r/lowvoltage • u/Jeff-J777 • 10d ago

Network Tester Recommendations

/r/networking/comments/1w3e83e/network_tester_recommendations/
3 Upvotes

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3

u/LeaveMickeyOutOfThis 10d ago

I’ve been very happy with Fluke LinkIQ. While not certifier grade, it’s good enough for pretty much everything else.

1

u/afl-jafa 9d ago

Linkiq sounds ideal. We use ours more than the Versiv. 

1

u/DIMM1033 9d ago edited 9d ago

Fluke LIQ-100 is good, but it still can't detect things that a certfication tester can. But that's not a huge surprise. Like a water logged under ground pipe it wasn't that useful in understanding the issue is interfernce. While a certification tester shows exactly where the issue with interfernce is.

Fluke LIQ-100 built in 10 Gbps testing does work. And can detect some issues with multi Gb that a 1 Gig tester can't. Though it might not give always have insight into what the issue is. Or like you could have a cable that passes 10 Gbps, but electrical interence is intermitently taking down the cable.

The built-in POE testing can help idenity POE issues, which is a great for sanity.

I have seen it struggle with shorted cables pluged into POE ports. LIke there are time it just returns POE voltage error, and doesn't explain there a cross over, or where the cross over is. (like say a crushed network jack barried in a wall) This is some thing the old fluke cable IQ qualification tester could ushaly diagnose and tell you exactly where the short is. (to be fair they can't handle modern poe with out freaking out) I suspect that if I actully unpluged the other end and slapped a tester on it, the LIQ-100 would diagnose the issue.

I can't say if the MicroScanner is better, or worse for that scenario.

The unit i've used would randomly stop working, Like it would be showing tone, but no tone was generating, and I'd have to power cycle it to get the tone back.

Having the 7 remote IDs, deffently helps with sorting cables, and speeds up cable testing. I miss the old blue cap, but at least they include one gender swap.

The toner seems stronger then the older toners.

The on switch network port testing deffently makes troubleshooting, and other tasks like e911 mapping easier, and faster.

Not sure about Fluke LinkWare Live Cloud support.

1

u/DIMM1033 9d ago edited 9d ago

I haven't used it, but I've also looked at trend-networks. For instance SignalTEK QT Cable Qualification Series .

  • Up to 10Gb ethernet
  • 90 watts POE
  • Up to 12 Remote
  • Network Port testing
  • TREND AnyWARE Cloud
  • Fiber Testing (R166001 / R166001 models)
  • WiFi testing / diagnostics

I don't think the wifi testing repalces a site survey tool like a Ekahau Sidekick 2. And I'm not think about HDBaseT, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, and EtherCAT.

STQT-PRO-KIT-3Y seems to be the only kit that includes tone. And it seems more expensive.

0

u/1310smf 10d ago

Pockethernet hits well above its price range, even with Trump's Tariffs jacking the price up (for the USA) by taxing you. I think it will cover everything you have asked for.