You can quickly make affordable network cables to wire your home or office. While wireless is fine, it can be less secure and less reliable than a straight-up wired network. Depending on your needs and location of your servers and workstations, wired is the way to go in most circumstances. To make this affordable, you should buy a box of CAT 5e cable, either in 1000 or 500 feet lengths. It will come in a spool or in a box that makes running lines easy. You will also need a set of crimpers and bag of connectors for the ends.
What Type of Cable Should You Use?
You can by the cable with a solid core or stranded core. Both have four pairs of wires, but the stranded variety has tiny wires woven together to make a single wire. This allows for flexibility and can should be used if your run has a lot of turns. The solid core is cheaper, but cannot take a lot of bending and pulling before it breaks. Get the solid core unless you plan on getting creative with your lines.
The image above shows the end of a cbale that has been stripped. The crimper will have everything you need for removing the shielding. When you first do that, you will find eight wires (four pairs). Untwist them and arrange them in the following manner:
Orange-white
Orange
Green-white
Blue
Blue-white
Green
Brown-white
Brown
You will then trim them so that they are equal length. Next, hold the plug connector so that the tab is facing down and insert the wires into the plug, being careful they do not lose their order as listed above. The plastic casing should be inside of the plug, as well. If any of the wires are visible outside of the plug, you wil need to pull them out and trim them down.
The image above shows a cable that has been terminated properly. You’ll notice how the plug grabs onto the outer plastic cover. You can also see how the metal tips pierce the ends of each cable. When you crimp, you want to apply just enough pressure to hear a crisp snap. Too much pressure might break the plug.
This final image shows a tester showing all green lights when we plug our new cable into it. If you do not have a tester, try plugging it into the network and make sure you can access the Internet and transfer files. It’s also a good idea to include a couple extra feet in your run to allow for changes in your infrastructure. For instance, if you think you might be moving your computer or server in the future, it’s nice to have ten extra feet coiled up in the ceiling to allow for that.
If you have any questions regarding networking or making your own cables, be sure to join our computer repair forums today.
