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Handmade vs. Commercially Produced Ethernet Cables
An anonymous reader writes "We have a T1 line coming into our satellite office and we rely fairly heavily on it to transfer large amounts of data over a VPN to the head office across the country. Recently, we decided to upgrade to a 20 Mbit line. Being the lone IT guy here, it fell on me to run cable from the ISP's box to our server room so I went out and bought a spool of Cat6. I mentioned the purchase and the plan to run the cable myself to my boss in head office and in an emailed response he stated that it's next to impossible to create quality cable (ie: cable that will pass a Time Domain Reflectometer test) by hand without expensive dies, special Ethernet jacks and special cable. He even went so far as to say that handmade cable couldn't compare to even the cheapest Belkin cables. I've never once ran into a problem with handmade patch cables. Do you create your own cable or do you bite the bullet and buy it from some place?"
While it may be cost effective to crimp and cut your own cable when you are making less than 20 dollars an hour once you are making 20 dollar+ just buy it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
We have TDR equipment and appropriate tools, but we still buy patch cables in bulk. We tested an assortment of ones we had made with cheap crimping tools, and they were all horrible. We can make decent ones, but it takes longer and costs more than buying them pre-tested.
Monster cables, dude, Monster cables...
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
It's clearly not your company's core business to make their own patch cables. It may be fun for you to wittle down your own toothpics from lincoln logs but if it's not in your job description it ain't going to fly. Seriously, just buy the damn stuff and do what your boss has asked.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Obviously your boss isn't good at making cables. While if you lack the skill to do something like make cables with care you're going to have problems, there's no reason that you can't make your own cables and have them perform just as well as the ones made by a machine in a factory.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
And I have never had any problem with them. Even on 50 servers running at full Gig. No errors.
I've spent many hours debugging things that ended up being poor quality TP connectors, but I've also saved countless more hours producing them myself compared to running to the store everytime.
For any permanent installation, go for the molded cables. For anything thats temporary, just pick whatever cable is closest.
And you're not guaranteed to be free of problems just because you buy expensive stuff, I've had problems with Dell PowerEdge switches and factory-made, properly molded STP cables, the RJ45 plug was simply too small and the copper pins didnt connect every time. Really odd, we had to throw away a whole box of STP patch cables for that reason.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
but makes perfectly fine cables from what I saw. I generally don't do it anymore unless I have a very custom length as pre-made are really inexpensive and over 10 cables I usually have to re-crimp at least one end. Does your boss have any proof that hand-made cables are inferior?
I've learned the hard way when setting up a couple of clusters: You MUST use custom-made, cut to length cables to prevent a huge rats nets in the server room. Buying precut cables is a disaster. I had to rip out and completely rewire one cluster because I made that mistake.
However, you need to TEST the cables. And not just by plugging in and making sure it works, but a full ethernet validation tester.
I've been very happy with the Fluke Cable-IQ qualification tester, which doesn't just make sure that the wiring is correct, but actually tests the cable up to gigabit speed to make sure everything is kosher.
Test your net with Netalyzr
You can certainly screw it up if you do it yourself, for example you could forget the signal directional markings and then the signal would not know which way to go. Why do you think there are Ethernet cables at $500/1.5m? You think respectable companies are just trying to steal your money?
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I buy cables because I would go through 5 - 10 cables a day and by the time I made them, tested them, labelled them, I could be doing 101 other things.
It's not to say that you can't do it, you can. It's just a matter that the amount of time you spend doing it just makes it a hell of a lot cheaper in the long run to buy them.
This is ESPECIALLY true when dealing with CAT7 or STP. On a 20Mb line (Probably a 100Mb link) the chances of having a problem though are pretty low provided you terminate it cleanly.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
If you get the rated speed and it's reliable, need we delve further?
I took a network troubleshooting class in college, and we had to test the integrity of data runs that we pulled ourselves and if they weren't good enough we had to do them again till we got our numbers down. I'm sure there are hundreds of data companies that would disagree with you on what it takes to make quality cables and I'm sure "expensive dies" and other nonsense like that really don't help that much when it comes to quality. All you need is a steady hand and lots of practice.
The musings of just another geek and his junk.
I think you have a pointy haired boss who can't do anything himself. Thats why he has other people do the IT. I've run into these types of people before. He's probably the kind of guy that staples the crap out of cat cable and wonders why his network is down.
I'm compelled to ask what your phb actually does for a living. because it's not networking
In the data centre, all of our runs are custom. Even in the lab and development rooms, the runs are custom built cables. If a "belkin" cable gets into the datacentre, it's lost.
Now, I'm not promising that YOU can make the cables, there's a definite knack to it ( I personally don't have it, I hate making cables but our datacentre guys are wicked awesome at it). I've ever heard of these magical special jacks dies and cable he's referring to.
Maybe he wants you to get some of these?: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9967991-1.html ?
http://www.bistolas.net
For drop cables and cables to and from client computers I normally buy in bulk. That way I don't have to make 50 1m cables or 50 1,5m cables. For "custom runs" I usually make it myself as it is cheaper than buying a cable with some odd length.
Why put your neck on the line? If you make a cable and anything goes wrong, even if it happens later on, you're blamed. If something happens with the Belkin cable, you can blame Belkin. Even if it isn't Belkin's fault. Especially after your boss has told you to do something. Whenever you go up against an authority figure, the best you can hope for is proving them wrong. It's better to say "What a great idea boss!" and buy the cable. If it works, great. If it doesn't work, don't rub it in. Besides, do you really want to crimp your own cables?
We had a contractor come in and rewire our facility. They ran raw CAT 6 and hand terminated it, then TDR'd each run.
Your boss is unclear on the tools needed and the difficulty...just simple hand crimpers were all they needed. There's going to be
an impedance bump at the RJ anyway...the cable's not twisted there.
As to making them yourself or buying patch cables? It's way cheaper to buy them (I like L-Com) but if you need one *right now*,
(or a custom length) it's cheap to have a crimp tool, some RJs and a roll of cable handy in the corner of the office.
For a 20Mb/s connection, I'd be surprised if it matters noticably(your nominal 1Gb/s cat6 job would really have to suck to cause trouble at less than fast ethernet speeds); but I'd be shocked if handmade cables are equivalent in quality to good, tested, machine made ones.
Doing an extremely regular job precisely is the sort of thing that expensive machines are very good at and, amortized over a bazillion cables a year, quite cheap at.
Wait a minute. Your boss is telling you to buy cables instead of toiling to make your own, and you're _complaining_? I don't think a self-terminated link of CAT6 will have the slightest trouble maintaining 20 megabits, but that's not the point.
Word of advice, take his word for him and nod. If he's willing to spend money to make your job easier, then keep that job!
Really, it is. And for a 20MB line, cat 5 will do nicely.
$500 for an ethernet cable? Some people will buy anything...
Sounds like 100Base-T since you only have a 20 Mbit connection coming in. You can practically run that over tin cans and string.
If you're doing a run of any length it's usually pretty hard to estimate just how long it's going to be so cutting the cable to length makes more sense to me than buying a much longer pre-terminated cable and either having a bunch left over coiled in the overhead or underestimating and coming up short.
For a long run, obviously the choice would be to make it yourself. Vz/brighthouse/etc installers do it all the time with coax, sometimes vz with ethernet. Your boss is being a putz by the sound of it.
HOWEVER: don't think it's more cost effective to hand-make every single cable everywhere. My last network admin decided to do that by making 3 inch, 4 inch, 6inch, 8inch patch cables from the patch panel to the switch, guess what happened when the switch died and a replacement was ordered, only - it wasn't the exact model? they didn't fit. Not to mention that he couldn't make them properly to begin with ; that is, insulation must be crimped inside the connector, all of his cables had the pairs hanging outside of the connector - no wonder half of them failed, and no wonder your boss is paranoid.
Sounds like you're not a moran though, so simply go for it. Cable testers are good insurance, of course :)
Perhaps this is similar to the commercial software versus open source in the workplace scenario. Some companies refuse to use even superior open source software because there is no accountability or support, which can fall out of various compliance requirements (for security, insurance, certification, whatever).
You've voiced your concerns, and now you must do what your boss requests.
I recently tried to dissuade my Marketing Director from trying to embed Quicktime videos on a SharePoint site. I stated my objections and then abided by her choice. I've got my best "told you so" waiting on the tip of my tongue.
For patch cables it's just not worth the hassle of crimping your own, nor is it very cost efficient unless you have a skilled cable crimper working at near minimum wage, while for laying new distribution looms paid contractors are usually the best option. For very long, one off cable runs however, or cables that need to take specific routes that preclude the connector being attached (think industrial environments), then I'll hand crimp as and when required.
As to quality, I've never had any problems with my hand crimped cables at all, even on cables running high load Gigabit, but I do use decent cable, ends and tools and know how to do a proper crimp. On the subject of the cable, do make sure get the right type for the cable run! Nearly all the places where I've seen problems have ultimately been down to the wrong cable type more often than a bad crimping job; the flexible cable is for patching, the stiff cable is for horizontal/vertical distribution!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I've never had a problem with handmade cables, but I have had a problem with poorly installed cables (eg too many sharp angles) - though you'd get that regardless of how they're made.
Your cables would be fine, but if ANYTHING ever goes wrong the first thing your boss will say is "It's probably that damn cable you made when I told you to buy one." It's just not worth it.
I've had pretty good luck making my own cables over the years. I've had very few fail in service once I got them crimped right. So I'd call it a wash.
One thing I've never had any luck at... Going against my boss. Whatever else he may be... Regardless of what everyone on Slashdot says... He's the boss. It's his expense account. I know if I was the boss, I'd not look kindly on having to argue with a subordinate over a cable.
Ask him how the premise wiring in every commercial building in the world is installed. They order patch cables from some commercial patch cable vendor for every run, riiiiiiiight.
Also, CAT5e is fine for what you are doing. I agree with the previous poster that you could practically use tin cans and a string for this.
These special dies, jacks, and connectors are called "CAT5" parts and you can buy them at Home Depot I think. Does that make them "special" ?
It really preserves the assonitic complexity and quality of the packets when they move from your wall to your router. Cheaper cables let noisy bits through that go all wobbly and clog your connection. I hear their new wifi cables are hella expensive but totally worth it.
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Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
As someone above noted, if you're making more than $20p.h., don't bother building your own. Your time is worth money. If the boss is willing to piss away several extra bucks, then fine - just go and buy the damn cable, or better yet, order it online and have it delivered the next day FedEx.
There is also an issue of accountability involved. Example: you spend $100 on a cable from "wireco" or where-ever. It comes with a warranty from Wireco, and if it doesn't, then it should be returnable to the seller "Compujunk" for replacement. If you build it yourself, then it's your wages spread over the time it takes to build it PLUS the money spent on the raw materials. The raw materials may be from Wireco, but their functionality is mediated by your labour on them as cables. So, if it fails or doesn't work, it's the COMPANY'S ass on the line, not Wireco or Compujunk's.
So, for your own stuff at home, sure: DIY.
At work, go for the third party materials.
"Nobody ever got fired for ordering gear from RCA"
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
In many cases you have no choice but to make your own cables; when you need to run them through conduit, small holes in a concrete wall, up an air shaft, and other places where the connector won't fit but the cable and some fish tape will. I haven't seen any problem with the performance of a hand-made cable, though experience stripping and crimping help a lot. Be sure to get all 8 wires shoved all the way into the connector. The big advantage of buying pre-fab cables is not the quality so much as the durability (the molded connectors are harder to rip off than the hand-crimped ones) and cost, when you need to buy several score or several hundred cables.
Cables are generally binary - either they work or they don't.
I find that every once in awhile I will make a bad cable, and it isn't worth the potential hassle these days.
If you are on a shoe string budget and can live with potential flakiness then by all means make your own.
We have a roll of bulk cable for when location X needs a network run Right Now. I route it, cut to length, and terminate it. I'm pretty good.
I don't have a TDR, so I run 200M of data at the target link speed. If it isn't good enough (i.e. more than 10% away from my target throughput rate), I reterminate the cable. If it still isn't good enough, I pull new cable.
This is for those projects where waiting a week for a shipment of manufactured cable won't do. For anything else, you are wasting time and money by making your own cable. Tested chinese patch cables are cheaper than buying bulk cable, and they have a higher chance of working right the first time, and they're probably the right kind of cable for what you're doing.
Your boss is being paranoid - I'm sure you can install cable to handle the 20M link without problems... but he's right to say that you should look to save money elsewhere. I'm guessing you make more than $3/hr - your time can be put to better use than making a $20 cable.
Now, on the other hand - if you're doing a run that's more than 100ft long, yes. Make it yourself (or hire a professional installer). Long cables are stupid expensive - but that's horizontal cabling, not patch cabling. Still have to pull, route, and terminate it properly. Getting good connectors on it is the tricky part - none of the local places carry the kind of jacks we use (Panduit MiniCom - all the locals carry some crappy cheap variety of a keystone jack).
TLDR: You had a T1, probably at the same demarcation point. Why aren't you reusing that cabling to move the data from the new channel bank that's sitting 3 feet away from the old T1 interface over to the network closet?
Yes, you can use handmade cables that are as good as mass-produced factory cables. But that really isn't the issue.
It's just not worth the time spent to cut and crimp your own lines anymore. In my experience, it was a more common practice years ago in IT. That may have had something to do with the fact that there weren't nearly as many PC's or ethernet ports in buildings as there are today.
My advice: Find a good supplier (i.e. not one that charges $800 for a 6 ft. adamantium-coated cable) and do something else with the rest of your time.
almost a third of our core business is installing cable, CAT5 5e and 6 and even fiber, yes you can screw it up using cheap tools or bad wiring practice's. that can increase your "NEXT" readings, thats "Near End Crosstalk".
but then again, all my guys are union trained and make way over twenty bucks an hour, so maybe linzeal is right, buy them ;)
Due to an NDA I can't specify which company, but I can tell you one of the bigger search engine providers has no problem crimping hundreds of cables themselves (for gigabit speeds).
From my experience, once you have a working cable you'll have no problem with it quality wise. The trick is getting the icecubes on right and in a timely fashion.
