Phone wiring in basement

Ok, I am afraid I made a short sighted decision when I did some wiring for phone lines while finishing my basement. Instead of home runs, I set them up to be daisy chained and ended up mixing the wires. It goes:

Main box**cat5 cable**first outlet**Four wire (green/red/black/yellow)**second outlet**Four wire**third outlet


The main box has a punch down for four pair and I bought the modular receptacles that have six slots. I am a bit confused.

Could it be as simple as connecting just two wires throughout? If so, which pins do I connect at the outlet and do I pigtail the connections at the first two outlets for the daisy chain?

 

POTS uses 2 wires, the 2 in the middle. You may do as you want as far as the connecton between the outlet and the exchange is exsisting.

By theory it is differense between ring and tip, but all modern telephones works well if the line has a reversed polarity. Looking in to the outlet wit the lock down, and the springs (contacts up) the left should be more positive then the right, if you put in a meter.

If you try to choose the wires from the same pair, e.g. blue and blue/white these will be revolved (twisted) and this may reduse the risk of humming and noice from other electrical equipment and phones. (Ususally not a problem)

Good luck!

dsk

 

Connect all white wires with blue stripes to green. Connect all blue wires to red.

The punchdowns will normally show you how to connect the colors, but if not, the center two pins are white-blue/blue and/or green/red. This is true whether you have 4, 6, or 8 conductor jacks & plugs.

 

DSK is correct. The polarity of the wires are not important for analog lines. If you are using cat5 cable and want to wire it the "corrrect" way, place the blue on the red wire and the white/blue on the green at the demarc point. It isn't normal practice to home run you phone lines; daisy chaining is. As for the other three pair of the cat5 cable, you don't need to do any thing with them. Just don't twist them around the cable as this causes an induced voltage (a slight one) that could reduce the sound quality. The best thing to do is to cut them off.

I had concluded that you have an older house. I apologize if this is not the case. On newer houses they are wiring them with cat5 or above and they ARE home running the cables. I have rewired my house and have done just that.

 

I would not cut them off. You may need them for a future second line or a DSL home run, or if you develop a fault in the original pair. I would in fact splice them at each box when daisy chaining. Makes future use a lot easier if you don't have to go back to reconnect.

 

Home run wiring is the way to fly , home run wiring gives maximum flexability of use. Even so , do not cut the wires off , if not in use , fold em back out of the way. You can use blue and blue white for line one.

 

Got it to work, I was overthinking it. I just punched down everything at the distribution box, then spliced and pigtailed the blue and blue white at the first outlet to the red/green going to the second. Attached to the blue, blue/white of the modular outlet and everything worked perfectly. Thanks for the help!

 

Can someone explain "daisy chain" vs. "home run"?

 

Daisy chain means that the cable goes from the NID to jack "A" then from jack "A" to jack "B" then from jack "B" to the next jack et al. Home run means a cable from NID to a single jack with no other jack in between. All wiring is parallel.

 

not necessarily home run to the NID actually the NID would be my last choice for terminating

just means that that they all run to a central point

then a feeder can be run from that point to the NID

diagram here

Structured Wiring

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