[UL Listed] Cable Matters 12-Port Vertical Mini Patch Panel with 89D Bracket

Installed this for my parents home networking to help tidy up all the wires that were feed directly into a switch.

I had a 24 port rack mount patch panel in my old wire location. I really wanted to get rid of it, as it was in a hard to reach place. I was on the fence about using a 1u wall mount rack converter or buying this. After filling up most of the patch panel, I'm glad I went this direction. It's a very good budget option for home owners to get some structured wiring installed. Mix this with a wall mount switch, and you've got everything you need.I am taking a star away, because I haven't even filled it up yet, but there isn't enough space behind the panel for all of the cables to come in from one side. If I had known that, I would have mounted it horizontal with cables coming in from both sides. As it is, I have all the cables coming in from the top, and it's getting very hard to get the panel snapped back in after I add another cable.

I purchased two of these (Cable Matters UL Listed Mini 12-Port Vertical Patch Panel with 89D Bracket ) for my home rewiring project. I installed them both and punched down the panels, then went around to install jacks in the rooms.While testing, I discovered that one of the the panels is bad. All of the independently punched down cables only pass signal to the same port (11). Even though none of them are even connected to port 11. Kind of a problem.The other panel works great. I wish they both did. I reached out to Cable Matters to exchange the failed panel for a working one. I would probably be more harsh in my review except I've ordered so much of their equipment across the years (usually for enterprise use) and never had a problem.

This patch panel fit the budget and physical space available, crucial in getting our network panel overhauled from the mess left by the electrician oh so many years ago.We used 3 of these patch panels to get our 33 in-room Cat5e drops all identically terminated to T568A at the network panel, a vast improvement from the prior mix of RJ45 connector terminations and hard-wires into a 66 phone block. And we used one additional patch panel for a DIY RJ45 6-port 2-line phone block ... with the 4 wires unneeded by the phone connection wired over to the other 6 ports of the patch panel to enable Fast Ethernet piggybacking over the shared Cat5e cable. (Requires either custom wiring at the in-room jack or use of a special RJ11/RJ45-FastE adapter.)The patch panel's color legend made punchdown a breeze (some identical models from other vendors have color legends much less useful), and the quality appears solid so far.

Great patch panel, gets the job done at a great price. You really couldn't ask for a simpler, sturdier, more cut and dry patch panel. This is backwards compatible with Cat5e. In my setup, I have 7 Cat5e runs terminating in the back of the patch panel, Cat6 patch cords going to a Netgear 16 port Gigabit switch. At the time, it was too costly to run Cat6, I hope to one day do so. My setup consists of a Linksys WRT1900ACS in my office area upstairs where my cable modem comes in, and a Cat5e run that feeds the area you see in the picture. It is easy to run cabling to this room of the basement from anywhere in the house, so this is where all of the terminations come in. I have 3 TV areas (2 of which have dual cable runs), a bedroom and the main feed from upstairs, with plenty of room for expansion. I could also just as easily mount another patch panel (to the right of this picture) on the other side or just below this one if ever needed.The size of this panel allows for that flexibility.The color coding in the back for each port is very easy to read, my network uses the T568B standard, but it is color coded for both A and B. You do need an appropriate punchdown tool, my 110 punchdown tool did just fine. Make sure the blade is pointing in the right direction, outward of course. As you punch down, the excess copper should just fall. If not, you didn't do it right and that can lead to connection issues. Having a patch panel, properly punched down, and purchased patch cords is way better than making your own cables with RJ45 jacks. When you start talking Gigabit Ethernet, you need to use all 4 pairs, as opposed to Fast Ethernet which only uses 2 pairs. Going the punchdown route is much easier than making your own crimps. When I upgraded all of my equipment to Gigabit, I realized I have several improperly crimped RJ45 clips.This includes the mounting bracket, which is great to wall mount or in my case the top of a built in wooden shelf in my utility room/wine cellar.The space to label your terminations (where each cable run goes, you should coordinate this with some sort of jack numbering), is a little small, but that's to be expected with the compactness of this patch panel. I used a sharpie with a fine point side to label mine. Properly labeling your jacks and runs ensures easy troubleshooting or disconnecting the kids (or the wife).Expansion will be easy, just disconnect the patch cords and remove the panel from the mounting bracket, punch down any new lines, and re-seat in the bracket.If you're putting in a patch panel for your home or small office, look no further.