I like making cables and as long as you use a basic cable tester to ensure all pins on each end are passing electrical signals there is NO difference between store bought and hand-made. I've never run into any issue where there was a break in the middle and this can happen to any cable--store bought or not. The big cost is time and I know most of us would prefer to NOT waste time doing these sorts of tasks. We are in the process of re-cabling our racks due to the previous admins being lazy about the lengths of cables they use (i.e. 50 foot cable for a 7 foot run) with APC patch panels and simply bought 1ft, 3ft, 5ft, & 7ft lengths of the snagless type...they work fine and save us time in this very time-consuming project. If we need a special length we will make one....for many cables...buy them... good luck all...
It's disappointing because too many of these have this format: "my boss at work wants me to do X, but I'd really rather do Y; what are the merits of X versus Y?" All of them need to be summarily rejected, with a polite e-mail sent to the submitter which says "within the bounds of the law, you need to do what your boss asks you to do whether or not you necessarily agree with it. If you cannot convince your boss to do otherwise, and this is a problem for you, perhaps you should consider working elsewhere."
Just pretend that the question is "how should I convince my boss that Y is better than X?". It's like asking legal questions on Ask Slashdot: the real question is "what should I know before my appointment with a lawyer?".
no matter how good he thinks factory-made is, chances are good that the cables get punched-down somewhere. And that is by hand, and never as pimp-tight as a well-done rj45 job. what glass dick has that guy been smoking?
THL phish sticks
If I run cable from my patch panel to my wall boxes (thru conduits) I connect them myself with a punch tool. In my experience that usually works well and reliable.
But my experiences with putting RJ connectors on cables are pretty bad. Too often I end up with problematic cables.
So I buy patch cables from the store, but in the back-end I punch them into the connectors myself. That's my winning combination ;)
X.
I've bought thousands of dollars of cable. Full disclosure, it has been BNC cable, and not ethernet, but I think my experience is likely germane. This cable has been used to construct installations of scientific equipment that gets reconfigured pretty frequently (and I've been the primary user on most of this equipment). I have never, ever had a single cable-related failure using ITT/Pomona cables. My peers, on the other hand, use hand-made cables and are constantly debugging their setups.
I spend my time doing my job (collecting data), while other people in my lab spend their time fixing problems. (Really full disclosure, I'm the only one with an EE degree.)
Good cables can be found inexpensively. These are the ones you want. Cheap cables can be found for less money, but these are the ones you do not want. Custom cables, unless you have high-quality crimping tools (the $39.99 variety don't cut it) and a proper means for doing testing, which means TDR and bandwidth testing in your case, just are not worth it for general-purpose use.
Look at it this way: how long does it take you to generate a qualified cable? Not how long does it take you to make one cable, but how long does it take you to make one cable that you will use, including all of the failed crimps, cables that were cut too short, too long, were miswired, or must be discarded, for some other reason. How many cables will you be making? Total that up and use 1/2 of the time to search for low prices on high-quality cable instead. You will be ahead in the end.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
With that in mind, your boss is an idiot. Back in my early days of IT I strung literally miles of cable within office buildings.
Using good equipment and connectors and putting the extra effort into making sure the ends are properly crimped will produce a cable as good as anything you're going to get elsewhere.
Bulk made cables are generally hit and miss. Some are good, some are shit. Hand made cables work about the same way, although someone with some experience making cables knows shortly after the crimp if its going to be a crappy cable most of the time.
In your situation, you're almost unable to avoid a custom cable unless you want a bunch coiled up laying somewhere which is arguable worse than just about anything you're going to do to it.
If you crimp the ends and it shows working with even the cheapest cable tester you are probably fine.
The ends aren't where you need to be concerned. Where and how you run the cable is. When you're running it don't step on it, kink it or knot it ANYWHERE. Most of the time these events won't cause a problem, but that doesn't help you when you start getting packet loss for no other apparent reason a few years down the road after the cable has stretched a little or been otherwise disturbed.
If the cable is going to hang in the plenum make sure it is well supported. Zip ties WILL cut cables given enough weight and time. Make sure there is plenty of extra strain relief cable near the end points.
Don't run the cable along side other non-data cables like it. Laying it on a fluorescent light can be a killer in an office building even though it shouldn't emit that sort of radiation. You can generally run a T1 and Ethernet side by side, and most other data cables as they are designed (at least modern ones) to cancel their own noise out internally so it rarely bothers anything like it externally. Power lines are also a nono, stay away from them.
If this cable is a stationary, install once never touch again, type of cable, make sure to use single strand cable. Pay the extra money for shielded if you're really concerned. Don't cheap out on anything if you really are concerned with it being a quality cable, and by putting in a quality CAT6 cable your 20MB circuit can easily be used up to gigabit ethernet, which will probably take care of your needs for a long time to come. If it doesn't, you'll be making enough money to not worry about replacing it.
Alternatively, you could hire a cable monkey to do it. I good service will run the cable, do everything you need for it to be done properly, and provide you with test outputs to verify it meets your specified requirement for its installation. They probably won't mean anything to you, but a good company will be proud to show you its testing results as they won't fear you looking up and comparing them to the specifications required for CAT6/GigE or whatever. This route probably isn't the most cost effective way for a single cable however.
With all that said however, I'm well past the point of laying cables. Now I am happy to call the cable guy, let him do what he's good at, get dirty in the plenum and walls, and take responsibility for the cable working properly, leaving me to stay clean, not have to work in crappy spaces like the plenum, steer clear of drywall dust, and get more of what I was actually hired to do done.
If it were up to me, I'd lay it myself in your shoes however. Custom cut to length cables routed properly always looks better than a bunch of premade, wrong length cables, and when you come into my NOC, the bling-bling is just as important as the blinky lights. If it works or not is irrelevant. :)
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
If you really want to roll your own cables, just cutting and crimping is just the start. You really should start by buying single strand copper cable and twisting it yourself. Even that's not enough, you can buy copper and melt and strand it over a coffee pot. But that's just the beginning, if you really want to manage the process end-to-end, you should start with raw copper ore and smelt it yourself.
Don't be cheap--if your time is worth more than $10/hour, buy pre-made cables. The quality will be higher and you'll save time. Find a reliable vendor who can ship them overnight in the rare case that you run out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-domain_reflectometer According to Wikipedia, TDR is for kilometer-long telecom cable run testing. In my experience, a dumb "how fast can I copy a DVD from computer A to computer B" over this cable test is probably sufficient to find problems with cables. If you want to get every so slightly more sophisticated without spending a bundle, you could load a packet inspector and see how many packets are getting retransmitted overnight, swap cables and check again the next day.
A boss that I had, he want that I made 40 cables, at the beginning for me was like, my boss is stupid, he hates me. When I finished my work he told me that the cables were too short in this precise moment I decide to change my work. If your boss tell u that u can buy the cable, please do it and don't ask for the other way because in the moment that u make a good cable u are expert in making cables.
I once had a boss express concern that the hand-made cable I was hooking up her desktop with wouldn't be able to get a full 100Mbit... as hand-made cables are never as fast as store bought cable.
I wanted to ask her if she was fucking kidding me?
with equipment that's not much different than stock equipment. I test these cables with a DTX-1800, they do great.
They're sticklers for BlackBox brand cable, I don't know if it's because the cables good, or the more likely scenario that instead of specifying TIA-568B compliant cable they have have to give a part number to make a "Typical". A "Typical" is a blue print for a cable. Remember, it's government, loads of red tape.
We also use Black Box brand connectors, again, for part number reasons I'm almost certain. For the Cat-5 stuff there is something a bit different than your run of the mill cables, it's the inclusion of black load bars that get crimped into the connection. A bit different than most connectors I've used.
The only Cat-6 I've made was a specialized connector with additional grounding added, so I wont get into that.
Beyond what's mentioned the only difference between NASA and the rest of the world is the use of really expensive test equipment, and the insistence that calibrated ratcheting crimpers are used. For test reasons I've made cables using my own stuff and put it on the Fluke, I hate to say it, but my uncalibrated out of the box $20 crimpers from Ideal do just as well as there $150 at minimum crimpers that are custom pieced together. At least according to the Fluke.
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who knows nothing.
If you will need to run cables through the walls and plenum than things can change quite a bit, especially for a commercial building. That is where you need to read up on code and the like.
Test, test, test! Every tests should be repeatable, don't consider it good until you have done so. Use your cable tester for doing the tests. Just because your notebook detects 1000 Mbps connection does not mean you have a good quality connection. Lastly, if you have to buy the tools personally, save the receipts as these are considered "Tools of the trade" and you may be able to write them off on taxes.
I've personally crimped thousands of patch cables and other ethernet lines in Cat5 and Cat5e. However, it's been my understanding that it is nigh impossible to field crimp Cat6 to meet specs. That may have changed, since the last time I asked was a couple of years ago. Cat5 and 5e are relatively easy, and as others mentioned, making your own eliminates messy loops of extra cable hanging about. And there's some satisfaction from making your own stuff as well. But Cat6? As others mentioned, it's probably cheaper and better in the long run to purchase ready-made cables from a reputable source.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
While I have made my own, I really just don't have the time. Especially when I need a few dozen patch cables.
Running to the store is great, but I've learned the hard way to trust only one manufacturer. Their cables are guaranteed for life!
Buy a few hundred 'Brand X' cables and a percentage of them could be useless.
Once that happens, you'll have a box of cables you'll never want to use. Just can't trust them.
Beside, who has a spool of beige, black, blue, gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red (crossover only), white, and yellow laying around?
Sounds like your boss has a pointy head to go with his pointy hair.
I can terminate an ethernet cable and have it working in about a minute. If I was more practiced with it, I'd bet I could get that below 30 seconds.
Your boss is clueless. Commercially made cables can be marginal or bad. Buy a Fluke and test them all. Custom cut cables are a pain to make for various reasons, and there is a lot of overhead associated with paying someone to make one. A good quality cable will take about five minutes to assemble and test, be sure to figure that into your costs. It'll take more like ten or fifteen minutes if you haven't done a few dozen of them. That said, custom-cut cable is a godsend in a dense rack environment, and when you need an odd length that you don't have "in stock". Anytime slack is an issue. We've been using the EZ-RJ45 crimps and tools for some time. These have the unique ability to maintain twist right up to the pins in the crimp, if you are careful. Combined with a cable tester after crimping, and a willingness to simply discard any that fail testing, we've found building cables in house to be just as reliable as the prebuilt, injection-molded cables we used to get for Cat6 cables, without the inconveniences of not having the right length.
If the cables are done properly there should be no difference between home made and commercially produced. If I were doing it, the deciding factor would be how far I have to go, if it's maybe upto 30ft and around a few corners i'd go with commercially produced cables. If you're talking a longer distance and drilling holes through walls I'd go handmade, that way you don't have to worry about damaging the plugs whilst laying the cables.
Blazing Spiders
In some cases, buying your own cables makes sense. But if you are doing a large job, such as wiring a network closet, pre-cut length cables just don't make much sense.
Making your own cables doesn't have to "save a lot of money" to be more effective than buying. You just have to make sure you are making quality cables that don't suck.
Testing is key. Make sure to tone them out, and do some Fluke tests and check to make sure Impedance and Insertion Loss are at acceptable levels. If you are running them to a patch panel, just make sure you punch down the individual wires as close to the sheath as possible.
But in the end, what your boss wants is what you should do. Fighting over this isn't worth it. But there are situations where making your own cables is better than buying, and vice versa.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
I don't think a self-terminated link of CAT6 will have the slightest trouble maintaining 20 megabits,
Irregardless of megabit per second count, I cannot self terminate.
You must buy the cables.
I work in PC Repair and we make all our own cables because it saves time and I've had 0 problems with them. As long as you have good tools and good cable you should be fine. I trust handmade cables much more than ones I've bought simply because I've had them last longer most times. Also having cable and cablemaking tools on hand saves immense time when you have to have that PC on the network an hour ago.
My experience also. The solid cable into the flex cable connectors fails under vibration in an industrial environment. It also can fail in an office environment, when someone starts moving their computer around.
...sold by Denon. I kid you not.
http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/3429.asp
$500 for a 1.5m Ethernet cable? The cables even have signal directional markings ;-)
I'm in the wrong business. I think I can make an Ethernet cable that performs just as well and is twice as long and sell it for half the price and still make a killing.
Sadly, I do own some Denon audio gear and like it. After seeing the $500 network cable I'm reevaluating whether I want to give the company any more of my business.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Don't risk your job over a friggin' cable that your boss pays for anyway. He will hold it against you big time if you don't "value" his 'sage' opinion about the virtues of commercially-made cables.
I was once involved in a roll out of a large number of new computers in a network in a new building with all new ( cat five (5) ) cable ,
all new transparent RJ45 and new crimping tools
In fabricateing the finished cable a high failure rate about ten (10) % was observed. But once made and tested the cable if given "independant cable strain relife" not a simple matter they are as good as any prefab from the shop.
I don`t think cat five (5) differs from cat six (6) although I have not met cat six (6) to the best of my knowlage.
Good luck
if you are running over a line as expensive as a 20mbit, and buying it for capacity ... why bother doing something bottom dollar like buying a cable.
Its like spending a fortune on a sportscar and then changing your oil. Why bother? Unless you think its a slight to your madskills or something and thats something for the shrink, not slashdot.
--- ask me about nihilism, I will have nothing to tell you.
If pre-made cables from a good vendor are available that meet your needs, then buy them.
Times they may not meet your needs:
*You need it NOW
*They don't come in your size and the nearest sizes are not acceptable
*The only vendor that makes the one you need charges a fortune
Examples of when custom is good:
*Temporary installations, and it's faster or a lot cheaper to make than to go shopping
*Runs over 50 feet that aren't close to pre-made sizes. A 63 M run in tight conduit and little room for slack cable is probably better done custom than using a 75 M premade run. Usually, runs under 50 feet can use a 50' or smaller pre-made cable.
For permanent installations, test your custom cables. Test your store-bought ones too for that matter.
For temporary installations or installations where it's easy to yank-and-replace if there's a problem, it's frequently good enough to just power it on and see if "it works."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If you have a substantial distance to run, a patch cable may not be the best option. Patch cables are (or should be) made of stranded conductors to make them more flexible and reduce metal fatigue. They are not recommended for long distances. A permanent link cable is made of solid conductor wire and carries the signal better at longer distances. Keep in mind that a CAT5e/6 ethernet connection is limited to 100M/328ft. If you need to run solid conductor, installing the data jacks is much easier than installing the crimp-on RJ45 ends and much more reliable. Doing it this way would simply require two short patch cables to tie the permanent link to your devices. My $.02.
