# Cat 5 terminating



## chewy (May 9, 2010)

Shockdoc said:


> I bought a crimper to replace one I never used that disappeared. Is there any sequence to the wires or just have both ends match( which was what I did).


White green,green, white orange, white blue, blue, orange, white brown, brown for B-spec which is most common for you guys in the states.


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## halfamp (Jul 16, 2012)

Chewy, the standard here (at least in my region of the US) TIA-568B is actually 
white/orange
orange
white/green
blue
white/blue
green
white/brown
brown


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## chewy (May 9, 2010)

halfamp said:


> Chewy, the standard here (at least in my region of the US) TIA-568B is actually
> white/orange
> orange
> white/green
> ...


Yeah that's correct actually... mine is incorrect as posted above, its 7:30 Saturday morning here, haha.


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Doc, all the phone jacks in commercial have a "A & B" scheme printed on the Jack itself. The B scheme is the most widely used, but as long as its punched down the same on the jack and the patch panel, it doesnt really matter. 

I haven't done a ton of phone/data jobs, but what I have done where all done like this. Pretty easy.

On resi phones, we just landed them on whatever the instructions that came with the jacks said. I have forgotten the terminals, but its easy to look up on Google.


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

Shockdoc said:


> I bought a crimper to replace one I never used that disappeared. Is there any sequence to the wires or just have both ends match( which was what I did).



http://www.lanshack.com/cat5e-tutorial.aspx


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## Switched (Dec 23, 2012)

Nice link!

I just ran and terminated a bunch of data cables for a HO last week. Had to look up the information and buy the tools, had been about 8 years since I last did any data stuff.


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

MHElectric said:


> Doc, all the phone jacks in commercial have a "A & B" scheme printed on the Jack itself. The B scheme is the most widely used, but as long as its punched down the same on the jack and the patch panel, it doesnt really matter.
> 
> I haven't done a ton of phone/data jobs, but what I have done where all done like this. Pretty easy.
> 
> On resi phones, we just landed them on whatever the instructions that came with the jacks said. I have forgotten the terminals, but its easy to look up on Google.


This was for a flatscreen TV link and infrared eye. Going Monday to finish it and other stuff up.


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## ampman (Apr 2, 2009)

I found this app gives all the different set ups


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## FastFokker (Sep 18, 2012)

Both ends matching will work too.

I think computer nerds came up with the confusing criss-cross patterns to prevent other nerds from working on their equipment. Job security.

Start your own standard!


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## MHElectric (Oct 14, 2011)

Shockdoc said:


> This was for a flatscreen TV link and infrared eye. Going Monday to finish it and other stuff up.


I wired a few houses for some builders who wanted a cable w/ data Jack for all the living room flatscreens. I didn't quite understand it, but something about using a phone line for internet on your TV????...maybe,...who knows. I just wired it up and got paid.

Never heard of an infrared eye for a tv, whats the deal with that?


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## drspec (Sep 29, 2012)

MHElectric said:


> I wired a few houses for some builders who wanted a cable w/ data Jack for all the living room flatscreens. I didn't quite understand it, but something about using a phone line for internet on your TV????...maybe,...who knows. I just wired it up and got paid.
> 
> Never heard of an infrared eye for a tv, whats the deal with that?


components in a cabinet or remote location such as a media closet


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

MHElectric said:


> I wired a few houses for some builders who wanted a cable w/ data Jack for all the living room flatscreens. I didn't quite understand it, but something about using a phone line for internet on your TV????...maybe,...who knows. I just wired it up and got paid.
> 
> Never heard of an infrared eye for a tv, whats the deal with that?


Wires into new remote module to control cable box, DVD, stereo, etc.with remote eye at TV to control all the equipment located in the basement. A $40 wireless remote booster works just as well.


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## LARMGUY (Aug 22, 2010)

drspec said:


> components in a cabinet or remote location such as a media closet


Depending upon the number of components and the control needed there are wired, stick on bugs for the front of your IR eye on the component. These are then connected to a central IR eye and controlled by one remote or several remotes.


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

LARMGUY said:


> Depending upon the number of components and the control needed there are wired, stick on bugs for the front of your IR eye on the component. These are then connected to a central IR eye and controlled by one remote or several remotes.


Cool:thumbsup:


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

FastFokker said:


> Both ends matching will work too.


Yes and no.

You can't or should not just make up your own design, make it the same at both ends and call it good. The pairing and twisting makes a difference. 

So make it A or make it B but don't make it FastFokker or BBQ.


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## chewy (May 9, 2010)

BBQ said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> You can't or should not just make up your own design, make it the same at both ends and call it good. The pairing and twisting makes a difference.
> 
> So make it A or make it B but don't make it FastFokker or BBQ.


True enough but I've noticed a huge twist varience with different brands that I don't believe it would make too much difference in most cases.


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

chewy said:


> True enough but I've noticed a huge twist varience with different brands that I don't believe it would make too much difference in most cases.


There are supposed to be differences. 

Will it work? Sure.

Will it pass a certification test? Doubtful.


