My TV has an Ethernet socket and I wondered about connecting it to my router to see what the TV can do when networked. The TV and router are in different rooms. I was going to buy a long cat5e cable but then wondered if it might be simpler/cheaper to make my own.
Is it fairly simple? Is there a ratchet crimp tool that does all the work for you? Do you cut the cable to length and crimp on a plug? Or is it not a s straightforward as that (I'm thinking of how difficult it can be to make your own BT-plug-terminated telephone cables).
I have put plugs on a few (when I had access to crimper), but, TBH, ain't worth it in most circumstances. You can get a 20 metre cable from Amazon at £7.49 - a cheap crimper is £5. And the one you buy is (hopefully!) tested. If you were going to do lots, yes.
For one cable, no. (Having a long length of cable and a handful of plugs means you can make cables exactly the length you need when you need them, and can be cheaper than keeping a variety of pre-made lengths in case you need them.)
It's a bit fiddlier than putting a plug on a telephone cable, but basically the same.
It can be rather a pain getting the 8 wires into the correct recesses in the correct order in the crimp plugs. If you strip back the sheath such that the crimp grips it, there is not enough wire length to get them sorted. I've made up a few tens of them - I use a crimper that also cuts the standard sheath length, then pull the cores out, wrinkling the sheath, arrange the cores into the recesses, then carefully pull the sheath back. If your not careful at this point you push the plug off the cable (amhik) !!!! When you've done a few it gets easier, but the first few can be a challenge
Its simple enough, although tedious... so fine for a one off cable (or cables that need to pass through gaps the plug would prevent), a non starter for a wiring cabinet full of em!
Same sort of idea. You need a you need a 8p8c modular connector (normally called RJ45) crimp tool, and need to follow one of the standard wiring patterns such as TIA-568B on both ends.
Strip the outer, and separate the wires into correct sequence while keeping them held flat and together. Cut square across the ends (cutter built into the crimp tool) leaving around 1cm or so of exposed wires. Slide into place in the connector and make sure all the wires bottom out in the plug (you can see through it). Then stick in the crimp tool and crimp once. Then test, it it does not work, guess at which end is wrong and cut that off and eeterminate. Repeat until you have a working lead or no cable/connectors left ;-)
I find it easier not to use the "cut to the right length" capability of the tool, and instead use a separate cat5 stripper[1] to take off about twice the required length of outer. Then arrange wires, then cut them to the right length. That gets them all nicely the same length even though they don't all follow the same exact path.
Yes, I developed the same technique, slide the outer sheath back to expose slightly more wire than needed then you can grip the 8 wires and guide them in. Then stretch the sheath back until it's well under the clamp then crimp.
It would be easer if the crimp tool allowed you to crimp the pins and clamp separately, I've never seen one designed that way.
Oh, and I like to use a pair of scissors rather than side-cutters to trim the conductors to the same level.
Most Cat5 in boxes is single strand. Patch leads are made out of multi strand cable and RJ series plugs are designed to work with multi strand cable, not single strand.
Using single strand crimped into plugs usually works but not infrequently leads to all sorts of problems with poor contacts later.
I tend to pull the outer of the cable back a little bit while holding the inner cores in a pair of long nosed pliers, so that when all the cores are in line I let the outer move back down and it helps keep the cores in order. Also holding them in order with the pliers as I insert them into the plug. Lousy description, but I hope you get the idea. When I first started out doing this I budgeted for 3 or 4 plugs per lead, on average I'm almost down to just 2 plugs per lead now!
It can be nearly as much fun as catching a dropped soldering iron in mid air.
Not all the work. You still need to strip back the cable and arrange the individual wires in the right order.
You can do that, but it won't work unless you strip off the sheath and line up the individual wires in the right order.
It is precisely 4 times as difficult if you're using gigabit ethernet, twice if regular or fast ethernet - judging by the number of conductors you have to get right before it will work.
There are two types of cable - flexible and non-flexible. Non-flexible does flex, but if you keep doing that it will break the single core conductors inside. It is intended for doing infrastructure cabling, i.e. cabling in trunking to wall sockets, which is not going to be regularly disturbed. Patch leads are made with multi-strand cored cable, which is flexible and suitable for connections between your infrastructure and your network devices. I've always bought patch leads made-up and done my own infrastructure terminations. There is no economic advantage to making your own patch leads. The advantage of terminating your own for infrastructure cabling is you do want all your leads to be of exactly the right length if they're going to the back of a wall socket or patch panel. Single strand cable also works better for punch down termination
- which is what you do with telephone extension wiring to wall sockets with the little tool which is often supplied with such kits. Those tools are hopeless for doing more than a small number of terminations, and a decent tool costs more than a few patch leads. Telephone cable has the same distinction between flexible and non-flexible.
I had some plugs where the plastic core holder was a seperate item that you could thread the cores through and then trim. You slid the thing into the plug and crimped it.
Its not hard, it takes half a minute or so to get all the wires in the right order. I'd recommend getting a network cable tester, they're extremely cheap now. Check amazon.
Note that getting the wires in the same order each end isnt good enough, they need to be paired correctly, so follow the A or B spec for the leads. Both are listed in the wikipedia article, and various other places.
Agreed. Fixed wiring should be just that, terminated on wall sockets, then use patch cords (ideally with stranded conductors) to connect to the appliance. You then minimise any risk of damage to the cable you've tediously laid in conduit, trunking or under the floorboards, buried in plaster or stapled along the wall :-) As long as you use reasonable quality RJ45 sockets and carefully terminate the cat 5 cable you shouldn't notice any decrease in throughput due to the additional pluggery.
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