Existence is futile
At those prices, you can't afford to waste time and your hourly rate to make cables by hand.
Cat6 is just... well... harder to do yourself and the standards are higher, which *can* make it much harder. That being said, sure it will work, but you won't be using it for 10Gb at the next rev like we did with Cat5E and 1Gb without those quality controls in place.
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
'nuf said.
But if you have to pull it through (say) conduit, or any other very limited space, then clearly you'll have to terminate (and test) yourself.
I was working as an odd job guy at a community center, I made dozens of cat5's and ran all their cabling. I got paid minimum wage, so it was a bargain for them, but paying a full time IT tech to do the job is probably a waste of time and money. Quality wise I have never noticed a difference between cables I made myself and commercial, just make sure you test them before you run them, and leave a generous amount spare in case you need to cut the head off and fit a new one.
Solid core has slightly better propagation properties (the 100M limit implies solid core for example) however it also acts similar to a wire coat-hanger. Like any metal it weakens as it bends and after a period of time it'll grow weak, thin and even completely break.
Stranded is similar to a braided rope, it can withstand constant reconnections (user area, especially common with laptops), movements (telcom closets when you're moving the cable mess to access equipment ports) and the stress that will wear down the solid-core cables.
Do yourself a favor and make sure that if you create your own patch cables:
There's nothing wrong with making your own patch cables, and it could potentially save you big bucks (compared with buying a $35 patch cable at a local store). However if it's not done right you will kick yourself down the road -- or more likely blame the network electronics, server, network cards, or whatever you normally blame. :)
We buy em for several reasons, one being we do thousands of lines here a year and don't have the time or people to roll our own.
The other major factor I haven't read here (coulda missed) is warranties. If we have a cable issue our supplier will fix it asap. Doesn't happen a lot but when it has it works great. They test em provide the results and away we go. I'd rather not have bad cables in an office made buy a guy that no longer works here.
Like anything go cheap (either cheap supplier or cheap tools to build your own) and you get what you pay for. I don't care enough either way to go against what my boss says for cables. He says buy I buy. He says make I make.
We buy 5, 7, and 10' patch cables in bulk.
If we need anything longer or shorter we'll make it ourselves.
For cables that are circulated to the public (university library), we have our student workers fix the ends on them a couple of times then pitch them and replace them.
I ran CAT 6 cable though my house a couple of years ago (pictures). All of the cables were custom made by me and test at gigabit speed. Testing was done by dragging a box with a gigabit NIC to each jack and making sure the connection was gigabit. I don't remember the network speed test program I used but the test was actual transfer speed. This was my first time making cables and let's just say I didn't spend over $50 on the crimping tool and the punch-down tool was the free one that came with the jacks.
That being said, if your boss says do it his way and he'll give you the budget to do it that way, salute and say "Yes sir." Doing it yourself means that, at best, you proved your boss wrong. Not a good career move. If anything goes wrong (even if it's not your fault like a squirrel chews through a cable) it will be your fault for not doing what your boss said.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Best advice I've ever heard on cabling:
If you have to drill holes to run it, make your own. If you don't buy it premade.
Second best advice:
Test it all. Even if it comes in a shrink wrap package.
-- $G
I agree with most of the people here. Making your own cable takes time. If you need to make 1 or two, in that many weeks, then go ahead, else, they are not that expensive, just buy them...
Reading the original post. He is needing a connection from the ISP's box to the server. A 20 Mbit connection, not a 10Ge connection. A hand crimped Cat-5 job can handle this connection. I've even run ADSL at 20 MB/s over cat-3 (my former days working for a telcom/isp).
This principle of going with the provider you can sue over the one you can rely on is becoming far too prevalent.
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with Belkin, and I think in this situation the pre-made cables are the better option.
However, in a more general sense, I'd prefer that my systems didn't go down rather than being able to point the finger when they do. If you are the front end provider of a service your customers are not going to be placated by the fact that, even though all their data is gone, you are currently seeking glorious retribution from the guy that solders the LEDs onto your motherboards (or whatever).
On top of this, when things go tits up at three o'clock in the morning - you can be sure the Belkin shop won't be open.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Well you already bought the spool, you might as well finish up the job and make the cable. It's CAT6, it will be fine as long as it works.
20MBit? Big spender there. Depending on the length, Cat3 with pigtailed splices should be fine....
You will have to TRY to screw up a hand rolled Cat6 cable enough to have problems carrying a 20MBit signal.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
You already have a cable for the old line, plug that into the new connection. You're done in 30 seconds.
I think your boss might want to look into a new IT guy cause you seem kinda dense.
I didn't see anything about how long a cable run is involved. Can you even buy a pre-terminated cable longer than 100 feet?
Are there solid walls involved? Bulk cable can be fished through tight spaces where a connector won't go.
Of course, if we're talking about 25 feet under a modular wall, just buy a patch cable and be done with it.
This post does illustrate the classic right vs. wrong approach to the office.
The young tech guy feels he is right because he knows technology.
The boss feels his is right because he is... well.. the boss.
Guess who wins?
Arguing with your boss is like arguing with a woman. Even if you win, you still lose.
"Omnis tuus capsa sunt inesse nos"
We have a lot of cable, considering the campus with quite several 4 or more floor buildings with three seperate networks, with redundant run cable. We buy the patch cable in bulk, but the long lenths, we pay someone to run and make. It is just cheeper and we get higher quality. Most people, without a lot of experience, will make crappy cable.
In God we trust, all others require data.
This is a CYA issue. Your boss does not want to explain to HIS boss, when a cable goes bad and the company is losing $large_number per hour until it is diagnosed and fixed, that he authorized one of his tech guys to use "homemade" cables.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
We recently bought a device that came with a good looking pre-made cable. But when we couldn't get it to work the only thing we had to switch out was that cable. I trust my own cable making a goodly distance more than some factory, or perhaps some guy who is making less than me...
Maybe you do not need to upgrade so you will not have to make the cables try traffic management. :)
www.exinda.com ( no i do not work for them ) but i attended a seminar once
What's the problem with running bulk cable between RJ45 jacks and using factory-made short patch cables at the ends?
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Well *IF* you have the TDRs and test equipment already to certify the installation, then your boss if full of crap. BUT, if you do not have access to the needed test equipment, then your boss has a point, BUT only that you have no accurate way to certify the install. That is the only valid issue your boss could have. Suggesting an individual cannot make a quality call is pure bunk.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I brew my own, especially the long runs, but the patch panel jobs I buy them by the gross lot so I won't have to be sitting there fiddling with wiring.
Before I buy a box of cable, I break out a megger and cook each pair, looking for variances in resistance. I tie each pair together then clip a megger onto the other ends. If the readings don't jibe, I hand the box to the clerk so they can RMA it.
No one likes a bad spool of wire. I've had two and one of them cost me dearly at a job. The first box got chucked into the bin. The other got handed back to the clerk and got another full box without any fuss.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
If you're doing a 100 meter run, your boss is absolutely right. If you're going a few feet, hand-made is fine. The cut-off point depends on your skills and equipment, and varies widely.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
I've broken too many tabs on the pre-made cables pulling them through walls and ceilings. It is definitely cheaper to buy bulk and terminate the ends yourself. Plus you will have the exact distance that you need, with service loops.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Is Denon owned by Monster? Does it make digital audio streaming sound better?
Almost all cables in a datacenter are hand-made. Telco's hand make the fiber cables in the ground and walls.
The cables pulled through the walls and to punch-down blocks are hand made too. A cable with no ends on it is faster to pull through cramped areas.
I've also had cables that were pre-made show up bad. Then I spend the extra time, fixing it anyway.
The rats nest it a terrible problem too. Safety, and tracing become harder too. This all leads me to security. If you have a rats nest of mutliple networks together, then it becomes easier to cross lines.
A clean, custom wiring job is way more impressive than a bunch of pre-made cables that someone threw into a rack.
If you take your time and crimp the connections right nobody will be able to distinguish your cables from any machine made cables anywhere. Not by measurement or other tests. I have had much more bad cables bought from stores actually. Cables are rarely slightly worse, they either works just fine or not at all. You can make a cable run suck but more often by putting a cable next to high power wires than by fault in the wire itself.
This guy is probably the same type of people who buy a 600$ speaker cable not realizing he has a much longer and thinner cable with much worse impendance and other values inside the speaker and is made of much worse copper than his expensive cable. This guy has a level of idiocy youd better not start communicating with because you can never win. Just buy a special cable for whatever it costs.
HTTP/1.1 400
The correct way to do this is to install jacks but not plugs:
Run your cable on the premises, and terminate it with keystone jacks wired to the 568A or 568B standard (use either one, but use it everywhere in the building).
Use factory-produced patch cables to connect the devices to the jacks.
Face it: we don't have the right bulk cable, let alone the right plugs and tools, to make patch cables as reliable as a decent factory can.
Wall jacks, OTOH, are designed to be wired by electricians. They are pretty much idiot-resistant.
You people still use CATx?
Fibre BABY.
No EMF issues, no physical security issues, no heat issues.
I took the 'how to fibre' class and the only thing it taught me was to get a professional company to install.
Get the thin glass. You know what people say about guys with thick glasses... Geeks.
AC
'Once you go glass you never go back.' - Stupiduser.com
Do not untwist the pairs any more than necessary.
Make sure the outer jacket is inserted into the end of the RJ-45 connector.
I can't explain how frustrating it is when I see this in wiring closets. It's no wonder that the entire IT staff before me was fired.
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
It's not jsut about the cost/hour to make them it's about the customization. Instead of having coils laying around you can custom make them to suit your needs. You can make x-over cables when you want. Belkin cables are expensive, but really do you want your server to have tons of coiled cable? This ends up making things harder to manage. If your boss is adamant about using belkin or other pre-made cables...it's his budget...let him have it. Other then that, as long as you don't screw up the placement of the wires, and you have the time to spare then go for it. Once crimped there really is no difference - and trust me, the only difference between your cables and belkins (other then price) is yours are custom fitted and theirs is mass-produced
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
my fingers aren't nimble enough to keep length right at the end and keep wires from being exposed. Having said that I have had excellent luck buying CAT6 and CAT5e from monoprice.com
You ask for a TDR to test the patch cables before using them. The cost of TDR and your pay grade may not make sense for your employer. But take that TDR to your local bar, and boy! What a chick magnet that cool thing is!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Long ago most every auto repair shop had a "ball-joint tester". This was a $40 device that would wiggle your car's ball-joint and show PASS or FAIL on a big analog dial. These were extremely popular with the repair folks as it let them keep up with their yacht payments.
The modern TDR is a very similar tho higher-tech gadget. It can measure and display fraction of an ohm and split-picosecond discontinuities. In other words, a yacht payment maker.
In case you don't get it-- the ball-joint tester was a bogus test in two ways- (1) It applied forces not ever seen in normal use, and (2) It displayed teensy bits of jiggle that did not matter at all in normal use.
Same thing with a TDR-- it applies waveforms never seen in normal use, and it can display aberrations that are many many times smaller than can ever cause any data loss.
In other words, a yacht payment guaranteeor.
When I can order a hundred 1 meter cables and a hundred 2 meter cables for around 200 bucks, it goes without question that my days of manufacturing patch cables are over. The increased price alone of copper was what did it for me in the end.
I would consider myself an expert at making cables too, but my days of sore fingers are over. Thank God!
Anonymous Coward
For a contract, we had to rent one of the high dollar TDRs, so we deceided to put some assumptions to the test. Many assumptions we had about cables went away that day. Now, with the exception of patch cables, we always make our own in house.
The first assumption to die was that a factory cable is superior to a field crimped one. Testing a name brand 100ft cable vs. a 100ft self made, we discovered that our cable was superior in FEXT and Skew, comparable in loss and NEXT.
The second is that expensive cable is better than cheap Home Depot stuff. Testing cables 50ft in length, we discovered no real difference in the cables electrically, but that the cheap stuff with the conformal riser cladding retained it's electrical characteristics better than the more expensive PVC or Plenum in situations where the cable moves, is zip or velcro tied, or is supported at points along a span.
The keys to good cables are to keep the twists unmolested as close to the RJ-45 or punch block as you can. Use good tools, not the $19.95 crimper. Test every connection (wether you crimped it or not) and document them.
Putting my money where my mouth is, We warranty our cables for 25 years, and have never had a valid claim.
They are made at specific lengths for marketing reasons. All of the "transmission line" characteristics of Ethernet cable have been solved for every length within the specified maximum.
I have a whole data center (~32 rows of 22 racks) fully cabled with lengths ranging from 100 meters to 5 inches (crossover between 1U boxes). They are cut to custom lengths, source to destination. Where their port is on the router and where they were placed in the tray add and subtract inches here and there. They run to the patchpanels in bundles about 7 inches in diameter. We have no problems with crosstalk, reflections, intermod and what have you.
If this were coaxial Ethernet we could have a fun discussion... but those days are well behind us.
So you run a hand-made cable from one room to the other and it fails the test... How do you know which end is in error? Or do you chop both ends and start over?
I generally found about a 80% success rate with any end. Of course, if you have the right crimpers, and the right tools, and and the right supplies - solid core vs. stranded - then you're already way ahead of my experience. I would find a baggie of ends with no hint which type they were...
How true. I got a few left-over reels of CAT-3 from work. Had the guy who built my house run 2 runs from :-)
each room to the basement for phone and a potential 10BASE-T network. I'm running 100M over it just fine now.
Probably can't push it to Gigabit, but then again, I won't know until I try
It's still faster than wireless...
If your boss is paying for the cable and insists on ready made. Get the ready made and save yourself some time. Unless that extra money is coming back to you, don't argue.
14:25:51: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
14:25:52: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
14:25:53: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
14:55:51: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
14:55:52: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
14:55:53: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
14:55:54: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
15:25:50: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
15:25:51: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
15:25:53: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
15:25:54: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
15:55:50: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
15:55:51: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to down
15:55:53: %LINK-3-UPDOWN: Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
15:55:54: %LINEPROTO-5-UPDOWN: Line protocol on Interface FastEthernet0/1, changed state to up
Is Denon owned by Monster? Does it make digital audio streaming sound better?
