Is crimping meant to be this hard?
Discussion
Yes, crimping is a word and no, it doesn't mean what you first thought of... (unless you do networks
)
I'm lucky enough to live in a cabled area, so get fantastic internet speeds, thanks to Mr Branson. There's a router downstairs and we run most devices of it via wifi.
The exception is my lad, who saved up and built himself a gaming PC. This is upstairs so, on the hottest day of the decade in 2013, I drilled, moved, pushed, swore, sweated and got a cable upstairs via our room and the loft.
Earlier this year, Virgin upgraded our service to 152mbits. Woo-hoo! Running speedtest on a wifi macbook gives 50mbits (not to be sniffed at, I know) but running it on a wired machine gives a reliable 162!
So I hatch a cunning plan. I'll put a switch in the loft and I'll cable my daughter's room, plus the kitchen, where the macbook lives, as does an HP Slate tablet, through which I stream all my music and TV, etc. There's a (now defunct) coax ariel socket which the electrician installed when the kitchen was refurbed some 6 years ago, and this cable goes to the loft.
So I order 50m of Cat 5 cable, some RJ45 connectors, a crimping tool and set to work.
To my (utter) amazement, pulling the cable through the house by duct taping it to the old ariel cable actually worked. Great, think I, I'll be done by teatime...
No, we wont. This is because we really struggled to get the wires into the right order to slip into the RJ45. And I mean really struggled... They wouldn't stay in the right order, they bent, they worked themselves into different lengths. I taught my boy new swear words...
Eventually, we get the b8stard thing in. We tested it by connecting his PC and we got...
10mbits. Yes, TEN.
Put the original cable back in, bang, 162mbits.
So, is some cable better than others? (Mine was £9 for 50m, Amazon) Are some RJ45s better? One guy on Youtube had RJ45s that let the wires out of the far end, so he could use really long untwisted wires and snip off the ends flush with the end of the connector. Are these available? Any tips from network guys?
Any help much appreciated!
)I'm lucky enough to live in a cabled area, so get fantastic internet speeds, thanks to Mr Branson. There's a router downstairs and we run most devices of it via wifi.
The exception is my lad, who saved up and built himself a gaming PC. This is upstairs so, on the hottest day of the decade in 2013, I drilled, moved, pushed, swore, sweated and got a cable upstairs via our room and the loft.
Earlier this year, Virgin upgraded our service to 152mbits. Woo-hoo! Running speedtest on a wifi macbook gives 50mbits (not to be sniffed at, I know) but running it on a wired machine gives a reliable 162!
So I hatch a cunning plan. I'll put a switch in the loft and I'll cable my daughter's room, plus the kitchen, where the macbook lives, as does an HP Slate tablet, through which I stream all my music and TV, etc. There's a (now defunct) coax ariel socket which the electrician installed when the kitchen was refurbed some 6 years ago, and this cable goes to the loft.
So I order 50m of Cat 5 cable, some RJ45 connectors, a crimping tool and set to work.
To my (utter) amazement, pulling the cable through the house by duct taping it to the old ariel cable actually worked. Great, think I, I'll be done by teatime...
No, we wont. This is because we really struggled to get the wires into the right order to slip into the RJ45. And I mean really struggled... They wouldn't stay in the right order, they bent, they worked themselves into different lengths. I taught my boy new swear words...
Eventually, we get the b8stard thing in. We tested it by connecting his PC and we got...
10mbits. Yes, TEN.
Put the original cable back in, bang, 162mbits.
So, is some cable better than others? (Mine was £9 for 50m, Amazon) Are some RJ45s better? One guy on Youtube had RJ45s that let the wires out of the far end, so he could use really long untwisted wires and snip off the ends flush with the end of the connector. Are these available? Any tips from network guys?
Any help much appreciated!
Well, I haven't broken anything, punched anyone or lost my rag. Thanks to PH, we've done it!
You know the phrase "buy cheap, buy twice"? Well, as was posted here, we had some cheapo kit. So, a trip to Maplins (PC World don't sell components anymore) introduced us to the lost art of really good service!
Bought some decent cable, decent crimp tool, new connectors (with handy cable guides), a faceplate and a punch down tool.
Back home, sorted a tester(as advised above) and off we went.
There was a genuine punch the air moment, some dad/son bonding, going on when the tester reported the first one we made was good. This was only bettered when we plugged it into the switch (Gigabit - I checked!) and a machine made 160+ on speedtest.net
We've now cabled the gaming PC upstairs, the laptop in my daughter's room and (to my intense delight) the HP Slate in the kitchen. What was a defunct co-ax socket now sports a new faceplate the wired connection works! I'm hoping this will eliminate the odd dropout on Spotify and the (frequent) dropouts on BBC Radio Iplayer, which all my Android devices have taken to doing.
Tomorrow, we'll be tidying tne cables and labelling them. Already had a couple of head scratch moments in the loft - which cable is this...? We'll then have a go at pulling a final cable through the old ariel route to get a another wired connection into the kitchen for the communal macbook.
We've learnt loads and it's been (eventually) very satisfying. Son can still play Dark Souls at 160Mbits and Daughter can play Minecraft without complaining about the poor wifi signal. Happy Days!
Off to wash the fibreglass down with a beer - thanks very much for all the tips. Much obliged!
You know the phrase "buy cheap, buy twice"? Well, as was posted here, we had some cheapo kit. So, a trip to Maplins (PC World don't sell components anymore) introduced us to the lost art of really good service!
Bought some decent cable, decent crimp tool, new connectors (with handy cable guides), a faceplate and a punch down tool.
Back home, sorted a tester(as advised above) and off we went.
There was a genuine punch the air moment, some dad/son bonding, going on when the tester reported the first one we made was good. This was only bettered when we plugged it into the switch (Gigabit - I checked!) and a machine made 160+ on speedtest.net
We've now cabled the gaming PC upstairs, the laptop in my daughter's room and (to my intense delight) the HP Slate in the kitchen. What was a defunct co-ax socket now sports a new faceplate the wired connection works! I'm hoping this will eliminate the odd dropout on Spotify and the (frequent) dropouts on BBC Radio Iplayer, which all my Android devices have taken to doing.
Tomorrow, we'll be tidying tne cables and labelling them. Already had a couple of head scratch moments in the loft - which cable is this...? We'll then have a go at pulling a final cable through the old ariel route to get a another wired connection into the kitchen for the communal macbook.
We've learnt loads and it's been (eventually) very satisfying. Son can still play Dark Souls at 160Mbits and Daughter can play Minecraft without complaining about the poor wifi signal. Happy Days!
Off to wash the fibreglass down with a beer - thanks very much for all the tips. Much obliged!
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