Keystone Patch Panel

Nice patch panel that comes with zip ties to attach the wires to the strain relief bar. VERY easy to use. Fits perfectly with same brand keystones. Easy to remove and move cables around if you need to put them in a different order.

I've been in telecom for years now, and we've used everything from Belden to Panduit, and Systimax. The Cable Matters hardware is just as easy to install and passes the same TIA certification tests at a fraction of the cost. For the DIYer, this is a no-brainer. Even for pros looking to lower the hardware cost, without sacrificing quality, this may just be the patch panel for you!I'm a BIG fan of the strain relief with the included short zip ties. Helps keep the cable runs managed, and clean. You can see the back of the patch panel in the photo, the little retention tabs and zip ties go a long way for a neat install.

I build a small wiring panel in the closet which locates in the middle of my house. From the panel, I run 2 Cat-6 cables to all rooms. This allows me to run the shortest amount of cables and provide wired connectivity to each location. This setup provides the most stable connection to all my devices in the house. And I can upgrade to 10GBase-T in the future.About this panel, it's built with strong material. The keystone mounting area is easy to access. I use it with the Cable Matters Keystone jack and it can fit 24 without issue. (Note the Cable Matters Keystone jack is wider than some other brand). And given its build quality and price, this panel is a good value. Overall, I am very satisfied with this panel.Here is what I use for the project.For the patch panel in the closet* CNAweb 2U 19-Inch Hinged Network Wall Mount Equipment Rack Bracket - Black* Cable Matters Rack or Wall Mount 24-Port Keystone Patch Panel [THIS ITEM]* Cable Matters 25-Pack Cat6 RJ45 Keystone Jack in White and Keystone Punch-Down Stand* Cable Matters 10-Pack Cat6 RJ45 Punch-Down Keystone Jack in BlueThe wall jack in each room.* Arlington LV1-10 Low Voltage Mounting Bracket, 1-Gang, Black, 10-Pack* Cable Matters (10 Pack) Wall Plate with 2-Port Keystone Jack in White* Monoprice Cat6 Bulk Bare Copper Ethernet Cable, UTP, Solid, Riser Rated (CMR), 500MHz, 23AWG (113674)* Monoprice 1000-Feet 23 AWG Cat6 500MHz UTP CMR Solid Bulk Bare Copper Ethernet Cable - White (108108)

I really like these Patch Panels. They look nice and are easy to use and flexible. They also have a really nice cable support on the back side. If you look in the first picture at the red cables, you can see how each one is zip tied into place. Nice!!!You can see in the first and second picture I'm using 23 Normal Cable Matters Keystones. Plus 1 Blank Plug in the 24th spot. The nice thing about this is you can install the cables onto all your cables FIRST and then pop them into place after. This makes the job so much easier. I got a different one where you would have had to mount all the wires onto the patch panel at once, really making a bulky mess and really hard to do in my small closet. So I ended up going this route instead.On the Second Patch Panel, you see in the 3rd picture, There are 2 Keystones on the right side. These are 2 of the 9 NEW Cat6 cables I ran and those 2 go to the garage for future Security camera's. Then there's a number of blanks in the middle and on the left side are passthrough Keystones. This allows me to run cables from the other devices on this rack, from the Router, the Tivo Stream, HD HomeRun, etc to plug in behind the Patch Panel, where the cable can be hidden, and then the short cable into the Router like all the others making for a better looking professional job. Instead of just running a cable out from whatever hole and into the Switch. That 3rd picture shows a nice clean setup with all the same cables out front. I have empty slots for future expansion. I don't think that's likely. But then I figured I wouldn't have to crawl around on my belly ever again 5 years ago when I first ran all the Cat6 wires. Here I am running another 9. 3 in one room, 4 in another room, and 2 into the garage.By the way, I threw in a 4th picture. This was How it was just before I changed it all. This was my 5 year old setup so you can see the Before and After. Really how much I've learned over the years and what I could afford and had time to do back then. I did that job right after I got this house 5 years ago. But you can see all the different color cat6 wires, and they're just all over the place.So I'm a big fan of these Cable Matters Patch Panels. I did have a few Keystones that didn't install how they are supposed to go in. The bottom wasn't quite is and then it makes them hard to get out. I found that you can push up on the bottom and in on the Keystone and it'll pop fully into place and all is good. I like that it makes the job easy when you're not trying to install all the wires onto a single board on the back of a Patch Panel like many others out there. You also get the flexibility of using any number of different Keystones to fit your own needs. You don't even have to use Black to match as I did. Maybe you use different colors. Like Red for one room, and Blue for another and so on and so on. You can use HDMI Keystones and Audio keystones and on and on. That's what's so great with this design. The final results is it looks really nice. The options on what you can do is almost unlimited.But what takes it over the top, is the excellent cable support in the back of this Patch panel. It's solid!!! You don't want future issues with your cables. You want a setup that's going to last you for many years to come. Using my label printer, and double line printing, I was able to make small labels to label what every port went to. There's a spot to label each port on this thing. I also have every port labeled around my house. So I know Port 3 in the Master Bedroom is this one exactly. I also tested each and every wire to make sure they were all perfect as I did booboo a few times. I used a Fluke Networks MS2-100 Cable Tester. So, what do you think?You can't go wrong with this Cable Matters 24-Port Cat6 Keystone Patch Panel. I'm a big fan and would recommend it to anyone that is going to take on a job like this. All this stuff is really not that hard. The hardest part? sliding around on my belly all around under my house in the dirt, and the spiders and so forth to run the cables. Cut the needed holes in the walls, and down under the house to run up the wires, fill holes up when done with expanding foam. Did it ALL by myself. There was no one else here. All this other stuff, other than time, not that hard. My Dad is completely clueless about it. But it's something you can learn to do. It's pretty straightforward. A little planning on what YOU want and the pieces fall into place.11-17-2019 updateI added another picture close up to see how I labeled my ports. As you can see there is not a lot of room. I used a normal brothers labeler. Then I used 2 line printing which makes the text a lot smaller. I would make sure to add a few spaces in between each work for more space to carefully cut out. You can only fit 3 to 4 letters or numbers or a combo. So MB1 would be Master Bedroom 1. DR1 would be Dad’s Room 1 since he lives at my house. RMC would be Remote Management Control which is for my UPS, etc. at the Keystones in the wall at all my locations, they have the same markings. So it makes it easy to figure things out if there is ever a issue.I am using Cable Matters Keystones with these, the normal ones, along with their pass though keystones, which allows me to plug things like my router or NAS cables that are sitting on those shelf’s to plug in on the back side of the keystone, then just add a short patch cables line everything else for a clean look. I’m also using some blanks from Cable Matters to fill in some holes I didn’t need to use for keystones at this time to clean my rack up better. Keystones like this is the way to go.

I purchased this 24 port patch panel to replace a 16 port panel I had outgrown. This one is a great mix of quality, features and price.I nearly filled the panel with Commercial Electric brand Cat 6 and Cat 5e keystones which fit well - they securely click in place with almost no movement and seem less prone to come out as my past patch panel. The Cat5E keystones are a tight fit if next to each other based on their shape, but they do fit and will properly latch in. The Cat 6 keystones seemed just a hair narrower so not as tight a fit.The cable management / lacing bar is a nice plus and really helped with securing and reducing string on the connections. (note I have a little cable management cleanup left to do and unfortunately a couple of my lines come in from another direction and are not long enough to route with the remainder of the bundle).