Why yes. Yes, it does ;-)
Denon's 1.5 meter (59 in.) proprietary ultra premium Denon Link cable was designed for the audio enthusiast. Made from high purity copper wire and high performance connection parts, the AK-DL1 will bring out all the nuances in digital audio reproduction from any of our Denon DVD players with the Denon Link feature connected to a Denon Link enabled Denon A/V receiver. The AK-DL1 employs high level tin-bearing alloy shielding not typically available in commercial cabling, to eliminate data loss caused by noise. Additionally, signal directional markings are provided for optimum signal transfer. Attention to detail when building this cable was used by employing high quality insulation and woven jacketing to reduce vibration and to add durability. Rounded plug levers help prevent breakage.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
You really want to use stranded wire for patch cables. Solid will end up cracking with the repeated bending that most patches are subjected to. I've made patches by hand with stranded and found it much harder to work with than the solid most people are used to.
It's definitely not worth my time unless it's an emergency with no alternative (i.e. poor planning).
-db
My father-in-law does commercial data wiring and has been doing it for almost 30 years. He hand cuts 99% of his stock and my wife and mother in law are his "termination specialists" when he's got big jobs to do. Just a week or two ago, they were manually installing ends on Cat 6a for 10GbT install at a major company locally. IN THE KITCHEN OF MY HOUSE.
He gets contracts and repeat business for being EXTREMELY efficient in his cable cutting and clean in his routing and organization in the racks and rooms. You just can't get the kind of "fit and finish" as I'd like to call it from commercial cables. Cable waste from pre-cut is usually really high, and a lot of other contractors just pull from the spool, whereas F-I-L actually measures lengths, pre-cuts into bundles for each set of drops, and has a few feet AT MOST of leftover cable on each spool when he's done. He has a simple integrity tester for jobs that don't require certification of the cables, and one of those crazy ass frequency spectrum testers that measure the throughput for each pair for the jobs that do.
Belkin ethernet cable is the Monster Cable of UTP: useful and sometimes good quality but overpriced as hell and usually much better deals can be found. Your boss probably got a hand job in the rack room from a Belkin rep, or he's been reading too many of Belkin's Amazon.com reviews for pre-cut UTP.
1) Set up DummyCo as Ethernet cable manufacturing company, setting up website extolling virtues of making Ethernet cables out of special cable that has to be connected the "right way round".
2) Make the cables as DummyCo
3) Open Monster Cable price guide and send appropriately large invoice from DummyCo to RealWorkplace
4) Profit!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
> You think respectable companies are just trying to steal your money?
Respectable ones? No.
As long as you use a cable tester, your cables are just as good as the commercial variety, and tons more convenient because you can always make a cable of exactly the length you need.
I recently bought a 100' Cat 5e prefab with RJ45 ends from NewEgg for ~11 USD. Maybe if you buy large spools of cable it's cheaper to make your own but if you're buying spools from Radio Shack it's cheaper to buy prefab. Heck, if I were running wire in my house from jack to jack it would be cheaper for me to buy the prefab and cut off the ends than it would be for me to buy them from The Shack.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Split pairs -- electrons may be color blind, but they _do_ know who their dance [twist] partners are. The correct wiremap is counter-intuitive: if you don't know whether you're crimping T-568-A or -B, you probably got it wrong. Those cables often are hard to find because they work well in one direction and poorly in the other.
dressing-out stranded for plug insertion is very difficult. They flop. You can use solid, but they work-harden with flex and become unreliable.
do you know the right plugs for solid and stranded and how deeply to seat them?
The smart thing is to find a good source and buy factory made patchcords.
I don't know why you'd want your ass in a sling for making a cable when your boss wants you to buy one... Every time there is a service interruption, you're going to have to prove to your skeptical boss again and again that it isn't your ghetto cable causing the problem.
It's just one less variable in the equation when something is not working.
I've had good and bad luck making my own cables over the years. I just decided it's not worth the monkeying around to make your own. I have a few cables of varying lengths in my car which gets over any major problems that I encounter.
Besides I'm not insured to be poking around in client's commercial properties walls and ceilings so I leave that to the pros.
-m
http://www.invisik.com
Something like the Fluke tester is a very sophisticated ANALOG device. Its measuring reflectivity and a whole host of analog properties, in order to determine that the cable meets the specification.
EG, it will tell you where there is an actual break in the cable.
Personally, I don't consider build-my-own cables saving money. Rather, it is some other reason (the necessity to be neat, an inability to pull pre-made jacks through the wall...) that is the reason to build your own.
Test your net with Netalyzr
I have been getting both ethernet and audio cables at http://www.monoprice.com/ . They are dirt cheap but also have been better quality than cables 10 times as expensive in box stores. I would recommend buying instead of making just for the fact that somebody might break one and blame you instead of their own abuse.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
A reasonable tester (not a certifier, but a good tester) is only about $1K or so. It's easy to make cables that pass 1 GB testing with basic hand tools. The problem is the time it takes, no matter how fast you are. For patch panels, especially, where you need hundreds of cables all basically the same length, just buy them.
We still test every cable before it goes in, even the store-bought ones.
If I'm wiring up a 48port switch, the last thing I want is to try to use factory cables. That will result in a real rats nest in the cable trough (or under the raised flooring). Our labs here have tens of thousands of hand-made cables; it would be unmaintainable if we relied on fixed lengths. Instead, our cabling is a thing of beauty.
Get your idiot boss fired and take his job.
What kind of cabling does he think is in the walls of that building? ... just a bunch of bulk cable pushed into some crappy jacks by someone probably less qualified then yourself.
You can tell your boss I said he was a complete moron. BTW I have some land in florida to sell, just a little surface water.
http://www.usa.denon.com/productdetails/3429.asp
That's funny.
I mean, a couple of weeks ago I finished up a job where I went into a mess, with a mix of premade cables and mixing A and B pinouts. I re-did most of the connections - by hand - and installed all new patch cables - made by hand, and tested every link with a TDR. A couple failed - turned out the oh-so-slight crosstalk between T568B patch cables and the old T568R runs was just enough to break the link so I switched those old connections to T568B and all was well.
I've seen articles which claim the crosstalk from mixing A and B only sometimes cause link problems, but I've seen it often enough to make it a blanket rule to always, always, always go 568B. 568B is supposedly deprecated but every cable I've ever bought off the shelf, aside from crossover cable, has been wired 568B so I always stick with B.
Most of the premade patch cables that were on site tested bad BTW. I've since installed a few premade cables but they were brand new and those tested fine.
If you're going room to room, don't go with premade patch cables. Get a spool of CAT-6 and use keystones (jacks) on the PC side and a patch panel (or keystones if the boss is too cheap - although once you do more than 20 jacks the patch panel becomes much cheaper so just tell him to STFU and do it right, and skip one appetizer and alcoholic beverage at a meal to recoup the cost) on the other side. Just hanging a patch cable out of the wall is really hack. It works, but it's fugly.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It's usually not worth it, except for situations like pulling cables through conduit where you can't pull the connectors through.
I once had to wire Ethernet back in the coax days. We had our own cables made, pulled through underfloor ducts, and terminated. But this was an aerospace company with a strong RF capability. Someone looked at the Ethernet cable spec, made cables accordingly, tested them with RF testgear including a TDR, and they worked perfectly.
If you make it, you must have the test gear to test it.
For medium to long runs, make your own Cat* cables, but for short patch cables: buy them. Exceptions to this being super-short runs (2-inch) or intentionally unusual pinouts (say, for non-ethernet usage like roll-over cables.
It sounds to me that this was a relatively long run, so it would be both significantly less expensive and easier to make cables as it is a typically easier to run bare wire than terminated wire through walls and over ceiling tile. It really depends on the complexity of the run and how you wish to terminate it.
If it is a short run, you'll (usually) get better quality and a lower price buying manufactured cable.
You don't make your own patch cables from horizontal cabling off the spool. It's different stuff. It's stiffer and doesn't bend. Don't do it. Install horizontal yourself and buy that patch cables. You aren't saving a dime if you work in your hourly rate.
Tell your boss that it's a token ring LAN, and that the token has fallen out into the room somewhere. Put him to work looking for the token. In a week, tell him it must be in the Ethernet.
Sent from my iPhone
Do you like your job? If yes, then just say "Ok, boss, I agree that the store bought cables are a safer bet. I'm used to making the cables on my own, ensuring proper length, etc, but for this application I agree with you, a factory-made cable would be the better choice." Even though, we geeks know that a decent CAT5E/CAT6 cable with a good 568A or 568B crimp would perform EXACTLY the same. There. Thanks for asking Slashdot.
640YB ought to be enough for anybody.
I have to disagree; the meat of the question is about Ethernet cables, not about whether the guy should be obedient to his boss or argue. I'm interested in the answer although I run a company; I have a big spool of Cat 5e cable here and I want to know the answer, too.
Your boss is ... wrong. With the proper equipment and training for creating and testing Cat6 (or Cat5e, or whatever floats your boat) which isn't that much, you can make passable or even excellent cable. It will take a while in the beginning, but once you can make a cable, and do it well, it will work, and work well. My first try took three tries and 2 hrs. Next time was 2 tries and 30 minutes.
Problems will come up if you don't take your time, though. Perhaps this is what he is referring to. I've seen people go through and make a large number of cables by hand quickly for a new server. However, each cable was poorly made, and had to be cut and re-crimped later because they were failing. If you don't need custom-length cables, just buy a bunch of pre-made cables. They're cheap If you forsee a future need for custom-length cables, you can still buy manufactured cables of greater length than you will need, and just crimp one end to what you need. It's still cheap, and will take less time than doing both ends.
For a 20 Mbit/s connection, I don't see why you would need Cat6. Cat5e is far more than satisfactory. Are you using shielded or unshielded cable? What is the longest run length?
TDR testing can be used on commercial and handmade cable to make sure it works. There is a range of acceptable values for TDR, and any properly made cable will pass TDR testing. It's possible for pre-made cable to have manufacturing defects, and if you buy in bulk, you might get some lemons. Check your cables, and clean your server rooms often. Tiny quantities of dust or dirt in sockets can cause mysterious problems.
How much cable are you planning to run, anyways? And why the Cat6, yet again. Cat5e is acceptable and cheap, as well as easy to make by hand. It's a part of basic networking class to learn how to make Cat5e straight-through and crossover cables. If you have problems with crosstalk, I would invest in SHIELDED Cat5e.
This article reminded me that I need to make a cross-over cable for my home office while I'm at work. :)
Those ones from Monster Cable that use gold connectors and platinum wire are the best.
THey're only $2000 which for a comapny is nothnig considering the benefits.
In comparison, with cheaper cable when you get an email you can definately tell that your bits are having their corners rounded off. Also bitmap images off teh internet seem greyer and more blurry.
After 1/4 hour playing with a misbehaving router I swapped the cable over to a brand spanking new made in China factory cable. After a further 1/2 I checked this booted and printed cable and it turned out to be a cross over cable, despite saying 'PATCH' on it. I reckon those chinese factories make 1 in 100 wrong just to mess with our minds.
Forget about that crimper. Bulk patch cables are easy & cheap to come by, they work and they're disposable.
Instead of making the run one long patch cable though, I'd have you run CAT5(e) or 6 cable between your points and install CAT5(e) or 6 jacks at each end. This has the benefit of looking neater, is easier to troubleshoot & repair and is easier to install. You just need some standard tools & a 110 punch-down tool to put it all together.
- Jonathan
Fixed installations get (solid) cable and neat but custom terminations on patch panels.
Patch cables (stranded) are best bought prefab and in bulk, not retail. One pays far less than $20/cable then.
The idea is that patch cables get the bulk of the plugging in and out and abuse of the office (walking over, rolled over by chairs, other wheeled things, what have you), saving the wall-to-patch cables.
Talk to any cable installer and ask where the actual costs of installing fixed installations are. Hint: it isn't in the 40ct/metre for cables.
The commercial ones are hand crimped also. So it comes down to an issue of cost. If you're quick and produce quality cables, you'd be saving your company money. But if you fuck one up, particularly the "right" one, and in such a way that it fails intermittently, well, probably better to have purchased patch cables.
Personally, I am a master at making cables of all kinds, soldered or crimped. I purchase ethernet patch cables though. I'd rather spend my time doing other stuff.
Seriously, Your boss suffers the IDKWTFIATA disease. Dont argue tith the jackass tho. Just waste the company money on a cat6 cable for a t1. Plus your boss will always blame the cable and you if something goes wrong.
Btw, a t1 will work reliably punched down on cat3 house pairs. Cat6E is a COMPLETE waste for anything except gig ethernet.
I have a cat6 cable certifier. You can make cords by hand that certifies to cat6 the majority of the time. Something that isn't cat6 compliant isn't going to hurt your 100base, you only need cat5e for gigabit, cat5 for 100base. You can't tell if you meet cat6 spec without the $10k certifier.
A lot of people put rj45 mod ends on solid wire (instead of stranded). Then when the wire moves it pulls on the pins and 'goes bad'. Premade patch cords are always stranded, ones you make usually are using solid wire. If you use solid wire from jack to jack and tie it down, then use premade patch cords made from stranded wire from jack to device, you're fine. Or buy stranded wire and make your own. Putting a rj45 mod end on stranded wire is a little bit challenging. Your best bet is solid wire from jack to jack, tied down, prebought short patch cords from jack to device.
I have installed literally MILLIONS of feet of Cat5e and Cat6 cable in various locations around the world during my career. After terminating, I always use a FLUKE tester, and have very few test poorly. I have also had the experience where the manufactured (purchased) cables have a high defect rate. So, I suppose it all depends on your ability to make your own. If you're one of the people that leaves the wires untwisted and hanging 2 inches out of the connector... better off buying them. If you can make a cable that looks at least as good as the cheaper manufactured ones, and tests just as good, I say make your own. It's cheaper to buy the bulk materials if you're running a LOT of cable. If you are just needing one or two cables, maybe it's better off just to buy them.
