Tips on terminating patch cables quickly?

[Zalazaar]

I am currently learning about ethernet patch cables in school, and I have made myself 3 so far. I can do it pretty well, but I am not that quick. Anyone got any tips on how to speed the process?

 

To show my gratitude for any advice, here's a double pun. (It's a picture of me with a twisted pair cable tie made of a twisted pair of twisted pair CAT5e ethernet cables that I made)

[kb5zue]

17 minutes ago, FourEyes said:

I am currently learning about ethernet patch cables in school, and I have made myself 3 so far. I can do it pretty well, but I am not that quick. Anyone got any tips on how to speed the process?

 

To show my gratitude for any advice, here's a double pun. (It's a picture of me with a twisted pair cable tie made of a twisted pair of twisted pair CAT5e ethernet cables that I made)

A cable is a cable is a cable.  Nice that you can make your own, but by the time you purchase the length of cable you need depending on the length required along with the cable ends, not including the amount of time required to put the thing together, for most people like myself it is just easier to head over to Target or Walmart and buy one off the shelf if I need it now.  If I don't need it now, can order it from NewEgg or Tigerdirect.  Sorry, law of supply and demand.

 

[Zalazaar]

1 minute ago, kb5zue said:

A cable is a cable is a cable.  Nice that you can make your own, but by the time you purchase the length of cable you need depending on the length required along with the cable ends, not including the amount of time required to put the thing together, for most people like myself it is just easier to head over to Target or Walmart and buy one off the shelf if I need it now.  If I don't need it now, can order it from NewEgg or Tigerdirect.  Sorry, law of supply and demand.

 

Well, I won't be using these skills for when I need a cable, but rather if a plug breaks and I have to re-terminate.

[kb5zue]

Just now, FourEyes said:

Well, I won't be using these skills for when I need a cable, but rather if a plug breaks and I have to re-terminate.

Understood, that's why I keep a couple spares in my stash box.  And looking at the pic, aren't those cables a little tight around the neck?  Would sure hate for that fancy looking tie to get caught in a door someplace.  Might end up dead.

 

[Zalazaar]

Just now, kb5zue said:

Understood, that's why I keep a couple spares in my stash box.  And looking at the pic, aren't those cables a little tight around the neck?  Would sure hate for that fancy looking tie to get caught in a door someplace.  Might end up dead.

 

It was, but I hadn't tied a tie with cables before.

[Kenzer161]

Only really practice, and finding the best tools. When my network+ class did them my friend was quick with wire cutters, I just used a pair of scissors, Find what works best for you. I also cut the outer insulation a little lower than it needs to be so you can more easily line everything up and when you put the rj-45 connector on the end the crimper should trim the wires that are sticking out of the connector. Remember the order for straight through and cross over and the applications in which to use them.

 

 

[Levisallanon]

There are rj45 connectors where you can have the wires go trough the whole  connector and then cut them to size after you pressed the connector.
I haven't used them myself, but when seeing these being used I can imagine how they could speed up your process significant. If you wanted you could actually put int each wire seperatly so they are in the right order for sure.

[mynameisjuan]

Some tips as I can cut and cap a CAT5 in 25 secs thanks to an outage that required me to re-terminate 1000+ cables as fast as possible lol

 

1. Strip the casing about two inches or about from the tip of your pointer finger to the second knuckle. 

2. Pull the string back out of the way (will save you headaches later)

3. Untwist the pairs followed by pulling them to straighten them out.

4. Line up the pairs in the correct order by moving and pinching the order at the bottom by the insulation (makes the next step easier)

5. Once lined up snip off the extra wires. This step is actually the one that requires the most practice because too long and the insulation wont make it into the RJ 45 and to short and the insulation wont let the copper reach the tip. So what I found easiest was to cut the wire at the width of your pointer finger. Remember when I said to pinch the pairs by the insulation, that way when you line them up you can just grab your scissors and cut.

6. Line the RJ45 up, pins facing upward, and put her on. Sometimes will be a pain as 1 wire likes to move last second but in general they just fall into place. 

 

So yeah, just practice and it will come naturally. Or have the shit hit the fan and be force to do it quickly lol

[leadeater]

On 11/2/2017 at 1:53 AM, mynameisjuan said:

Some tips as I can cut and cap a CAT5 in 25 secs thanks to an outage that required me to re-terminate 1000+ cables as fast as possible lol

R I P lol.

 

Cabling work is something I do not like doing, I can do it and rather fast but I'd never choose to do it unless I had to or had a good reason to. Not a job I'd like to do full time . I have cabled up an entire two story house myself when it was being built with about 25-30 termination points, not a big job but was worth the money saved in paying someone else to do it and not the way I wanted it done or to the standard I'd want (sometime I really hate data cablers).

[Windows7ge]

When I very first tried terminating Cat5e/Cat6 cable using the T568-B color code when I was 18~19 (just mentioning the color code for the hell of it) it took me a couple minutes per because the cable had a semi-hard plastic divider separating the twisted pairs that you had to chop off then get the colors in order. Couple years later I had to network my parents house with an excess of 24+ jacks for both male + female connectors and by that time I figured out what length of sheathing needed to be cut off so wires weren't exposed after termination, how deep the blade needed to cut to cut the sheathing without cutting off a wire, what way to bend the wires to cut off the plastic or other insulation inside the wire, how to untwist and handle the wires to mitigate work hardening (the reason the wires break off if you bend them too many times), and then how to get the 8 wires to stay in place once they're in order so they go in the RJ-45 without much fuss. I also had a couple 1 time jobs where I had to network some small businesses by which time I was terminating Cat5e in under a minute.

 

It's really just about practice here. You have to find your own way of going about it there's no absolute one correct way in the step by step process. Once you find the way that works best for you practice doing it faster and faster. That's my advice.