How To - Make your own CAT5 Patch Cables.

[Cirga]

I thought this would be good to have here for any of you who want to make your own cables. I make all of mine.. its less expensive, and you can make them "any" length and not worry about it being long enough. The ones you purchase from the stores just arent very modular when setting up all your computers.

What do you need in order to make a CAT5 Straight Through (Patch) Cable?

Either purchase or borrow a friends Modular Plug Crimp Tool.

It looks like this:



Go to your local electronics store (call ahead if need be). You will need RJ45 Jacks RJ=Registered Jack's. Get a little bag of them so you have plenty to work with. Then purchase CAT5 Cable. YOu can either go gung ho and purchase a large box or you can get a spool of it. All depends on how much cabling you plan on doing.

Here is what the RJ45 Jack's look like:



Once you have all of those decide what you need and map it out. Measure some lengths of where you are stretching cable to. Remember you will need one cable per NIC to NIC connection. (Computer to Router) etc. Always give yourself an extra 5 or 6 inches when measuring.

The first thing you need to do is strip the casing off of the CAT5 cabling. Use the Crimpers you have to do this. There is an area towards the back of it where you can place the wire and strip it. This pulls off the plastic coating without cutting any of the internal wires. Once you have stripped it you will see something like this:



There are 4 pairs of wire inside the cable. A stripe and solid of each color displayed above.

If you didnt notice the RJ45 Jack has 8 pins. Which means you need to line up all 8 wires in the proper order side by side and slide them into that Jack.

I always proceed by untwisting them all, Straightening them out, and then arranging them in the proper order while holding them between my thumb and finger. The following chart shows you how to arrange them properly. Remember we are making a Straight-through cable. Not a Crossover.

.

Order from Left to Right is: Green Stripe, Green, Orange Stripe, Blue, Blue Stripe, Orange, Brown Stripe, Brown.

Once they are all lined up between your fingers get a pair of scissors and trim them to make them all even at the end. Don't let go of the wires.

Now get your RJ45 Jack and hold it Tang away (the little prong facing away from you), and slowly slide the wires into the Jack. If you have them straight and side by side lined up it will slide in perfectly. Once the wires have been inserted fully push the cable into the jack firmly.

BEFORE letting go.. get your Crimpers. Insert the jack into the top of thet crimpers and grip it. Compress the crimpers as hard as you can. This secures the wires inside the Jack head.

Once you have completed this process on "both" ends you have finished your first CAT5 cable. To make sure its working properly connect it between your network card and your hub/router. If you have green link lights you did a great job. pat yourself on the back. You are now a true computer geek.

ho ho ho

[OSiRiS]

Good information.

Great one Cirga!

[berks]

thanks cirga now i can make some for my home

[Cirga]

Originally posted by berks
thanks cirga now i can make some for my home

Good deal bud I used to have buying the premade ones.. they NEVER are the right length and they are expensive too! So I had asked my brother who is a network admin to teach me how to make them. I think the only reason everyone doenst make their own is because they are somewhat afraid of breaking something or it just being a mess. Once you have done one cable the rest are smooth sailing.

[RipperRoo]

nice on m8 , real solid info .
makes me want to rush out and buy a 100 meter spool of cat 5 and redo all my cables
whats next , how to install network sockets? (hint hint )

[Cirga]

Originally posted by RipperRoo
nice on m8 , real solid info .
makes me want to rush out and buy a 100 meter spool of cat 5 and redo all my cables
whats next , how to install network sockets? (hint hint )

Ooo *rubs hands together*

Guess I have some work to do

[NUTNDUN]

Hey how come this isn't an article in the how-to section? hint...hint

[Dr. Avery]

Thanks for the information.

I was in need of a crossover cable for my home network. Now that I've got this cable thing down, all I need to do is try and talk the manager into letting me go drill crazy on my apartment. It would be better still to go drill happy on the whole complex and set up a community network, but I don't think they'll let me do that...

A friend of mine set up a building wide network in his apartment building in Seattle (drilling and all). Then he purchased a connection and became the I.S.P. for his building. Funny thing was, even though he was turning a profit, his customers - er neighbors - were getting sweet bandwidth at really cheap prices.

[RipperRoo]

Originally posted by Dr. Avery


A friend of mine set up a building wide network in his apartment building in Seattle (drilling and all). Then he purchased a connection and became the I.S.P. for his building. Funny thing was, even though he was turning a profit, his customers - er neighbors - were getting sweet bandwidth at really cheap prices.

I give a neighbour internet access via my local area network ,it pays for 1/3rd of my connection costs , and i dont miss the bandwidth he uses .
hope the landlord doesnt notice the network cable going through 2 other flats to get to his , we 'forgot' to ask him if we could do it

[Cirga]

Originally posted by NUTNDUN
Hey how come this isn't an article in the how-to section? hint...hint

I guess I should convert it sometime eh?

ACtually I wrote this a long time back... hehe thats why its not up there yet