I won't try to convince anyone on this board of the merits of building your own cables. I would probably be out of my league. I think there is no single answer to this question that applies to every situation. There are dozens (if not more) variables that can factor into a decision like this. Many of those factors have already been discussed here today. You said "Being the lone IT guy here, it fell on me to run cable from the ISP's box to our server room so I went out and bought a spool of Cat6". Then your boss read you the riot act about how handmade cables are inferior to factory manufactored ones. Well you boss is clearly biased on this topic, and in the interest of job security, you may want to protect your job regarless if he is right or wrong. I personally disagree with him. If I were in your shoes, becuase I am willing to stand up to bozos, I would disagree respectfully and state that there is no scientific evidence that handmade cable's are inferior. I mean, its true that robots will cut the wires cleaners, and make less mess, and probably produce cleaner cables. They won't confuse the color combos after having worked a 36 hour shift either. Yet, even with all that I disagree. If properly terminated, and tested, they can be as good (in my opinion). If he is making a commentary on cost, then he may be right. It may be cheaper for the company to buy a 6 ft patch cable than to have a guy who makes $50 to $100K making patch cables all day long. But you have to be capable of making those one offs for special circumstances. Premanufactured cables, that are readily available at normal stores ( not online cable makers ) only come in certain sizes. Every IT shop in the world would be foolish not to have a roll of Cat5e, a bag of heads and a crimper just in case they have an isuse where they NEED A CUSTOM MADE CABLE AT 3AM. What do you do in that scenario? I could tell you some stories about specific incidents where this proved to be true; but nobody wants to read all my experiences. I've delt primarily with Cat5, Cat6, then Cat5e. Seems like most folks are using cat5e for common patch cables these days. There are lots and lots of things to consider like what wiring standard is one using? T568A / T568B. Did you buy a shielded or an unshielded spool? If your wire is going to be run in certain areas of commercial buildings, local building code may also require that you buy special cable that is Plenum rated (coated, whatever). Are you running Power Over Ethernet? If so, what POE spec are you using, how much electricity is your device requiring ..... etc etc etc .....
I can tell you that Cat6 is rated at 250 MHz and is suitable for 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T / 1000BASE-TX (Gigabit Ethernet) and is believed to be sufficient for the 10GBASE-T (10Gigabit Ethernet).
CAT5 is best suited for 10 & 100base-TX, although people do use it for Gigabit connectivity every day of the year. I'm not sure of their results, your milage may vary. It would require testing to see what their quality of throughput is.
Cat5e on the otherhand is rated to support 10, 100, & 1000.
There are hundreds of good articles on the net and wiki that discuss this topic in far greater detail and go into the electrical
The bottom line is that you have to make that choice that is best for your particular sitution!
But hey, I'm out of work for a reason, so I could be full of hot air.
Best Regards, Snorelock
Just put T568A jacks on either end of the solid strand cable, and use smaller length patch cords to tie things together.
Cat 5 - not even Cat 5e - is rated at 100 mbps, five times the speed of your line. Cat 3 is rated at 10 mbps. Cat 6 is, what, gbps?
So you strip a little too much insulation off, and are a bit sloppy on the crimps, and even turn a corner a little too tight on your Cat 6, and you reduce its capacity a little. Or a lot. You could reduce it by 98% and still have as much bandwidth as your data line.
What a retarded discussion. I know that most IT people are horrible, lazy incompetents these days. But I don't expect to see so many of them on slashdot.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
The issue with pre-made patch cables is that you never end up with the right length, so you hide the cable in your cable frame (or worse, let it fall to the floor). Cables heavy with coils clog up your frame and put unnecessary weight on the connectors. Next time you have a problem, you have to spend considerably more time sorting out your excess cable, not only adding to your troubleshooting time, but also risking pulling out or damaging the other patch cables hanging around.
Get the right tools and make your own cables that are the right length. Test them to make sure they are good. Also, develop a color standard for patch cables to speed tracing cables and troubleshooting.
Oh, and one more thing: Document, document, document!
While i don't mind making and using my own cables for short runs like patch panels to switches, I think it's a bad idea to run cable for circuits. My reasoning behind this is experience. When I started at my current position I had intermittent issues with a circuit to one of my offsites. The carrier was testing clean from smart jack to smart jack so they were passing it off on bad cabling (my predecessor ran the lines himself). During off hours I brought the router down to the demark and we still experienced the same issue ruling out the cable run. It turned out to be an issue with the carrierâ(TM)s card which was replaced resolving the issue. This is more of a CYA post as the carrier still could have blamed cabling. However having it installed and certified by licensed low voltage tech would keep the finger pointing away from you. You probably could have had this line already installed by now to btw.
He's asking about the long run, not a patch cable. Shouldn't this be terminated on a patch panel, or the like, on each end, with shorter patch cables going from the patch panel to the dmarc/whatever? Building infrastructure is generally like this, no? I say use pre-made patch cables to go from your patch panels to whatever they go to, and run the cable yourself and terminate it well on a patch panel.
The easy way to handle this would have been to have the demarcation point located in your Server room to begin with. Sounds to me like they went cheap to begin with by not having the teleco drop it directly into the server room. What I did at our facility is have all phone and data circuits terminate in the Server room as the main demarcation point. the phone company was more than happy to do this provided I supplied them with a 4" diameter conduit from the entry point at the side of the building to the destination. They then proceeded to insert a single 1/2" diameter cable to provide all my circuits through this conduit. On the upside I never have to worry about extending a line, and the phone company is responsible for the circuit right into my data center. from which point I can use any standard 20' Patch cable to reach any of the telecommunications or Data com equipment. I designed to avoid having to customize cables.
The 4" conduit still baffles me though.. it's so big for such a tiny cable.
That being said, as others have stated. Do what the boss wants,
far...out
My company does a lot of structural cabling and I wander if your boss knows that every single building that has ever been wired with Cat5/Cat6 has had the keystone jacks and patch panels terminated by hand. So when you plug your factory built Belkin cable into a PC and a Hubbell keystone jack, someone terminated that keystone jack by hand.
My advice is to learn how to make you own cables it's a must for a IT guy, but don't let this be your first try. COA on this one.
I worked for 8 years in a company that went from family owned to major corporate ownership. When family owned there was never a problem when I ran network wire or made drop cables. I was trained by an electrician who knew how to do it right and cared to actually do it right. I do it right. Never a problem with the stuff I ran. Go ahead a few years and now under multinational corporate ownership the call comes to run wire and a company of cable monkeys needs to be hired. I am not allowed to do it. I watch the monkeys. I point out the kinks in the wire, where it gets to close to danger areas... etc. I get a call from head office "WTF am I doing?" Making sure the wire is run properly, I reply. Then the conversation degrades into the head office telling me everything they have ever been told by wire monkey salespeople. I give up. I know to pick my battles and this one isn't ever going to go my way. Seems if a manager type doesn't know how to do it they all to frequently assume that no one can do it. (Or did I miss the kickback memo?) Good thing they ran two drops to each location ...
I've created hand made cables, and checked it using a $20k fluke, and the results came back indicating no issues with the cables, for a gigabit network. Not difficult to make cables.
I work in a large (2 1/2 football fields)data center.
We hand make all of our cables Cat5/6 and Fiber SM/MM. We do everything from the one or two cable installs to 6/12/24 pack installs.
I've learned the hard way when setting up a couple of clusters: You MUST use custom-made, cut to length cables to prevent a huge rats nets in the server room. Buying precut cables is a disaster. I had to rip out and completely rewire one cluster because I made that mistake.
And I wired three racks worth of systems by buying an assortment of cables in 1-2 foot increments. Dozens of vendors offer cables pre-made in those intervals.
If you were doing that and had a "rats nest", then you fail at cable management.
Please help metamoderate.
You could just buy a real cable tester and make sure your patch cables are to spec.
This isn't rocket science.
I wouldn't hesitate to terminate myself... er... I mean terminate cables myself.
But given that it's now "a thing" with your boss, they're going to jump on any and every opportunity to blame any unrelated network problem on your cable.
So now you pretty much need to let them pay for someone else to install this line and accept any responsibility for it not performing. If there's any problem with the line, you already have your own cable to swoop in and fix it with your own work. Just be sure to set up and keep this email trail on how you are conscientiously objecting to bringing in an external contractor who doesn't really care about the quality of their work since they can get paid to come back and diagnose and fix it later.
"...it's next to impossible to create quality cable (ie: cable that will pass a Time Domain Reflectometer test) by hand without expensive dies, special Ethernet jacks and special cable...."
The above is 100% correct except for one work "expensive". The dies don't cost a long. You can buy th tool for under $50. None of the other stuff is expensive either.
That said, Cable with the ends already on don't cost much either. It's just that it is very hard to pull cable with the.ends on
Also look at the fire code. You can need plenum cable.
If you are doing patch panels then use factory made cables. Most data racks end up looking like crap anyway. Only the high-end sites spend the money/time to make theirs look good. Everybody else, whatever.
I make my own cables for data and for T1/PRI termination to my phone switches. It isn't rocket science to make your own. Most of the naysayers probably don't know how to use a pair of crimpers or prep the cable properly. So of course, you must use factory cables.
Trust me, I see enough of these guys on a day to day basis. Its sad really.
One word. "Patchsee". Just buy them.
They have fibre in them which means when you shine a torch in one end, the other end lights up so you know where it is. They should be the only CAT5/6 patch cables you're using.
The nonsense in parent is right up there with witch-doctors, so, so far we have:
a) Nonsense
b) CYA
c) embezzlement, as suggested solutions,
BTW what a the bosses credentials in Physics or Computer Enginering?
There is no one answer. We do top-of-rack switch deployments (vs end row) and we hand make all the cables for a clean installation.
That said, we also keep various lengths of cable pre-made (3', 7', 15', etc) for use as patch cables in offices.
But while you're saving the company 20 dollars, or 200 dollars worth of cable, what does the company lose by you doing that for an hour?
If you're the lone IT guy and you're responsible for maintaining a T1 line, maybe while you're happily singing along to the radio and crimping away in your server room a technical crisis could happen and the company loses waaaaaay more than a couple of hundred dollars as a result.
Personally I agree with you - any competent IT guy should be able to crimp up the odd length of cable when required to a highly professional standard. But from your boss's perspective, that's probably not what he wants you to be doing with your time.
I can hand-make cables which will be twice as good as those belkin makes.
there are a few secrets. First, you want shielded cables. Get shielded cat 6. Get shielded connectors. Get weatherproof goo gel. the same kind used by the phone company for outdoor NIDs.
Also, take extreme care when stripping the shielding.
The biggest secret of all, take out as few twists as possible from each pair.
and length is also a big factor. the shorter the cable, the higher quality you can make it.
As for terminating in blocks or such, if you can find gold-plated copper terminator blocks, use the goo gel to protect the cables and exposed blocks from oxidation.
The biggest 3 factors are cable and jack quality, jack connection quality, and oxidation over time. I doubt you can find OFC shielded cat 6 though.
Let's be honest though, if it can transmit gigabit, it can transmit 20Mbit. Oxidation is always the factor over time though.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I used to do this for a living working my way through college. We used a high end cable tester ($1000+) with a screen that would rate the cable and output a pdf with each cable assigned a serial number. Everything we made passed. If you're pulling in wall you're going to have to clip an end anyway, and most pro / retail cable is not plenum rated. To comply with building codes you may be forced to crimp your own. Guys like me started the rumor that 'Handmade isn't as good as retail' because of idiot sales guys who would rather save the $2.00 for a 6' cable and have the staff make 200+ of them.
Coffee: The lifeblood of intelligence in civilization.
And I thought Monster cables were bad...
The OP asked "Do you create your own cable or do you bite the bullet and buy it from some place?"
Not "Should I make my own?", not "What are the pros and cons of handmade versus store bought?", not "What is my boss thinking?, not "What is your freaking opinion of anything you care to bring up?"
I was just looking at posts rated at 5. I can't believe how slow y'all are.
Here is my answer:
Both.
To expand:
Runs that I create (in the walls, back to the nexus) I make my own cables, they are all good to gig ethernet (which is as high as I can test).
Runs between switches and patch panels, runs from the wall to the computer, I use store bought ones. Pretty colors, easy, shield tips, I buy short lengths (patch panel) or longer lengths (so computers can move around a bit).
I agree that that's probably the primary explanation. The boss might reasonably also be asking himself, though, whether
For be it from me to take up for PHBs, but still, it's not obvious from the post that the boss is wrong here.
One final question: Has the OP asked himself whether this is really what he'd like to be spending his time doing, given the available alternatives? I've been through episodes like this myself, and learned to realize that there's no reason putting yourself though hell to save a few bucks or make things better for people that (at best) won't care anyway. Cast not your pearls before swine, etc.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
If you don't makes Ethernet cables on a regular basis then there could be problems, but over all they can be fixed quickly.
As for handmade cables being worse than manufactured cables, that's a bunch of bull. In our office we routinely make patch and trunk cables. The patch cables are made on a bench and then tested with our Fluke DTX-1800. I can make 100 ends and only have one or two bad ones, but they are easy to find and fix. Trunk cables are pulled from point to point, made, and then tested. Due to the equipment we install we use plenum rated 5e that's shielded and screened which makes it a bit harder to install connectors. The crimp tools we use are made by Amp and run around $300. The Fluke we use is 10K+. Expensive, but really fast and has a lot of niffty addons for doing other things like fiber and coax.
Buy the cables. Waste the money. Next, go into your boss' office some evening or weekend (one of the normal times that you're there and he's not) and remove any business magazines that contain "technical" articles. You know the ones - all marketing buzzwords with no valid information. It is dangerous to allow pointy haired people to read those. This won't solve your present problem but could prevent similar future problems.
To those who have bothered to run TDR tests or any other test requiring specialized equipment on their "homemade" cables and compare them to commercial ones... Did you try just using it? Did you see how much data you could push through the one vs the other? I admit I have never worked with gigabit however when it comes to 10/100 I have seen all sorts of Jankey runs which used the wrong kind of cable, way too long runs, inches of outer insulation stripped off and the pairs untwisted at the ends, etc... I can only think of once where I actually saw it make a difference. That was on a really long run, we solved it by crawling in the attic, cutting it about the 1/2 way point, crimping on our own connectors and inserting an old hub. (should be as good as a switch when there is only 1 network path going through it) Now, I wouldn't condone being sloppy just because I've seen it work and those connectors where the outer insulation isn't in the crimp do seem to fail sooner. But why bother with expensive cables and TDR tests? Maybe with Gigabit? Also, people keep commenting about patch cables. The original poster said he needs "to run cable from the ISP's box to our server room". This doesn't sound like a patch cable to me it sounds like a room to room run. What's the quality of a commercial cable which has been fished through a wall with the connector attached? I suspect much worse than a hand-made one which was fished and then crimped... unless he is really lucky to have nice fat empty conduits to run through with no existing wires or sharp turns. Yah, we all have that huh... But, hey, what the boss says the boss gets. If they never allow self-made cables in the building maybe they will give him the spool to take home??
