too much power, but the question is how much will it take? A regular phone line will go up to 60 volts and above while ringing, so voltage shouldn't be an issue, but could it handle enough VA to power something like a 8 channel "green" switch? I just wonder about these things, but must admit that I'd probably rewire everything to include a separate power line if I were to do anything like this. Just to be sure...

Ubi wrote:Be aware that these socket adapters have crap bandwidth if theres multiple connectors or breakers inbetween them. At least mine do? And there pretty expensive too.

You may actually find that they don't work at all if you have a multi phase electricity connection. That is because groups (identified by breakers) will be distributed evenly by (expected) power usage across each phase and the signal from these adapters can not jump to another phase. Also, the electricity company claims that signals you put on the net can not go outside of your house and be intercepted by any of your neighbours, but is that really true? I don't think I've ever seen something like a low pass filter anywhere on the main input. My guess is that you could take one of your socket adapters and plug it in three houses away from you (if you're all on single phase) and get a signal. Not willing to try though as I don't own these type of adapters and also don't have any use for them.

Gordon wrote:I realize that the wiring inside a CAT5 cable is quite small in diameter, so it won't handle too much power, but the question is how much will it take? A regular phone line will go up to 60 volts and above while ringing, so voltage shouldn't be an issue, but could it handle enough VA to power something like a 8 channel "green" switch? I just wonder about these things, but must admit that I'd probably rewire everything to include a separate power line if I were to do anything like this. Just to be sure...

The only way to find out is to test it
(preferably in a safe environment, i.e. not with the wires already running through your walls)

Unfortunately there where no such things as CAT 5 in 1945 when my block of flats was built... And they REALLY made sure that those load-bearing walls were up to their jobs...

Ubi wrote:Be aware that these socket adapters have crap bandwidth if theres multiple connectors or breakers inbetween them. At least mine do? And there pretty expensive too.

Oh yes. Luckily there is only one place where it's needed, and the bandwidth is OK. But I did have to do a lot of rethinking/replugging before it became so.

Cheeseboy wrote:Unfortunately there where no such things as CAT 5 in 1945 when my block of flats was built... And they REALLY made sure that those load-bearing walls were up to their jobs...

Shouldn't be an issue. A friend of mine went berserk on his new house and ran probably around 200 meters of additional tubing in it using a wall chaser. Took him about a week to complete all the grooves, working only after finishing his day job, but by the time he was done there was no wire to be seen. It was actually him where I got the idea of doing something like it myself. So I replaced the telephone wiring with two CAT5 cables running to each of the original telephone wall outlets, to which I could still connect the phone using the RJ11 plug. The television cable was replaced by the service guy when I went from cable to fiber and I convinced him to pull an additional CAT5 cable to the one he intended to do. I currently use that output for my Dune media player, which can do WiFi but works better when wired.

Do note that if you want to use CAT6 the pipes will usually only hold a single cable. This is due to the cross shaped plastic core of that cable, which makes it harder to run it through corners and the cables will get stuck when trying to pull them through.

I know these wall chasers, and they're fine on soft stone walls. The good ones are just angle grinders with two parallel blades. The crap ones are a single big blade and are only rated for stuff like Ytong. On 1940's grade concrete however, even the good ones wear out the blade so quickly you spend more money on replacement blades than to buy a couple of range extenders...

...and I could never be bothered with such an effort
Most things use WiFi. Things that need Ethernet cables are close enough. Except one - and for that the D-Link adapter does an excellent job.

I thought this might be a suitable thread to post some more pics in.
(I notice the previous Bubba pr0n pics have been removed from the forum, shame.)

The last several years I have managed to keep a large LVM system without redundancy alive by replacing the disks as soon as I started to notice things go wrong. It was a pain, specially when it was /dev/sda that was due.

This time one disk just went without warning. About 10 TiB of data gone...
I refuse to give up on the Bubba though. I have bought an external HW RAID controller, and 4 WD Red disks.
I will replace the disk in the B3 itself with an SSD. Here is the documentation of that first step, getting the SSD in there.

Of course I have the very first incarnation of the B3, with no holes or anything to actually atach a 2.5" disk to.
It fits snugly, but there is nothing to hold it and it got REALLY hot:


It came with a cradle so it supposedly could be mounted in a 3.5" slot. There where a lot of things that didn't work with this, and three other similar cradles I have bought since. The SATA connectors are really close to the PCB. The disk is supposed to rest against it:


All the brackets I have come across so far has the same issues:
1. They raise the disk from the cradle for some reason, making it too high to fit into the SATA connectors on the PCB (green)
2. They never have holes that matches up with the holes in the rails the disks in the bubbas are using (red)

Why make something that is supposed to convert one standard to another, but does not follow the standard?
The Bubba rails are after all designed after the standard screw holes of a 3.5" disk.

Then I reckoned I'd just get an extender cable and glue the bloody disk to the chassis or something. It was not easy to find a male-female SATA cable, but I found one. Guess what?

Yep, too thick.

I had a suspicion this might occur when I ordered the cable, so I also ordered this angle-thingy, just to be safe:


Do you think it was any thinner?


Why do they add all that extra plastic? It was time for some modifications.
I once had a very good knife that would have been the perfect tool for the job, but someone in the office nicked it.
I still have the blades for it though, and I have never had a problem using tools in dangerous ways they were never intended for.


The result could have been prettier....


But hey! It worked!

Hmm, look how thick and sturdy that cable is though... And it's gonna have to flex.

When I was looking for heat conducting adhesives to glue my disk to the inside of the B3, I came across an extremely cheap and silly looking cradle that lets you put two 2.5" disks in a 3.5" slot. I noticed the position of the holes immediately! (I have been looking for them for some time). I only have one disk, so it would leave some breathing/cable space as well. Excellent:

(Note that I even tried to salvage some of the original tacky heat conducting tape from the original disk).

My old SSD hasn't got a heat sensor. The extra space gave me an idea. Let's put a temperature probe from an old multimeter in there, just to see if it really gets insanely hot with no direct contact with the chassis. I reckon I managed to place it just under the CPU between the disk and the PCB:


As you can see, I'm not always a patient man. Having spent weeks looking for cradles, ordering external RAID controllers, special cables etcetera, I could not wait until the morning and get some proper tape. Masking tape was available, so that's what I used. I used the Kensington lock slot to lead the cable out. It's hopefully only a temporary thing anyway. Again, not very pretty:


Now since the PCB and disk are connected they had to be reinserted at the same time. The very stiff cables had to bend in the right way without coming out of their flimsy sockets. There was no way this was going to work:


Specially not on the first attempt. That never happens. But... It did!


Next project is to put the RAID together. I'll need four external disks for that, but I only have three S1 enclosures. It seems to be impossible to find another one... Have you got one to spare? Let me know!

As of now it looks like all the beautiful black aluminium boxes are going to share window sill with this ugly plastic thing, which was the only fan-less one-disk enclosure I could find...


Or perhaps I could gut it and use it's innards in the old Bubba server (the first one)?
That would be cool. Bit of a shame though. It still works (original disk and all), but I can't think of anything useful for it to do...

Enough ramblings for now.

Cheers!

/Cheeseboy