Extending cat5e

[John Rumm]

Its instrumental in getting to the question about joining cat5 in the first place ;-)

[Bob Eager]

Don't laugh, I nearly did that once...!

[Nick Leverton]

Far, far TMI !

Nick

[Tabby]

If this is buried permanently, the OP will probably want to run this network cabling for as long as possible. 100M doesnt mind IDC, but IDCs grossly violate cat6 requirements re twist. Who know what speeds will be reached on 5e in the years to come, but twist issues are likely to be significant.

Who knows what the OP stocks. But if he suggested soldering, presumably he has the kit & skill.

cat6 spec IIRC max 6mm untwisted. IDC wont come anywhere close to that.

Who knows what standard comes next. If I were doing buried joins, I'd pick a method that maintains the twist fully, its easy enough to do.

There's no need for heatshrink in this app.

NT

[Bill]

Yes, but unfortunately seems to be common practice. I have a volt stick mains detector under my floorboards, somewhere, and spanner in a cavity wall, using it a weight on a bit of fishing line. A colleague has a 1m SDS bit inside a 1.2m thick wall, he drilled as far as he could and was SURE if he hammered the end of the bit it would make it through, it didn't. So why not a Krone tool?

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[Bob Eager]

LOL! .-)

The cut-off jaws are the worst bit..

[John Rumm]

Cat5 with standard punchdown terminals is fine for gigabit ethernet.

That is actually doable at a krone terminal.

Put it this way, if it works on the patch panel, then it will work at the coupler since the spacing of the terminals is the same.

You don't require cat6 unless attempting to do 1000TX (i.e. gig ethernet using only two pairs of wire in total - rarely seen in the wild). Standard 1000T runs the same signalling (i.e. baud) rate over the wire as 100Mb ethernet - just it uses two pairs in each direction, and ups the modulation level to squeeze more bits in per symbol.

10Gb ethernet is next - although that's usually used for backbone apps over fibre at the moment. Whether its a requirement in a home is debatable with the currently foreseeable uses.

If you stagger the joins enough...

[John Rumm]

I have a 40mm wide SDS chisel under our downstairs bathroom somewhere. I was just finishing off a cutout for an air brick, when the bit slipped off the brick, the drill fell toward the wall, and was arrested by the corner just catching the nose cone on the drill. Neatly freeing it from the chuck, while there was just enough hammer energy left to neatly spit out the bit into the hole!

[Nick Leverton]

Don't forget a good push-down to finish it off neatly ;-)

Nick

[Dave Liquorice]

That's easy to cut a hole in the wall to get at the joints when they fail.

I'd go for sleeved (not heat shrink) soldered joints with the twist maintained and each join staggered. Overall wrap of self amalgamating tape. I would not expect to need my angle grinder...

[Tabby]

We used to say that > 10M networking isnt needed, and never will be.

yup, or tape them. All the options work really.

NT

[Frank Erskine]

Spoilsport :-)

[Dave Liquorice]

Quite. When you start to want to stream several different current and proper HD video about 100Mbps soon runs out of steam. Blu-ray runs at

40Mbps... planning for 1Gbps base level is sensible these days.

Ultra High Definition Television is on the horizon, 24Gbps, though it is quite often squeezed down to less than 1Gbps. Admitedly it might be a while before that is in the domestic market.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , John Rumm writes

Having done a few thousand, I can do them reliably, but agreed it does take practice. Also important to use a good quality crimp tool.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Ian Jackson writes

Very unlikely IME.

Probably not, but why take the risk? It's even more important with gigabit.

So?

It's hard to do neatly. And I think joining cables like this is a bodge. I wouldn't do it with mains cable unless I absolutely had to, I'd use the proper joint box and/or connectors for the job.

IMO, joining flexes for things like table lamps by soldering, heatshrinking and/or taping is unacceptable, so what makes it any more acceptable for low-voltage cables?

Hardly the point. "Pride in workmanship", heard of it?

[Paul - xxx]

I think this is one of those jobs that if you've done it often enough and can do it reasonably well, then that's the way you'd do it and would be the way you recommend, whichever way that is. It's possible that both ways are 'correct' and both ways have + and - points.

Good to have choices .. perhaps!! ;)

[Tim Watts]

I'm not far off saturating gig. My 3 year consumer grade homebuilt fileserver can at best, read from its software raided disks at 200MB/sec sustained (ideal conditions of course) so about 2gig. However the current NIC can't get to a gig but it's not going to be long before gig seems lame even for a hobbyist home setup - or a dude with a good media streamer server and a family with 2 streaming "TVs" and a load of *pads.

I inherited a 100Mbit to the desktop setup at work (outlying building) and, hell, after gig right to t'Internet for years, that really hurts. Never mind, it's getting upgraded soon...

And 95% of the content will still be bollocks.

As they say, you can't polish a turd; but you can roll it in glitter!

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[John Rumm]

I agree. What I was questioning was the logic of running cat6 or 7 etc. Since 1 gig will go happily over cat5, and most of the standards beyond that will more likely want fibre of some sort. There might be some value in pulling a couple of strands of that alongside your cat5 - even if you leave it unterminated at the moment.

You only need lob an DVD image from one machine to another to know that

100Mb is past it for home use. However for most home users it would be unlikely to be the bottleneck in internet access for some years to come. (I can't even aggregate 4Mb/sec down two ADSL lines here!)

Ethernet on TVs is beginning to become common. Many only have 100Mb at the moment though, which is adequate for today's HD content.

Probably more!

[John Rumm]

I can do them quick, or so they work ;-) (and that's with the right tool). Probably made a little harder because I only normally need do it on the "wrong" (i.e. solid core) cable.

[dennis]

I have seen (and used a few) RJ45 connector that come in two pieces. You can push the wires in the one bit and trim the ends and then push it into the main body and crimp it. I can't remember what make they were.