If you can't make an cat5 etc cable that passes tests then you should find another job. Are you mice or are you men? If it takes you that long to terminate a cable same thing goes. "Professional" means you know how to do your job.
Look, here's the thing: you can make perfectly fine cables with some cable and a pair of crimpers. I've probably made and tested thousands of cables over the course of my career... I've wired offices, closets, data centers, cages, and of course, my bedroom. I think I've maybe had a small handful of cables failed in that time and it was from the cable being pulled on really hard. Other than that...
That said: If your boss wants to spend money, don't try to disabuse him of his notion. Buy the sweetest cables you can. And make sure to test those too.
I'll sell him some top-o-the-line speakers wires *cough-lampwire-cough* for half what these guys charge.
4. Cables you've actually tested for quality and throughput. These are the only kind that can be trusted, and the only kind that experts use, regardless of who made them.
If you can't afford a real tester, a couple of computers running linux with gigabit NICs can be made to serve.
That has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. As a matter of fact, I've had pre-made cables not function as well as ones that I've made myself.
They make certifying testers and we have one. I can tell you - that out of the thousands of cables we've made, if it passed the wiremap test 99.9% of the time it passed all the other tests. With the exception of only a few cables that were over 330 feet. (So keep distance in mind.)
Crimping your cables, especially with the new EZ crimpers where the wire passes through the end so that you can verify color code easily, is very reliable.
Your boss is an ID10T.
*break in nerd fighting
Your boss is trying to prove his worth to others by spitting on the peasants... We all know a homemade cable would suit this situation just fine. But if it were me, being a spiteful peasant ;), I would go ahead and order the "premade factory cable" in the same color as the cable you were going to use. Make your own cable and implement it and throw his "factory made" cable in a box somewhere and snicker about it on my drive home from work.
*commence nerd fighting
With all due respect - you guys have completely missed on a point. Warranty. Most cabling these days carries a certification/warranty. Having your own homemade cables destroys the warranty.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Your boss is just wrong. Most data centers are not run with pre-ordered, machine crimped cable. A cable company comes out, runs the strands, and crimps them with the same tools that you and I work with.
Someone explain to me why you would _EVER_ have a long-run cable with crimped ends? Hint- DON'T DO IT. Punch that shit down, ALWAYS. Then use a commercial cat6 patch cable to go to the device.
It's a lot easier to get the punchdown right - the tools can be had for under $100 and cat5e punchdown blocks aren't much more. If you're going to an individual/pair of runs you can box it and put them behind a nice keystone faceplate.
Where I'm the only IT guy, we have CAT5 running in the walls, which had been pulled before my time by telephone/electricians. You can not buy pre-made wires which are pulled through walls. You have to make your own ends when there is rough installed cable hanging out of a hole in the ceiling.
I have diagnosed and fixed MANY UTP cable problems. I used to do coax Ethernet and you would not believe the messes I found- ends crimped with large pliers- the shield squashed into the center core. But I digress...
The 3 major problems I've found with RJ-45 are:
1) improper pairing (the twisted pairs are absolutely critical!)
2) incorrect connector- solid-core connector pins on stranded wire and vice-versa. You might be amazed at how often this is the problem. Even a good TDR may not find this if it's intermittant- good when the TDR is on, bad when left alone for a day.
3) Just didn't get crimped properly. there are a LOT of great-looking CRAP crimpers out there. It's worth the little extra money to get a good pair. But even good crimpers can not fix the wrong connector.
It's easy to get packet error stats from software.
http://allenk.home.infionline.net/tpchart.html
I've crimped over 1000 cables for an HPC installation that required some pretty tight tolerances for performance. I had four or five bad ones in the whole lot. It's not that hard, and as the tags for this article show, "Your Boss Is An Idiot!" If you have a bad cable, you'll know almost instantly. If you have a cable that's not great, you'll still notice instantly as the performance on the cable will be degraded enough that you'll be able to tell in minutes of testing. Oh, and if there is a problem, first inspect and replace the ends. If that doesn't work, replace the cable. This is at most a day's worth of work (probably less) including testing. People do this ALL THE TIME! If your boss is still worried, email me and *I'll* come and install the cables for you and accept full liability for their performance. That good enough? :-)
I've ran CAT5 through the roof, floor, walls, up/down pipes, for a couple offices. Up to 400m of it. Lots and lots of cable. Still in use. I had no idea how to do it until I was given the tools, shown how to make and test a couple and viola. Took me about a day to get down a rythm. The hardest part of cabling is having quality tools to make the ends and figuring out how to pull it where you want it to go and doing it.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
If the Belkin cable fails, you can blame Belkin.
Except excuses don't actually matter when the patient dies, when the customer fires you, when the ship sinks, when the reactor melts down, or when the crops fail. You're just as likely to get fired no matter who you blame (unless you work for me - I will be more likely to fire you if you start pulling that CYA crap).
And you know what? You call Belkin, and if they are feeling generous they'll send you a new cable. That's it. They aren't legally liable for anyone's "blame somebody else for avoidable failures" business model. If you don't test your links, any failures are completely your fault no matter who built the wires. They are your links, not Belkin's, and you are expected to exercise due diligence, and Belkin does not warranty you for anything other than replacement (if that).
Anyway, what the flying fsck do you care who gets blamed? If it needed to be done at all, it should be done right. Businesses are failing right and left because of people who were more concerned about avoiding blame than about doing their jobs effectively. Well, I didn't get blamed, but I and my 3000 cow-orkers are in homeless shelters now.
Of course, the original poster's PHB is probably going to destroy the business anyway, since he's interfering with the technical staff.
There honestly isn't much difference between good hand-made cable and commercially-made bought cable. The cable makers get their cable from the same place you would, and it's exactly the same cable. You'll probably actually be buying a slightly higher grade of cable, since you're not trying to shave every penny off to maximize profit margin on the resale. The only difference in the two will be the commercial cable having molded ends while yours will have slip-on or no covers. Yes, underneath that molded end the commercial cable uses a crimp-on connector just like you would. Theirs is just crimped in place by a machine while you'll use a hand tool. The main thing when making your own cables is just practice. The more you make, the faster and easier it gets and the fewer bad cables you'll have to re-do. You also get the advantage of being able to cut the cable to exactly the length you need.
Now, two things. For patch cables, running from wall blocks to desktop and similar free-standing equipment, it's probably easier to buy pre-made cable in standard lengths. You won't be getting any better or worse than making it yourself, but it's more convenient and the molded ends may stand up to user abuse a bit better. And when doing long runs, don't put plugs on the ends. Run your big trunk cables to punch-down blocks, and your drops to keystone jacks in wall boxes. It'll make things a lot easier in the long run.
Patch cables are bought pre-made in standard lengths. These are for use in racks, from desktops to wall jack, patch panel to switch, etc. In these cases the time taken to properly crimp the ends and re-doing the occasional bad crimp is just not worth it.
Cable RUNS, such as what you're talking about are done custom in-house.
One big advantage is that the cable pull can be done much more easily without the ends in the way. You can abuse the end of the cable as much as necessary (including tieing it in a knot) to get it pulled then just snip the abused part off.
Another advantage is getting the length right. It's a shame (and a mess) to have to coil up 30 meters of cable just because you could buy 50m or 100m and you needed 70. The alternative would be to measure the length you need and have someone else custom the cable 'professionally' for you. The problem is that you're now doing the pull twice (once with string to measure and then again with the custom cable) and the 'professional' cable will come from some guy doing exactly what you were going to do. It's not like it's rocket surgery and he may have no more experience than you do. Further, he doesn't have the sure knowledge that he'll be at the office till 3 A.M. if it goes bad to encourage him to do it well.
Further, if you buy pre-made of have it "professionally" made, you have to be extra careful not to abuse the end of the cable when you pull it. Most likely, you'll tie the pull string near the end as tightly as you can, and then when it comes out the other end, you'll find that it slipped and all of the pulling force has been supported by the connector pulling through the crimp. If the end didn't actually come off, it's probably worse than even an amateurish crimp by now. Either that, or the connector has caught on absolutely every obstruction along the path and so is similarly damaged. Covering it over with tape will help but not eliminate the problem.
I've never had a problem with a hand made cable that didn't show up right away with a tester and couldn't be solved by snipping the end off and trying again.
Big tip for getting a clean crimp: Strip off a little too much outer insulation, get all your conductors lined up in the connector, then pull it back out holding the conductors in alignment between your thumb and index finger. Now snip the excess off squarely and re-insert into the plug. If the outer sheath doesn't go neatly into the connector, nip off a bit more. You now have a nice professionally made cable (you are, after all, a networking professional and you made the cable).
The only actual difference is who does the testing.
This is what you need!
That is all.
It matters because the pairs are twisted with different step, resulting in difference in length of pairs, resulting in length restrictions. That limits length before all electrical theory does. However, if you cut long cable in the middle and solder pairs so to compensate length difference then it would work at three times longer distances than standards say. PS: Tested, confirmed.
We have a T1 line coming into our satellite office
Strap a cart onto it and you'll have a space elevator!
How long is the run? Why is the ISPs box NOT in your server room? Isn't there a current Cat 5 or better cable run from that ISP to your server room? (sorry if any of these were already answered, I didn't see them) As stated above, YES you can make a good quality Cat5e or even Cat6 cable. A cheap tester is ok, but you won't know if any cable you've "made" is actaully good unless you've got an EXPENSIVE tester like a fluke.
As a network engineer my advice is to always buy network cables, with the one exception being when you need a custom cable.
For example, I was doing some testing that required two routers to be connected using a cross-over T1 cable. Of course, this isn't something we had on hand at the time, but we did have CAT5 cable, RJ45 ends, and a crimper. So I found the pinouts online and created what I needed.
The time that it takes you to cut, insert wires, crimp, test, and repeat (if you made a mistake), is time that you could be doing something else.
The (cost of the materials + salary cost + oportunity costs) > (cost of a new cables - hassle of not being blamed for bad cables)
David
I know you are all experts but remember an ex is a has been and a spert is a drip under pressure. I don't see anyone mentioning whether the cable is stranded or solid. I have like most of you crimped rj's on solid cable but that's not a good idea if its going to be moved around at all. Manufactured patch cords are made with stranded cable to keep from breaking and trust me, solid cable will break at a crimp. Its amazing how many jack legged, Rube Goldberg setups there are, but nothing substitutes for a good BICSI structured wiring setup. Skimp if you must, but the prefabs save time and effort. Oh and by the way they come in various lengths so any wire guy worth his salt can make it look pretty.
As another EE (who does all their work at about 3GHz)
You must drink a lot of coffee to be that jittery. I can't even begin to understand how you'll get any work done at 3GHz...
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
Or more accurately, micro-managers. My first task jumping into the IT industry nearly 20 years ago was learning the TIA/EIA wiring standards and being given a spool of Cat-5 and a crimper and told to do it, and redo it until it's right. This is a skill I think all IT professionals need to master. I can terminate a Cat-5e connection that is as good as, if not, better than any "factory" terminated cable. In addition, you can clean up your cable plant by customizing the length of each cable run. If all you need is a T1, Cat-6 isn't even necessary. Cat-5e works fine for GigE on short runs. Anything more then you should run fiber. Buy a Fluke cable tester/certifier to prove to your boss you know what you're doing. Granted, there is a cost associated with a cable tester, but you should have one anyway. The problem with "factory" cables is that because of that fact, nobody ever suspects them when problems arise. But in my experience, they still need to be checked.
What does your boss think goes into the walls when someone lays cable? If that's so poor quality, why would he need to worry about what cable goes from the jack to the computer?
I will pull my own through walls and punch down jack panels, but crimping RJ45s is a loser.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
I have made 98%+ of all the copper ethernet cables I've ever used (1000's), with the remaining cables ones I purchased. The only ones I've ever had a problem with were a couple of the purchased ones. As another data point, one of the companies I work for makes every single one of their infrastructure cables by hand. They have thousands of employees in dozens of facilities all around the country and don't have any problems. Tell your boss he's a moron.
I have built data centers beginning in the days when 10 meg hubs were current state of the art. The only pre-made cable I have ever used were recent patch panel cables in a customers closet and I have made thousands of them while waiting for the emergency phone to ring or the Cisco courier to show up.
While it is possible to screw up cables and even graybar will happily deliver the wrong connectors in bags of 1000, there are basic testers and most current home office routers will do electrical length and throughput testing while you yank on the crimp.
There are thousands of miles of my cables and fiber splices passing these bits in this message right now. (My ISP is a former employer)
Your boss is a fool but don't think that is something new in the business.
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
If you are doing a run that goes through the walls/ceilings, then you will want to setup a patch panel near the telco connection and in your data center. Then punch down at least 4-6 sets using nothing but a wire cutter and a $5 110 punc down tool. That way you will have multiple connections in the case of an issue. Then buy short cables at each end for the connection to the equipment. That will allow you to say you bought cables, but you can save the money if it is a long run by using your box of cable.
Are you kidding?! If it's ok to buy it, buy it! Then, thank you boss for not requiring you to waste your days making cable.
I used to work in the telecomunication industry. If you've ever set foot in a well-maintained central office, you'll understand their fascination with well dressed cables.
When they started getting rid of the old circuit-switched behemoths and replacing them with VoIP equipment, I started seeing many more ethernet cables instead of the usual thicker proprietary cables. But, when we racked something that needed a Cat-5 cable run, if we ever used a pre-made one, we got chided for the extra loop that invariably resulted.
With hand-made cables, you cut them long, crimp one end, connect it, lay them out neatly in your cable run, and finally trim the other end and crimp it. You end up with a neat looking rack where every cable is labeled and has just the right amount of slack. Three tricks I would recommend if you do this:
1) Use a good crimper (I've had the best luck with Radio Shack, surprisingly!)
