Video: Making an ethernet cable
If you have to wire this, you definitely need to learn to make cables.
This is the first video in a short series about using your geek-sense to save a little cash. The first installment: making your own ethernet cable.
You may be wondering how buying a cabling kit that costs $71.50 is going to save you money. For the average person, it probably won’t save you much. If you need a couple of 6′ cables to wire up everything, you can get by purchasing pre-made cables. There are a number of scenarios where that much cable (at that price) will save you money.
- You need to run two or three cables from one side of the house to another. Forgetting the fact that you may not find a store with cables at the length you need, a brick-and-mortar retailer has no qualms charging you almost a dollar per foot or more for the pre-made cable. The cost of two fifty-foot cables will pay for the box, and you’ll have loads of cable left for fun and profit.
- You’re hosting a LAN party. If you’re going to wire up 20 or 30 machines, this is a no-brainer. You can’t touch the cost of doing it yourself.
- You’re a cheap-ass and intend to split the cost of the kit with several friends. You can most likely wire any ten of your friends for less than the cost of wiring one of you the lazy way.
I believe I have sufficiently justified the existence of this video. So, on to the information!
Wikipedia has an excellent article (albeit a short one) on category 5e cable. This is the classification of cable you’re getting with the kit from Geeks.com. For most, this will be everything you might need. The specification allows for cables up to 328 feet. With support for gigabit ethernet, it will support anything a typical home network can throw at it.
The image above is from a tutorial on PC911 and clearly shows the correct order of the wires before you insert them into the connector and crimp. This is also described in the video, but I have placed the image here for quick reference. The order of the colors from left to right are white/orange, orange, white/green, blue, white/blue, green, white/brown, brown.
I think that pretty much covers it! If you have problems or questions, drop a comment. I will make an effort to respond to each and every comment posted here. Good luck and happy cabling!
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Check back for the next episode in which I will demonstrate some killer online shopping techniques for maximum savings! Look for it Friday, March 20th.
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It is really a good info………….