INTERNET CONNECTIVITY IN THE PROJECT CAVE
I spend a lot of time in the Project Cave. It is a great place. However, one thing that is not great about it is the internet connectivity. Signal is weak and sometimes drops out altogether. There are many ways to change this. You can install a wireless repeater/range extender somewhere in the house. You could install a mesh network. I chose a third rout to get signal to my garage from my router. I ran a direct line from the main router and set up a wireless access point using an old WIFI router.
WHAT INSPIRED THAT CHOICE?
I decided to run a direct ethernet line to the garage when it was decided that I needed to relocate the house cable modem from one room to another. This was a little bit bigger of a move because the room was across a hallway. I couldn’t just punch through the wall with the cable. It now had to be sent up the wall and into the attic.
Since I was going to make that run, I figured I should just piggyback the CAT 6 ethernet cable run with the coaxial cable run. This part of the run was going to require the most work so it was just a little bit more to add it in. After the difficult part of the run, I just had to follow the coax back out to the garage and set up the physical wired connector.
THE WORK
First, I had to go into the attic and figure out location of the two walls the new cables would run through. One wall was common to the laundry closet, so it was pretty easy to figure out. The dryer vent runs through this wall. Moved down around 16 inches and drilled a hole through the top plate of the wall. Then took a measurement to determine where the hole in the drywall would go in relation to the new position for the main router.
The second turned out to be pretty easy to figure out as well. The roof of the garage runs diagonally down that wall so the framing gave away its location. I also knew that the cable entered the room a few inches from (but on the other side of a stud) a power receptacle. So I drilled my next hole a few inches from (but on the other side of a stud) the location where the AC power line feeds through the top plate and into the wall.
After the holes were drilled, I used the new boxes as templates and cut out the holes for the cables. Then I dropped a wire fish through the wall to the main router location and began pulling cable up into the attic. I used coax and CAT6. Both cables were bare and connectors would be added later. Once the cables were in the attic, I began to feed them down through the other hole. The fish was not needed for this part because there was no insulation in the wall to prevent the cables from moving freely down to the hole in the drywall.
Here, I added a connector to the coax cable and joined it to the original cable. The CAT6 was then fed out into the loft over The Project Cave.
The location to drop the CAT6 was also pretty easy to find. In this case, the original coax line that ran to the cable modem was in plain sight. I should know, I ran that line a few years ago. Even though this line would be travelling down the wall, the wire fish would be required since this wall is insulated. The goal in this instance was to run the line close to the stud so the fish could ride against the stud and minimize the contact with the insulation. I may have gotten lucky, but this worked like a champ for me. The end fed through without any problems.
TIP 1! Make sure your cables will unwind tangle free and feed them carefully. Coax comes in a coil, so it usually wants to coil itself back up. If it gets stuck while making your run, don’t just pull harder. It will only get stuck worse and get kinked. If the kink is bad enough, you may break the solid line inside it and ruin all of the work you have done.
TIP 2! CAT6 is more flexible, but it seems like it also wants to fight you sometimes. It may take a little longer, but feed cables slowly and a little at a time. That way you don’t get too much cable in one place and risk having it tangle on itself.
TIP 3! If you are pulling your cable and the end of the cable is approaching, tie something to it. Something that won’t fit through the hole in the wall. Do that and you will feel resistance at the end. You won’t be in the attic pulling cable and suddenly have the end of it in your hand.
In this picture, the CAT6 cable has a torpedo level attached to prevent it from being pulled up through the wall and into the attic.
SUCCESS
Once all the cables were run, I put connectors on the cable ends and then hooked them all together to check all signals were flowing properly.
The tests worked. The cable modem came back to life and the new location for the main router was working. All items on the network inside the house were functioning properly. Now it was time to test the CAT6 link to The Project Cave. My laptop still has an ethernet connector, so it was just a matter of connecting an ethernet port on the router to the new cable in the wall. Then connecting the new drop in the Cave to my laptop. It picked up the internet right away. Then I remembered to turn off the WIFI and check that internet was just coming through the CAT6 cable. It was.
To finish the day, cables were pushed into their boxes and cover plates were installed.
This wall is in The Project Cave. Cable enters the cave near the electric service panel and is then sent back into and up the wall to the main router. An Ethernet comes back to the Cave and is connected to the new WIFI access point.
A day or two later, I configured the old router to act as that access point. So either wired or wireless, there is now good connectivity in The Project Cave!