2) Use strain reliefs such as these.
3) Label each cable at both ends.
4) Test each and every one after you finish it.
5) Find your longest one, and run an extra of that length just in case. Label it as a spare.
Well, if you're going to pull a big Cat6 (or whatever) run and then crip ends on it, it doesn't matter if you're building or buying - it's not the right way to be installing the cable.
For a long run like that you should be terminating both ends into a patch panel of some sort. Mount the cable and panel securely - the solid core cable that you're probably buying isn't designed to "hang loose". I'd strongly suggest you run 2 or 4 cables at the same time. Cable is relatively cheap, labor isn't, even yours. This way when you change vendors, get another circuit, etc you'll already have teh run done. It also gives you an easy way to check if it's a cable issue or now when something stops working.
Run the cables, patch panel on each end, then factor-made stranded-core patch cables from teh panels to the endpoints.
So the boss craps out some 'time domain' gobbly gook...
1) Cat5(e) is routinely pushed to its 1000 Mb/s rating and you guys are concerned about 40Mb/s which isn't even half of 100Mb/s?
2) A good crimp is a good crimp... Period.
3) Never put your boss with his time domain reflectometer in the same room with a punch down patch panel, least he gets rolled out lashed to a struggle buggy.
Sweet Jezuus!
Am reminded of those people buying POTS cable with gold plated connectors to span that last six feet between wall jack and modem while ignoring the other fifty miles starting from the opposite side of that same wall jack.
All this talk of crimping versus buying premade is a false dichotomy. Ever hear of a punch down jack? Easy to do, vastly less prone to error then crimping an actual connector, and really what you ought to be doing anyway instead of having a hole in the wall with an ethernet cable coming through it.
So, nice, pretty punch down jacks on both sides, then premade patch cables between both sides and whatever they are connecting to. Reliable, quick, and easy.
I always cut my own cables to length. If people question it, I just tell them, "Crimpin' ain't easy, but it's necessary."
While it's not that hard to make cables... making cables that will last and perform well is a whole nother ball game. If it takes you longer than 30 seconds to pair the wires properly and crimp it... just buy some prefab.
In my industry as a data telecom technical consultant... I make my own cables all the time. But then again, I'm sitting at a rack most days building various arrangements of server clusters and making cables to fit is so much easier for me. I just bring my crimp tool, cable certifier, a small garbage bin, a spool of Cat 5e or 6 and a bag of RJ-45 plugs. I don't have to worry about "stretching" cables or having way too much cable to apply cable management to take up the extra slack. I do it a lot and I'm good at it. We fully certify every cable we make before it goes into the customer's rack/cluster.
More importantly, how long is the run? Is it going to be a PITA to run from the 20 mbps demarc to your server room? Just curious, why isn't it in the server room to begin with?
The truth, there's nothing wrong with hand made cables, as long as you know what you're doing.
You seem to indicate making one cable. You're only passing 20Mb/s over it. Cables I made handled 100Mb/s, and I've even started attaching GigE devices to GigE switches, and have seen them well up past 200Mb/s. The stopped there due to what was being passed, not because of the cables.
My current work has the same opinion. I can't possibly make a cable that could be as good as the cable made by [insert company name]. I've gotten bad commercially made cables. I've also made the occasional mistake myself. The big difference is, when I make a mistake, it's usually because I was tired or working fast. I can spot my error through the connector, so I cut it off, and do it again right. When I've reterminated commercially made cables, I've found some use some pretty crappy wire. Some is really soft, and doesn't tend to lay well for insertion. Some is really hard, and hard to manipulate. And some are just right. Aw fuck, I sound like Goldilocks. :)
I won't admit to anything, but when I'm sitting on a pile of 25' cables, and I need 6' cables, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize a little cutting and crimping is a lot easier than leaving the datacenter, driving to the store, spending a bunch of money, and driving back. I could usually have a 20' cable reterminated into 3 6.6 cables. in the same amount of time it would take to lock up the cage and get to the DC front door.
I will warn you, be careful of quantity. For a while, I made all of my own cables. They all worked really well. But, when you have 100+ cables to make, your fingers start getting really sore. If you need a bunch of cables, it's worth your sanity, and the feeling in your fingers, to let the company buy them. I usually (usually) reserve the pleasure of making cables, to making cross connects when I need them (chop off an end, and reterminate as a cross connect), or when I need a special length. Hey, where are you going to find a 106' cable? Oh, you're not unless you special order it. :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
I am reading lots of the same comment... "Your boss doesn't know what (s)he's talking about," or worse. Perhaps the problem is that, as a tech or engineer, the "I can make that damned cable just as good as Anixter" zealot might not know as much about the overall value of a tech's time as his manager does.
As I have said before, my preference is virtually always to order custom-premade or off-the-shelf premade. This has virtually nothing to do with not knowing how to crimp up a fine cable, or a lack of understanding about the quality of a homebuilt cable, or the time necessary to do it.
Simple fact of the matter is that I pay my people to do other stuff than crimp cable. For every hour one of my staff is crimping cable, they could be doing an hour of something else, presumably requiring the skills that they were hired for.
The straight dollar value of the time spent making cables versus the cost of buying them does not take into account the relative value of cable building versus the value of, say, building out a router or firewall config (which will still be left to do even after the cable-building exercise).
It's true. Telecoms use handmade custom length cable runs created by their technicians. Telecoms use handmade cables because they pay their guys to make cables. And the value of a custom length cable in a carrier-class complex cable plant is high enough to warrant fulltime guys with that skill.
Most small to mid-size enterprises can't afford to have a network guy that is even partially dedicated to cable creation. In fact, most network operations that I have dealt with are understaffed, with no hope of being expanded out to the right headcount, and having to make cables merely puts them in a bigger resource bind than normal.
Sometimes, the manager's truly a putz. Usually, though, that perception is simply that the manager has a slightly different set of priorities than the tech/engineer.
In either case, unless you plan on getting fired or have a real good reason to think you can get your manager fired for being an idiot (which is surprisingly uncommon, something to consider), the fact remains that (s)he is still your manager, and you're going to wind up doing what (s)he wants. So, document your recommendations, in case their refusal turns out to be a critical oversight later on. At least, then, your "I told you so," will have some weight.
Mark J. Cecil -- Senior UNIX Engineer
New Orleans, Louisiana
http://notrealswift.blogspot.com
As with all decisions, do a simple cost/benefit analysis. Regardless of how that turns out, tell your boss that there is no special secret to making quality cables (but only if you're capable of making them). If it's cheaper to buy the cables, then buy them. If it's significantly cheaper to make them yourself, tell this to your boss. If he still wants you to buy them, then buy them.
If your boss is vindictive and unforgiving, then buy the cables even if it's much cheaper to make them, and look for a job where your boss isn't a prick.
I just spread the wires out on poles after the leave the connntors, 8 feet should do it.
Belkin eh? I read on Amazon that Belkin stuff is really good. They had tons of positive reviews so they must be the best.
Hmm...
I work for a pretty large company and for the most part if we can, we would prefer to run and make the network cables ourselves including fibers; if you have the knowledge and remember to test your cable(s) after you made them they should not be an issue. There isn;t much of a difference between store bought versus handmade if the job is done properly; mind you I have bought bad premade cables in the past.
Also if you purchase a 1000ft roll made sure you get good quality CAT5 or CAT6 not your blue light piece of turd; the quality of the CAT5 or CAT6 which really determine ow well your network line will perform. I know that there are many on here that will disagree with me but that is a fact.
Another thing if you are looking to make 1ft patch cable i suggest buy those since they are way too time consuming to make due to the short length but if you are running the line for long distance DIY; if you hire someone for it they will do the same and you paid more and they most likely use the cheapest materials possible.
back in the day we used to make our own patch cables and wire up our own cross build runs... these days we get a company to rewire buildings and comms rooms and buy in patch cables in bulk....we're paid to run the network and that work is more involved than it used to be..its not cost efficient for us to spend time crimping cables.
now the only time I do crimping and my own cable making and runs is at home. I've still got the l337 cable sk1llz. each room has a double or triple RJ45 outlet box with cat6 or cat5e (depending on age of install) and have been cable tested and run nicely at Gig speeds. okay, wireless is all the rage these days - but with these cables I can run phone and control patching, push HDMI (and still have usable wifi ;-) ) and all other wierd things. most computers are on the wifi though.
I work at multiple carrier neutral data facilities, and in the unfortunate scenarios that CAT 5/6 has to be used instead of MM or SM fiber, the failure rate for hand crimped cabling is much higher than molded cabling IMO. Another important point is never let someone that isn't very experienced (and dare say certified) to terminate fiber. You failure rates are even worse then.
If you have redundant physical links, it doesn't much matter, but if this cable is keeping your crap online, I'd go with the boss' recommendation and get premolded cable. If you have to terminate, its always best to terminate into a patch panel and use a premolded cable from the panel to the device.
With crimping, things can always go wrong, even for those that say they are experts and they never fail, I've never seen professionals actually use a crimped cable as part of data facility infrastructure. Plus, we've had systems online for over 10 years (some of which sadly had crimped cables). The ends become loose over time since they basically just snap into place under pressure and could eventually lead to a 3 a.m. outage.
Jeez. *bad pun* You guys are all crimping my style...
...I don't think it's cost-effective to make standard (>14ft) cables. You do need a quality crimper, stripper, and patience to get it right. The lack of good strain reliefs is what probably dooms hand-made patch cables.
Having said that... your boss is a semi-idiot.
You'll be mounting a jack at the demarcation point (where the incoming service ends and your cable begins), pulling cable to wherever it needs to be, and either punching into an existing patch panel or mounting another jack. Patch cables at each end are not worth making by hand, but pulling the horizontal cable? Pay attention, do a good job of the jacks, and you'll be fine.
Not many people have access to a decent time-domain reflectometer. I've been using them since the early 70s, first in the military and then in civiiian work. A good true TDR will show you terrible things you should not bother your pretty little head about, whether hand-made or machine-made patch cables, horizontal runs, patch panels installed and punched by trained professionals, or what the electrician did that looks like it was done in the dark. A good TDR will show you the effect of holding the cable in your hand, bending it gently, wiggling a jack, even smacking the rack with your tool bag. You don't want to know how poorly most cable plants look to good test equipment.
Buy a decent crimper (they sell them at Home Depot now, my God...) and decent plugs, you'll be fine. Just don't slice the conductor insulation when you strip the jacket, and keep the twists tight.
ps- A TDR is a wicked cool tool. It tells you so much that isn't important, and in too much detail. The good cable testers will give you the pass/fail and quality results you actually need. I suspect most people think that the Fluke testers are a TDR. These include some functions, but not many include the graphical display you need to interpret data. For reference, I learned to test cable in the 2-17GHz bands in the military, in hostile environments. 20mm cannon shells cause measurable damage to that thin stuff. OMS techs hammering on bulkheads also tend to damage cable. Being able to isolate the failure within inches - priceless.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I built a gateway solution once for a large client, with aprox 5000 individual cables all color coded, serialed and ran so that they could be traced by eye as per client requirements. Every single one of those cables was handmade from bulk reels of raw cable we ordered in for the job, by myself with a normal amphenol crimp and the usual cheap cable sheath cutter. I just worked day and overtime into the night to get it done in time. I'd say at the end of the job I could reliably cut and terminate a cable in under 10 seconds. All my co-workers were in awe at this and happy to let me just get on with terminating it while they ran in new lengths for each section.
Our faliure rate was db9 adaptors and crimped the serial cables up to perle console servers in each rack) and all the odd ball heartbeat cables etc.
Just make sure you have a decent set of crimps with dies in good condition and you'll have it sorted after you get the knack 10 or so cables into the job.
I have no premades on my racking here either, I take pride in my work, even if I graduated from being a cable monkey many moons ago.
Your boss is indeed a idiot as the summary says.
posting anon because otherwise the above reads as public masterbation of skillz rather than honest comment.
Black Box
I buy patch cables when I know the client has the money to buy them. I have made a few thousand cables in my life and I am just tired of making them.
It comes down to distance and the cable type you are running.
First, I never put a crimp connector on a solid core wire. Two things will happen either the crimp will miss the wire or cut the wire. Either way results in a bad connection esp where there is the possibility of vibration or motion. Solid core cable should be terminated to a punchdown, and network jack. Use proper patch cables from there.
Second If you do want to make a patch cable, use stranded cabling. When you crimp a stranded cable the tines go threw the strands and make contact with many wires. Its much more vibration and motion resistant. Also if a cable run is > 15ft, drop a network jack. Stranded cabling has higher resistance.
End Transmission....
Make sure you use the right connectors for the cable type.
Using solid connectors with stranded wire or stranded connectors with solid may result in unreliable connections - very subtly unreliable connections which change impedance or short with movement.
It took weeks to find the cause of intermittent packet loss in a commercial wireless network connection; and yes it was a dodgy home made patch cable.
That said there are times when you have to make a cable for the job; just make sure you use the right bits carefully
Some have dreams in black in white
I have dreams in O/W O G/W Bl Bl/W G Br/W Br
I can produce one-offs just fine even with a cheap crimper, but it takes some effort (and sometimes a few wasted heads) to get it right. There really isn't much of a choice if you have to run a long cable anyway.
My experience with patch-sized cables is you buy them, not make them. We once had an installer come in to wire up a panel who had built all his patch cables by hand. After the third one failed I ripped every single patch cable out and replaced it with bulk-bought cables. And in my own experience I've never been able to get more then one in three correctly made the first time and one in ten will look fine but not work properly when installed.
It wasn't so bad in the 100BaseT days where only two-pair out of the cable are actually used. Anyone else remember doubling up 100BaseT links on the same cable to save space?
GigE is a different story. Every single pair has to have a solid connection and you need the inter-cable spacing provided by the insulators or you wind up with all sorts of odd issues.
-Matt
We only use shielded cable with shielded RJ-45 ends. I have never seen these commercially made and I would guess that they are super expensive. Without grounded and shielded wire we experienced way more outages due to lightning and power surges and our APs would often lose sync due to RF interference bleeding through the wires. So I would absolutely only ever use my own personally made cables. In the past we just used cheap patch cables and they worked alright but we have had way less issues with cables that we have made.
