At 03:12 PM 9/20/2005 -0500, Jima wrote:
>On Tue, 20 Sep 2005, Chuck Hays wrote:
>> I just moved into a new house, and am looking for a wiring panel as a
>> termination point for ethernet/coax wiring throughout the house.  Does
>> anyone have any recommendations?  Any local suppliers?
>
>  No particular brand recommendations, but Graybar may be a good place to 
>go.  They've got a couple locations in town.
>
>http://www.graybar.com/

Home Depot carries Leviton structured wiring kits but they're overpriced
for what you get in my opinion, as I'd rather use industry standard patch
panels.  (homedepot.com's electrical -> datacom -> leviton section shows
some of these).  Home Depot does have decently priced CAT5e (1000' for
$56+tax) and I like their Leviton modular QuickPort/keystone jacks, plates,
and panels.  HD is also a good source for 100' spools of 3/4" blue ENT
tubing for about $30 which I use in the wall because initially I may not
know how many or which types of cables (CAT5e and/or RG6 coax and/or
fibre-optic, etc.) I'll want later.  ENT in the walls in conjunction with a
metal fish tape does wonders in making it easy to install new or replace in
wall wiring.

MicroCenter in Saint Louis Park (on Hwy 100) is also a possible source for
standard 19" patch panels.  For a home project, I ordered the Leviton 19"
panels and 4U wall mount racks I needed via eBay.  I've also done business
with Cassidy in Minneapolis (http://www.cassidysales.com/ ) as a local
source for Leviton patch panels (they carry other datacom supplies as
well).  Cassidy's building is quite close to one of the Graybar locations.

If you've only got a handful of wires to terminate and would like to
mix/match your own patch panel, you can get panels that accept Leviton
Quickport style jacks in any position, letting you combine RJ-45 and coax
jacks together.  You could also get Leviton surface mount boxes, a 6 port
faceplate for each box, and the appropriate number of modular jacks to
create pseudo-6 port patch panels.  I see no reason to use RJ-11/12 jacks
anywhere anymore as they cost about the same as RJ-45 and are less flexible
in terms of future options.

-hk