How To Make a CAT 5 Cable

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Shane
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How To Make a CAT 5 Cable

Post by Shane » Thu Sep 03, 2009 5:20 am

Category 5 cable, is a twisted pair high signal integrity cable type often referred to as Cat5. Most cables are unshielded relying on the twisted pair design for noise rejection, and some are shielded. Category 5 has been superseded by the Category 5e specification structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet, and is also used to carry many other signals such as basic voice services, token ring, and ATM (at up to 155 Mbit/s, over short distances).
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All too often I need to make a CAT 5 cable. Here is how to make one. First off, there are two standards for CAT5, honestly I see no difference between them other than what color pair is used in what order. I have used EIA/TIA-568A cables in a EIA/TIA-568B wiring system with no problems.
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TIA/EIA 568B
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TIA/EIA 568A
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Honestly, I really don't think the electrons flowing through the wires can actually see the color of the insulation! What is important though is that you use the the same standard on one piece of cable. In other words, you can't wire one end using T568A and the other end T568B. This won't work!

Most Places use T568B wiring.

Patch Cable
The following diagram is for wiring a CAT 5 connector for a typical patch cable, This view is with the locking tab away from you, and with the gold contacts toward you. Put one of these on each end of the cable. i.e.: Use 568B on boh ends OR 568A on both other.

Another term for this is a "straight through" cable. They are used when hooking up a computer to a hub, or switch.
EIA568B.jpg
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EIA568A.jpg
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Crossover Cable
If you need to connect two computers, or two hubs / switches, you would use a crossover cable for that. To make a crossover cable, put a connector like the diagram above on one end, then put the othr type of connector on the other end. i.e.: Use 568A on one end and 568B on the other.


There are also a couple of things to keep in mind when making CAT 5 cables.
  1. Don't remove any more of the outer jacket than you have to.
  2. The un-twisted part of the wire that will go into the RJ-45 connector cannot exceed 1/2".
The first image has too much of the jacket taken off. Then the other is correct.
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cat_5_good_strip.jpg
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The RJ-45 connector is designed to crimp down on to the outer jacket in order to provide some strain relief to the connection. All too often I have seen CAT 5 connections made with the outer jacket not properly crimped inside the RJ45 connector. This will result in your CAT 5 connection failing eventually. I have also seen where RJ45 connections have exceeded the 1/2 inch rule above. This results in bad data transmission, and will cause your network to perform badly.

The first image is an example of an RJ-45 connector properly crimped on the jacket. I have marked the strain relief on the connector. The jacket of the cable needs to be crimped by the strain relief. The other image is an example of an improperly crimped RJ-45 connector.
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cat_5_correct_crimp.jpg
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In order to put RJ-45 connectors on to CAT 5 cable, you need some tool that are specific to the task. I picked up my network tools from BuyTipTop.com.
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Face
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Re: How To Make a CAT 5 Cable

Post by Face » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:35 pm

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AijuC8N ... re=related[/media]
Pansophic
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Re: How To Make a CAT 5 Cable

Post by Pansophic » Tue Mar 01, 2011 3:23 pm

I knew this already, I love to make them :)
thanks for posting it here though.
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