I think a lot of crusty IT types have problems with hand made cable because back in the day people would use the wrong crimp ends, and through plate tectonics, wear and tear, and thermal expansion the connections would become loose and unreliable. The simple rule is that the crimp ends should match the cable (i.e. stranded or solid core). Stranded wire requires the two prong bayonets on the contacts to pierce the wire and connect to the strands. Solid core contacts have 3 prongs that pierce the casing and "grab" the wire keeping the connection tight. The Stranded crimps are the most common and cheap. They are commonly used with solid core wire. This spells disaster.
Number 1 was a HDMI cable for 56 cents. Here be no Monsters!
A few clicks down was a high quality, 50-foot cat6 cable for seven bucks.
I thought it was.. appropriate. Mind you, I can think of places where that very nice looking network cable would fit in well - I can imagine paying $50 if I wanted something to look really good. But $500? I'll pimp my own, thanks.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
The most prevalent problem that I've seen is people using solid core cable with ends that weren't made for solid core cable. Worst patch cables ever. Rookie mistake.
If you've never made cables, then buy one. If you make cables all the time and have a minimal tester, there's no reason that you can't make cables that will pass 20Mbit. Mostly, I like to purchase patch cables for the cost and wire everything in the wall myself.
That being said... when the boss speaks, listen.
In fact I won't use any cable or connection I've crimped or punched down unless it does pass.
I have an older Fluke Lanmeter that will test up to Cat5E. I haven't had to run gigabit very far so I haven't run into any trouble yet.
That said, I rarely make a cable when I can get them for a few bucks from Tiger Direct. Overmolded, snagless plugs are the way to go. Plus my hands suck for that kind of work.. CTS and other difficulties.
"if you don't understand the difference between an engineer and a tech writer" Or in this case, what it takes to make a CAT-x setup work
Don't waste your time.
Pay for someone to install AND TEST the inter-room cabling, terminated at patch panels. Then buy mid-range commercial patch leads.
You've got better things to do with your time. Unless you want to become a certified cable puller.
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
what was the original problem you were going to resolve?
Was it make a cable? and this required a slashdot post and a discussion?
ummm cable tester...did pins 123 and 6 pin out right? Did your expensive test set say "umm "O K"" dude... by beeping out the pins correctly connected?
Did your boss us the cable to tie something unprofessional to the local end? If so fire him.
If not...then that means he LEFT YOU ALONE to do YOUR JOB and you need to not worry so much.
There are three kinds of cables (working, working correctly, and crap)
Actually working is only this side of crap because it passes a test set ethernet test...though it looks like it was made at 03:00 during an all night binge after a company picnic. (preceeded by a three day quake3 marathon)
MY point is simple. Did you make the cable correctly or not?
I don't understand...
Do you buy all your computers directly from dell? No, you build it yourself to suit your need.
Do you have best buy install your tv for you after you buy it? No, that is ludicrous.
Not wanting to sound condescending, but cables are just ordinary little things - let there be no mystification surrounding them.
Besides - what if, while snaking a 300ft cable down three floors of conduit one end snags and breaks the tab? Or what if the cable gets nicked/cut? There goes your $$$ cable that you sat around and waited for - but the job needs to be finished now. Or at that point would you compromise and throw your own handmade end on?
Just make the damn thing
she was the daughter of a wealthy florentine pogen read em and weep was her adjustable slogan
Here's how people screw up cables:
...
2. They mix 568A and 568B - usually wiring A in the wall, and using premade B patch cables. Instant crosstalk. OK on very short runs, but anything longer than 80' to 100' will become problematic with many NICs.
Hmmm....
First, I agree that 568A on one end of a cable and 568B on the other will not work. BUT, it has been awhile so I went and looked up the definition of A vs B.
The only difference is the color of the wire at pins 1/2 and 3/6. The pairing is identical, and there is nothing that specifies how the various color pairs lay in the cable (in the middle, not at the connectors). So as long as both ends of each cable are the same it doesn't matter if one cable is 568A and another is 568B. You don't have to make sure that the prepackaged cable that you just bought "matches" your existing wiring. Dennon cables with arrows aside, not only can't the electrons read, they are colorblind too, and can't tell if they are in a green wire or an orange wire.
On the other hand, if you are using punchdown connectors, either for a wall jack, or a cabinet frame, you need to pick one system and stick with it. But that is only to prevent confusion causing you to get one end made up as 568A and the other end as 568B.
BTW, I am willing to be proven wrong. If you have a reference showing otherwise, please give a link. I would love to see it.
What will give crosstalk is not following the 1/2, 3/6, 4/5, 7/8 pairing. If you put a pair on 3/4 and a pair on 5/6 (which is logical if you don't know better) then you will get crosstalk between those two pairs.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Did anyone else notice that http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/3429.asp
does not have the protective sleeve over the little plastic tab? I'd hate to try pulling it through a jumble of cables!
My cables are invincible!
For anything important, certify it.
There are a number of subtly incorrect ways to wire things (CMR vs CMP, solid/stranded plugs, solid/stranded wire, gigabit crossover, cat6 plugs on cat6a cable, etc).
I work for a fairly large data center with important cable quality requirements.
We build ALL of our own cables, even very long runs. We have never had a problem. Although, we do verify each run with a $10,000 Fluke DTX1800.
Btw, I wouldn't call a 20Mbit line high bandwidth. Your boss is concerned about what? data loss? You would then have to concern yourself with each connection across the link right? I'm sure your ISP doesn't custom order each length they need on their end.
It's included with my Gigabyte mobo having 4 Realtek RTL8168C/81111C PCI-E Gigabit ethernet interfaces, even telling you how long the cable is and which cables are giving short circuit/no connection at all. There is even a neat tool added to it.
if1 is my main internet connection, if3 and if4 are assigned an ip address to test connectivity inbetween the two interfaces.
Insert the cable, jiggle it while sending a hunderd pings; nothing happens with it? Cable is tested OK. ...
I've used to have a Fluke TDR; while this seems not to be far off this existing technology
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
It's time to get out my wizards hat, stick and harmony meter!
These things work better than any 2,500$ costing TDR! It just measures harmony inbetween its pairs!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Not to be funny on the topic, but, my computer supplier once warned me Ethernet cables should be minimally 1 meter in length, or signal errors can occur.
Makes me wonder if this is true or false; not that I've needed that much cable which is shorter than one meter in length, but seen 30cm/50cm patch cables before too ...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
To the idiot boss who said that; I work in the space program and our cables are hand crimped. Running a fucking TDR makes no difference; a computerized die that is not set properly can dick up a cable as quickly as maynard with cheezy crimpers. I know why he said that, but too many like him spout off shit like that without bothering to research if what they are saying is right. They think it up one day, and because they fancy themselves geniuses they foist it off on everyone else. Make the cable yourself and be happy...
Check out this link, these machines are still human operated.
search at google for "cable mold machine" and "cable mold injection" and you'll get a lot more results .. this one just had the extra pretty pictures.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Mod parent up... this is a sane post, a logical post and--above all--lends proper insight to TFP that is otherwise lost in the "/.quagmire".
If I could add anything it would be two words: solid core
There's solid-core (solid copper wires) and stranded-core (copper 'fibers' wrapped in insulation to make individual wires). Solid-core wires make for a reliable crimp every time. (quality RJ-45 tips also help)
Stranded-core cabling is just a waste of money, IMHO. In the early days, I'd put myself through hell thinking I still didn't crimp it "just right" when it failed test after test. Even the ones that worked ended-up bad just weeks later.
So, to sum-up:
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
We had some unpaid interns make a half dozen cables the other week. Only one worked at all.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
I have had FAR more commercial cable fail on a TDR than I have made. I will qualify this to apply to the past decade.
No hour on a horse is ever wasted. Winston Churchill
I would have loved to have a boss who was willing to spend $300 on something as simple as a very long network cable. That might mean he actually approves of spending real money for real equipment rather then beating up the tech department to spec out the cheapest equipment that will get the job done. He might actually be reasonable when it comes to proposals for new equipment and not always ask you why it's needed, because he knows the faster the equipment the more work that can be done.
I'd love to have a boss like that, he probably likes to pick up the tab at the bar too.
Another thing, I got some serious wind burn from all the propeller heads spinning their propellers at top speed.
"Is that real poncho or a Sears poncho?" ~~FZ
I agree with the post about having about 2 inches of jacket removed. This makes sorting the conductors so much easier. Once you have the conductors arranged and flat cut the ends off at a slight angle, maybe 10-15 degrees. This allows you to then insert each conductor into it's "slot" one at a time. As each one is home then the next one is just starting to enter it's slot. Makes life much easier. Then make sure that all the conductors are visible in the end of the RJ45 before crimping. You may have to push on the cable a little to get the shortest conductor all the way in. I've found this results in fewer bad crimps.
I have never trusted my crimper.
It's always the punch tool (a Palladin I've had for years, but there are many good ones out there. Do *NOT* use a five dollar punch tool!) into either jacks with surface mount "biscuits" or straight into the patch panel, and pre-made patch cables. Then the Fluke gets his turn, just to make sure everything's kosher from end to end.
My local 'puter store has 5' to 10' pre-mades for just a few bucks, hard to beat.
Discounting the wire, even if you go to your local building supply mega-store, you're looking at less than $10 for a jack/biscuit/pre-made patch cord, and the knowledge when there's trouble that your cabling isn't part of the issue.
Plus, if for some reason the extension needs to be a bit longer (moving a rack, whatever), you just substitute a longer patch cable. With ends put directly on the wire, you're always limited by the amount of cable you initially ran.
This is based on the assumption that, in the event of a crisis, you will continue crimping rather than getting up to solve the problem. If that was your mentality, I'd want to know so I could fire you. And beat you with a stick.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
I think that your Boss is referring to a copper patch cable that is able to carry 10Gbps data. I worked at Dell in their networking department two years ago and we had some of these cables. They ARE virtually impossible to make on your own. The eight wires inside the connector are so tightly cut, you'd almost never be able to cut the wires that short insert them into the connector, crimp it and have the cable carry 10Gbps. As for regular patch cables that carry 1Gbps and lower, that's not an issue. We used regular patch cables that I personally made and they worked fine. How do I know? We were testing prototype NICs and we had to measure the performance of those cards. The patch cables were tested with an ordinary tester to insure that they worked and those cables were used with the prototype NICs.
If you use normal CAT6 RJ45 termination, it is a bitch to get the wires in to crimp right!
You didn't quantify how many cables you were making. But you can buy an awful lot of premade cable for the cost of a box of CAT6, ends, crimper, tester, and labor.
If you are really considering making your own cables I suspect you you don't have enough work to do and/or you are a low paid rookie.
Best of luck!
As others have pointed out, if a 'Professional' makes the cable, it is a 'Professionally Made Cable' -- tautologically speaking, no way around that -- so it really comes down to the question of whether it is done *in* or *out* of house.
Also correct is that in-house cable runs *are* done custom, per the needs & requirements of the organization(s) involved. Ideally, they're done by those who have enough of a clue to NOT take the closet-loop and leave it in the ceiling, in a tightly-wound coil atop a fluorescent light fixture (I wish I were making *that* up), and with the requisite intelligence and attention to detail necessary for proper terminating (e.g., lead-length, TPI and proper spacing being increasingly critical as frequencies rise, with malperformance far easier to attain with CAT6 versus CAT5, as higher-frequencies and tighter standards dictate increasingly smaller tolerances...But I digress...).
FWIW, I personally *have* made countless numbers of various Category cables (just counting Telco/TIA/USOC-stuff, CAT3/4/5/5e/6), and subjected them to tests with professional equipment ranging from cheapie (non-Fluke) testers all the way up to the uber-pricey gear which includes TDR testing & all that.
Have I hand-terminated cables which failed? Yes -- but not many -- with the majority of those I've made being well within the meets/exceeds range for NEXT/FEXT/etcetera as dictated by The Powers That Be, and none have been a source of network headaches, whether patches or runs.
Contrariwise: Have I seen patch-cables and cable-runs done in such truly horrific fashions they defy description? Absolutely.
The difference is usually that those people who either made cables or did runs with toxic levels of FAIL were, on *average*, the same people one couldn't trust to relocate a phone outlet (someone once actually cut the wire w/o unplugging it from the PBX first, and with a tool which actually had the lettering "NOT FOR USE ON LIVE CIRCUITS" on the handle, no less -- no, I'm not making that up): id est, idiots who've gone *full retard*.
This is actually about the most sound argument for having someone possessing the know-how/wits/intellect (or, failing those, I *suppose* the appropriate certifications...) to do the job -- whether making a patch cable or pulling for a run, those done by no-loads OR done by those w/the smarts but lacking the knowledge are equally prone to be hose-jobs: termination (or a cable run) done by someone w/o some knowledge and experience is prone to be hosed...Even if the person can write all their C/C++ in iambic pentameter and script their way into a locked car for kicks, but who just didn't know to take the proper factors into consideration (tensile strength, cornering, innate properties of metal wiring, to say nothing of EMI issues/distances etcetera), winding up with networking issues is often the result. Something about HW engineers applying SW patches being as dangerous as idea-filled users comes to mind...
In an 'ideal' world, those actually doing the physical implementation of cabling would be as knowledgeable as the architect of the infrastructure itself was... ...Which is something one seldom sees, as few CTO-types are to be found navigating dusty ceilings & insulation-laden crawlspaces. Funny, that.
As for some of the best advice, Sjames's post is sound, and I agree completely: I've never had a problem with anyone's handmade cable which couldn't be solved by a snip & retermination, provided the patch cable stock itself met the minimum requirements for the given category...So providing a few extra inches is a good idea, and far better than (say) an extra 30' or the like.
~JMB
The Greatest Risks Are From Those We Most Trust
Is it actually used for ethernet, though, or is it just a convenient form-factor 8 way cable that Denon use to run their own analogue protocol over? Not that I buy into Monster Cable, but I'm just saying it might look like a Cat 5 cable, and work as one, but not actually *be* one...
Appears to be proprietary digital audio.
But - the bandwidth requirement for digital audio is the same as the bitrate so even 5.6MHz Blu-Ray audio audio can be passed over CAT3 cable ;-)
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin