Best way to join (extend) a Cat5e cable?

[Mathew Newton]

I wish to move my home (personal) server into another room however whilst I took advantage of a complete house restoration to install Cat5e cabling I now find that the socket in the new room is not in the best position for the intended layout. I don't really want to run a long patch cable across/around the room to this socket, purely for aesthetic reasons.

Fortunately the new room is currently being redecorated hence the carpet is up and I have full access to under the floor. Hence, if acceptable, I am able to install a new RJ45 socket on the opposite wall and extend the original cable to it (blanking off the original socket as there's only the one cable running to this one).

The cable is solid core UTP and is perhaps no more than 20m in length. It is currently supporting a 100mbps network.

What would be the best way to extend the cable? I was considering soldering/heatshrinking as opposed to fitting plugs and using a coupler. Is this a bad idea? Unfortunately running a new cable is unlikely to be an acceptable option.

Any suggestions/advice?

Mathew

P.S. Bugger - there is also a telephone and TV aerial outlet too - perhaps I ought to move them whilst I'm at it. Telephone will be no problem (solder) but what about TV?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Replace the current RJ45 outlet with a double RJ45 outlet, and move the original to the new position. At the join, connect each Cat5e cable to each outlet. Buy or make up a short Cat5e patch cord to connect the two sockets (I have a 2" patch cable doing just this). This gives you maximum flexibility with regards to reusing the outlets in some other way the future.

There are lots of types of phone joint boxes available, or jelly crimps. Why not leave the socket where it is and daisy-chain another one off it?

Solder.

[Bob Eager]

for CS1386905

[John Rumm]

A couple of F plugs and a female to female barrel connector is also a easy way to get a good low loss coupling, It is also easier to maintain the full screening than it is when soldering.

[Duracell Bunny]

The correct way is to join Cat 5 using a Krone Hyband strip - otherwise you will introduce NEXT, attenuation, and all sorts of problems. A long patch lead would be acceptable from the technical viewpoint, but don't even think about solder & heat shrink, you will never get the twist rate correct & performance will be degraded substantially.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|P.S. Bugger - there is also a telephone and TV aerial outlet too - |perhaps I ought to move them whilst I'm at it. Telephone will be no |problem (solder) but what about TV?

TV is simple use F connectors

RG6FPLUG and one Threaded "F" barrel.

Commonly available from many outlets.

Avoid BNC (TV) connectors ( COLC - female barrel connector (to join two male TV plugs) they are more lossy.

[Brian Reay]

You are thinking of Belling Lee connectors, not BNC connectors. The latter are very rare on domestic stuff.

Also, I doubt there is much real difference in loss between F type connectors and Belling Lee connectors.

Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

Any or all of these an be extended at very little perceptible loss by careful soldering.

For CAT unshielded, simply sort the pairs out and try and keep then twisted..connect each wire together and individually insulate them, then conceal the whole join in heatshrink. Heatshrink is your friend.

For screened you need to join the screens as well..don't be too prissy about overall shielding of the cable. Yes it will 'leak' a bit..but so does every connection made to a patch panel.

For normal sub 30m runs at 100Mbps this will be fine. I'd be a little more dubious about gigabit.

Satellite or TV cable is similar..join the inners and heatshrink, then join the outers by twisting them into a wire (having unraveled or taken the inners THROUGH the outer braid first) and solder together. IF you are a purist get some brass shim or a bit of tinplate from a mustard can, cut it with scissors and wrap round the inner and solder the outers to it. That will be electrically far more 'pure' than any connectors..

Same for phone..just solder and heatshrnk. Terriobly uncritical is phone..

All other suggestions to put plugs and sockets in I would eschew: They are less reliable than solder overall, and a careful solder job is electrically nearer an unbroken piece of cable. Properly insulated it can be concealed permanently with confidence.

If you can' solder use small crimps, except for the satellite stuff..

Avoid screw connectors except for the phone.

[Peter Parry]

Finding BNC TV connectors might be considerably more difficult than avoiding them. Did you mean Belling Lee connectors?

[Mathew Newton]

Thanks everyone for the ideas - all much appreciated.

Andrew's idea of a dual-faceplate and stubby patch cable could've been good but the outlets will be quite visible being on an 'uncovered' wall and hence the protusion might be unacceptable - shame there's no such thing as an right-angled RJ45 plug (or at least that I've seen).

I think I'll go the for the pushdown coupler Bob pointed to at CPC - whilst I thought soldering would have been the best way to go (I'm amazed the pushdown connections are acceptable in this environment) by all accounts it is somewhat difficult to get a decent result without plenty of melted insulation. Depending on the size of these couplers perhaps I could make the connection inside the current RJ45 outlet - blanking it off with a faceplate - thus allowing the socket to be reinstated if required at a later date?

Telephone I'll just daisy chain as suggested - it only needs to support voice.

For the TV aerial I might go down the F-plug and coupler route - again perhaps inside the current outlet if there's room.

Thanks again for the ideas, I just hope I don't get sleepless nights wondering how many IP packets are being dropped... (sadly I'm that type of person...)

Mathew

[Brian Reay]

Electrically, push down connectors are quite good. You'd be surprised where connections like, or at least similar to, this are used. In fact, soldered connections tend to give more problems, esp. with age and temp. cycling.

The network protocol will cope with this. Just remember to vacuum up the dropped packets from time to time with a HEPA filter vacuum. An ordinary vacuum just blows them around and they can cause havoc if the get back into the cabling. Don't breath them in, or you'll end up as a Linux Geek ;-)

[John Rumm]

Another solution would be to stick a RJ45 plug on the end of the existing wire, and then use one of those back to back RJ45 to RJ45 couplers to join it to a simmarly terminated new bit of wire.

[Bob Eager]

Yes, that would work. I was trying to keep the number of connections to a minimum - there would be four (two cable-to-plug and two plug-to-socket). There's also the difficulty of attaching an RJ45 plug to solid cored cable. These little couplers reduce that to two; they might *just* fit in a box.

I should say that I have two of these couplers in my network wiring (where I pulled through cables long before terminating them, and in the interim changed my mind about where the termination was going to be). I'm not seeing any problems on those particular circuits.

[Mathew Newton]

work. I was trying to keep the number of connections to

That's very reassuring - thanks.

I did consider the plug-coupler-plug route although whilst I've got some plugs here I believe they're meant for stranded cores. Furthermore I'm quite used to the punchdown terminations now so may as well stick with what I know.

Mathew

[John Rumm]

I have always found terminating solid core cat5 into a RJ45 is as easy (if not actually a little easier) than the proper patch cord cable. If it is not a joint that is going to be moved frequently it will also remain reliable.