I've crimped some RJ45s for my own house, but always got wrong, and have to crimp 3 or more times to make it work (cut off connectors at both side, and re-crimp again). Any tips on it?
Practice is the only way to get really good at it. I did several thousand RJ-45 terminations and a similar number of punches into 110-style jacks back in the late 90's, early 2000's. After you've done enough muscle-memory kicks-in and you get consistent, good results. If you just need a few crimps purchase pre-made certified patch cables and you'll save time (money) and frustration.
- if nothing else, buy a cheap crimping kit on amazon that includes a cable tester and basic crimper.
- invest in good patch cable. the cheap stuff is much harder to work with and you'll realize the dollar you saved wasn't worth it. I've noticed the boxes (e.g., 1000ft) seem of much better quality than short length patch cables that you re-purpose. $80 for a 1000ft that will last for many years has been a good investment for me.
- cut off an inch or more of outer cable jacket
- cut off that annoying fiber string
- before you untwist the pairs, spread them wide apart in the order they'll line up: when looking at the clip side of the plug, it will normally be Brown, Green, Blue, Orange. I've memorized this order because it's the order of colors going from ground to sky (brown ground, green grass, blue sky, orange sun).
- now untwist the pairs, solid color goes on the left, striped color on the right.
- green striped wire is the exception that gets separated from its pair; move it between the blue and orange wires.
- hold the well-ordered wires tightly between your thumb and index finger and use a rocking side-to-side and back-and-forth motion to bend and comport with its final positioning. This lessens the chance it will mis-align when inserted into the plug.
- Use scissors or some other tool to clip the wire ends so they are of equal length and can extend inside the plug completely. after years of practice this has ended up being the length of my thumbnail, which is convenient since that's where I'm holding the wire as I cut.
- Put wiring into plug and view that wires enter their correct slot. Be sure to enter via clip side facing you (as that's how wires were oriented above. I prefer the clip side because it's easier to see that wires are entering properly.)
- Push cable jacket snugly into plug and rock back and forth to ensure wiring enters full length. Cable jacket should be well inside the plug past the crimp wedge.
- Crimp!
- Check that contacts have all been seated properly. As the crimper gets older it will have a tendency not to seat the contacts properly. This is a sign that it's time to invest in a new $10 crimper.
- Check that opening side of plug has wedged on top of cable jacket and not the wiring. Cable jacket should not be separable from the plug. If you don't do this, over time the jacket will separate from the plug and the wiring will eventually fail.
- When both ends are crimped check with the cable tester.
I used to make a lot of Ethernet cables, but pretty much stopped when I went to Cat 6. Beyond that, you need to be careful to remain consistent 568B or 568A, etc., and it gets messy. Almost all 10GE I've ever used has been fiber, though.
Almost had a physical altercation with someone who wired a building straight through vs correctly. Amazingly you could still get a 10M link on longer runs, or a 100M link on patches.
(Not straight vs crossover)
- Make sure your wires are extending far enough into the plug, you should see the wire fully overlap the brass spades.
- Confirm you have the right wire layout by looking through the plug before you crimp the cable.
- As mentioned in the article, the tail part of the connector is meant to cover the tip of the cable's insulation to provide a bit of stress relief, make sure it's not too short.
https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~brecht/servers/docs/PowerEdge-2600/...
The link has to run in 1000BaseT-Mode to make the tools show any meaningful output, so have a known-good switch connected to the "other" side. I had used them in a distant past (must have been 10 years ago or so) to find the "best" links in an otherwise messed up building installation that could be reliabily be used for higher transmission speeds.
It's of course much less information that what you'd get from a proper ethernet cable analyzer, but much, much more than what a simple "yes, I can ping the other side" can give you.
It seriously looks like they're ripping off telephoneparts.com: http://telephoneparts.com/index.cgi?category=EZRJ45 (For example, compare http://www.ezrj45.com/ezrj45plugs.php to http://telephoneparts.com/index.cgi?product=EZRJ45/Plugs/CAT... ).