Telephone Junction Box

[EViS]

We want to connect 5 telephone 'extension' sockets into the master BT sockets. All wires run back to the master socket location as opposed to being daisy-chained. The IDC junction boxes only seem to take 2 wires, whereas we need one to accommodate 6 wires.

Does anyone know of a junction box to take 6 telephone wires?

 

[wingcoax]

Most domestic telephone systems take a maximun of three as far as i can remember, usually daisy chained. It is referred to as R E N or ringer equivalent number.

 

[EViS]

We have 6 sockets with the cabling running to one point (next to the master socket) we need to connect all 6 into the master socket, but only 3 phones will be plugged in at any one time.

 

[AlanE]

One of these?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BT-77A-3-...t=UK_Phones_PhoneLeads_RL&hash=item2ec8259bc5

 

[plugwash]

AIUI most telephone junction boxes have the terminals joined in pairs and you should put a maximum of two wires in each IDC terminal. So each pair of terminals can be used to split a wire a maximum of three ways.

What I guess you could do since you only need three wires for phone extension wiring is take two wires from each terminal of the master socket and then split each of those three wires three ways in the junction box. That would fit the terminals available within a normal 6 terminal phone junction box.

If you have ADSL I would also STRONGLY reccomend using a filtered plate on the master socket. You DO NOT want star wiring on the unfiltered side.

 

[flameport]

This: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350714585134
plus a standard 2 gang surface box with blanking plate for a lid.

 

[Sureitsoff?]

Most domestic telephone systems take a maximun of three as far as i can remember, usually daisy chained. It is referred to as R E N or ringer equivalent number.

You are mixing up sockets with the number of phones connected. You can have lots of sockets, I have at least one in every room of my house but ideally you should not plug in more than four phones at any one time, assuming each phone has a REN of 1

 

[SimonH2]

Slightly overkill, but the neatest way to do it would be a 201 connection box which has 20 pairs of terminals.

Take two pairs (2&5 (blue/white-blue), 3&4 (orange/white-orange)) from the master to two pairs of terminals in the box. Connect the extension wiring (2 pairs each) to subsequent pairs. Do this all on one side of the terminals - doesn't matter if you use inside or outside or left or right (or top or bottom if it's mounted with the strips horizontal).

Then daisy chain jumper wire* down the other side of the terminals to link up the pairs (so the 2&5 pair from the master connects to the 2&5 pair for each extension, ditto the 3&4 pair).
You now have all the extension sockets neatly wired - and if needs change then you can leave the fixed wiring alone and alter the jumpering.

That's what we have here. One extension is wired direct, the rest to the phone side of an ADSL splitter (this is from before the filter faceplates were available) - so I can have the ADLS modem upstairs in a back room and the rest of the sockets are filtered at source (no filters dangling around).

* "Proper" jumper wire won't be to hand, so just strip some standard phone cable and use the pairs inside it.

EDIT: another neat trick with this is that if you have a fault, you can narrow it down by disconnecting the jump wires from one socket at a time. The 237 terminal strips have a disconnect facility so you can put a test plug or disconnect wedge in for testing - but you probably won't have one of those to hand either.

PPS: And only use a proper punchdown tool. A screwdriver or the cheap plastic tools won't work and will damage the terminals.

 

[bernardgreen]

Slightly overkill, but the neatest way to do it would be a 201 connection box which has 20 pairs of terminals.

Good solution. I like it.

 

[SimonH2]

Here's my junction box, firstly with the lid on :

Untitled

• SimonH2
• 23 Jun 2013
• 2

and then with the lid off :

Untitled

• SimonH2
• 23 Jun 2013
• 2

This is the early style 201C box with non-disconnect terminals. I believe later versions are available with disconnect terminals.
As I said earlier, when I did this, the filtered faceplates weren't available, so used a short length of lead with a BT plug and a standard filter - these days I'd just use a filtered faceplate and hardwire it all. The extension socket I have the ADSL modem on is hardwired - the bottom terminals on the right. Looking at that, I suppose I really ought to disconnect the ringer wire.