Making your own patch cables
If you know you have a big networking job ahead of you, you can save a lot of money by making your own patch cables. You can make your own by taking CAT-5/5e cable, cutting the right length, and attaching an RJ-45 connector to each end. This process is rather easy - I can barely change a light bulb, but I've been making my own cable connectors for years. To make your own patch cables, you need cable, RJ-45 connectors, a wire stripper, and a crimper to seat the connection properly.
You can buy bulk cable inexpensively - a 300-foot roll of cable costs about the same as two 50-foot patch cables. If you buy a larger roll of bulk cable, the price per foot is even lower (sell what you don't use to a neighbor who is installing a home network).
The RJ-45 connectors cost a few pennies each, but you'll probably have to buy at least a 20-pack - I've never seen them sold individually. Buying a crimper should set you back less than $100, and a wire stripper costs a few dollars.
Tip Of course, you can make your investment in these supplies pay off by hiring yourself out to install cabled networks for your friends and neighbors.
To make a patch cable, follow these steps:
- Cut the length of cable you need.
Don't forget to account for climbing up or down walls, running along baseboards, and allowing slack. - Use the stripper to remove about half an inch of insulation from the end of the cable.
- Push the wires into the holes on the RJ-45 connector.
You'll find they slide in easily. - Position the crimper where the wires meet the connector and press firmly.
Most crimpers come with instructions, including illustrations, to explain exactly how to crimp the connector. Most crimpers can handle a variety of connector sizes (for example, your crimper can also probably make regular telephone wire connectors, called RJ-11 connectors), so make sure you use the position marked for RJ-45 connectors. - Repeat Steps 2 through 4 for the other end of the cable.
In this tutorial:
- Installing Ethernet Cable
- Ready, Set, Run
- Ethernet cable has many aliases
- Concerning the concentrator
- Deciding Where to Put the Concentrator
- Concentrators are environmentally fussy
- Concentrators are innately powerless
- Distance Depends on What You Choose to Measure
- Handling Cable Correctly
- Connecting two patch cables
- Making your own patch cables
- The Chase Is On: Running the Cable
- Cabling within a room
- Cabling between adjacent rooms
- Cabling between nonadjacent rooms on the same floor
- Keeping your drill holes in the closet
- Cable that's all walled up
- Cabling between Floors
- Adding cable faceplates
- Using floor cable covers
- Curing Your Network's Growing Pains
- Don't add another router
- Getting into the Zone