Cat5e Gun.

[Jayce]

For as much as I have to run new Cat5e lines at work, it'd be nice to have some sort of a gun with a weighted ball and a very thin (but relatively strong) nylon string attached to it, which I would then shoot the ball down the hall within the ceiling and instead of fishing the Cat5e line every 5 feet, maybe I could do it every 20 feet, etc.

I know things like this existed at some point, but I cannot find any place online to get them. A search of networking tools gets me crimpers whereas a network gun/cat5 gun I somehow get a staple gun??

Is there an official name for what I'm trying to find? Or does anybody have an idea where I can dig one up?

 

[patonb]

Get a remote control car, and just drive it down the ceiling. Or a tank so you can get overf things.

 

[carnageX]

Get a remote control car, and just drive it down the ceiling. Or a tank so you can get overf things.

This is what my boss does lol. He has a monster truck one that can go over larger bumps in the ceiling. Attaches the cable to it, drives it to the other side where he wants, and he's done lol.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Bow and arrow ftw, just remember to pad the end of the arrow
Doesn't need to be big, a 1.5ft long bow is plenty big enough to shoot a little arrow down with a string attached.

 

[SirCyber]

bow and arrow? fast forward a couple hundred years and check into a crossbow... easier to handle... and yeah, get a blunt tip....
or.... RC car FTW

 

[kmote]

My understanding is that RC cars are pretty much the norm for this.

 

[Jayce]

Hm, some good ideas here guys. Several things though... the buildings I wire up I don't just let the wire lay on the drop ceiling, so driving a car in the ceiling is kind of out of the question. I need to "loop" then over top of a series of rafters to kind of string them up and out of the way. I found a spool of 100ft of very light string that should be sufficient for this, but I'm not sure what I can build that would give me the pull-back pressure I need to project something steady and straight for a good 30+ feet. I went through kmart and a hardware store and wasn't able to generate too many ideas.

I started to think maybe a heavy duty TOY crossbow might be nice to have. Something that's not meant to kill, but stronger than your average toy designed for a 4 year old.

Perhaps I should check out toys r us or wal mart or something... Unless somebody has an idea of something I can build?

 

[carnageX]

Build a low-power coilgun/gauss gun!
Coilgun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Luke]

rc helicopter ftw.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Pneumatic gun. It's pretty simple, and all you need are PVC pipe and joiners, and a solenoid and bike valve. make sure you get pressure pvc pipe tho!

make a containment chamber for the air by getting a foot of pipe and capping it on one end. Before you cap it though, drill a hole for the bike valve in the pipe and glue the valve in there.
On the other end of the pipe, glue in whatever kind of joiner you need to attach the solenoid to the pipe. Some solenoids are screw-ins, some are plain.

And that's basically it! On the other side of the solenoid attach a thin pipe, bout a centimeter in diameter is good (or marble sized, whatever you want really). You'll probably need a few joiners to get the size of the solenoid down to fit the small pipe (and you don't need to glue this one, not enough pressure to worry about. You can tho, if you want to be safe )


Pump up the containment chamber, grab a nine volt battery (or a car battery) and touch the terminals on the solenoid. boom goes the dynamite