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable#Individual_twist_lengths


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## chewy (May 9, 2010)

BBQ said:


> There are supposed to be differences.
> 
> Will it work? Sure.
> 
> Will it pass a certification test? Doubtful.


You can only use factory terminated and tested patch leads with most manufacturers warrantied networks anyhow. Never needed to certify anything we put an RJ45 on before.


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

BBQ said:


> Yes and no.
> 
> You can't or should not just make up your own design, make it the same at both ends and call it good. The pairing and twisting makes a difference.
> 
> So make it A or make it B but don't make it FastFokker or BBQ.


Gotta keep them paired. :thumbsup:


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## jeffmoss26 (Dec 8, 2011)

Ampman, what is that app? Looks pretty cool.


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## ampman (Apr 2, 2009)

jeffmoss26 said:


> Ampman, what is that app? Looks pretty cool.


all it says on it is "mobile cable guide" on i phone app store


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## FastFokker (Sep 18, 2012)

BBQ said:


> Yes and no.


Oh it'll work, but what you're saying is it may not work to peak performance. 

As to peak performance, which is better for high speed data? 568A or 568B?


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## jeffmoss26 (Dec 8, 2011)

It has nothing to do with speed!
I've always used B, that is what I learned on and what I see in 99 percent of the places I do wiring. Government and some residential applications use A.


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## halfamp (Jul 16, 2012)

there's a reason to split the green pair (B wiring, in A wiring you'd split the orange)

TCP-IP uses pins 1 and 2 (orange pair) for transmitting data, and 3 and 6 (green pair) for receiving data. If you don't observe proper wiring standards, the performance is DRASTICALLY poorer than just wiring it right. I've learned this through experience.

This is also why you'll sometimes run into instances where you'll need a crossover cable (going for A-wiring on one end to B-wiring on the other end of the cable).

If you're, for example, programming a security panel which doesn't use auto-sensing ports you'll need the crossover cable so your computer's transmit ports talk to the panel's receive ports, and vice versa. 

With just a straight-through cable, your computer's transmit ports would be talking to the panel's transmit ports, and no transfer of information could occur.


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## FastFokker (Sep 18, 2012)

jeffmoss26 said:


> It has nothing to do with speed!
> I've always used B


I always do A.. just learned it that way, and only know that way. I don't deal with other peoples installations though.

But I thought the point of using either A or B was the type of twisting and to keep interference down.. so you can get faster speeds. Like if you use them straight out greenwhite/green/orangewhite/orange/bluewhite/blue/brownwhite/brown.. it'll work, so long as both ends are the same, but the speed of the cable will be way down, because it wont cancel itself out.

Am I totally not understanding utp? I do want to know.. it's an area I want to specialize in, and do little of now. I should take some structured cable courses.


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## halfamp (Jul 16, 2012)

Read my post. I just explained why you split the pairs. And yes, the twist is a part of that too, but it makes a difference which wire goes to which pin for the reason I just explained above.


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## FastFokker (Sep 18, 2012)

Sorry, it's more advanced than I understand. 

So there's no difference between A and B performance wise? It's just two common standards that have been adopted?

Splitting the orange or splitting the greens is effectively doing the exact same thing, via cable construction? 

(probably stupid questions, bare with me)


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## halfamp (Jul 16, 2012)

Yes. In the majority of applications, as long as you wire it A or B on both sides, it's going to work just fine. 

The standard pin-out for an RJ45 connector is
Pin 1: White/Orange
Pin 2: Orange
Pin 3: White/Green
Pin 4: Blue
Pin 5: White/Blue
Pin 6: Green
Pin 7: White/Brown
Pin 8: Brown

You were saying it would work just fine by wiring it
Pin 1: White/Orange
Pin 2: Orange
Pin 3: White/Green
Pin 4: Green
Pin 5: White/Blue
Pin 6: Blue
Pin 7: White/Brown
Pin 8: Brown

See the difference? The standard wiring method splits the green pair so it's on pins 3 and 6, which TCP-IP (most common method of internet protocol) uses for receiving data. Using your wiring method, pin 3 is white/green and pin 6 is blue. Two different pairs, not able to take advantage of the twisting through the cable to minimize crosstalk.

For more reading if you're interested in digging deeper you can go to this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIA/EIA-568

Browse around related articles too. Wikipedia is a pretty good place to learn more on something you want to know more about, and there's lots of good information on networking if you take the time to learn the terms and theory behind it, such as the OSI model


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## ampman (Apr 2, 2009)




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## triden (Jun 13, 2012)

FastFokker said:


> Oh it'll work, but what you're saying is it may not work to peak performance.
> 
> As to peak performance, which is better for high speed data? 568A or 568B?


Noooo! It'll work for very short distances. Ethernet is a differential signal and it must travel down the right twisted pair. Not doing so will sacrifice both speed and signal integrity (noise interference). Make sure you wire the standard at all times. Making them the same on both ends will get some crappy results.

Follow the standard :thumbsup:


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## drspec (Sep 29, 2012)

triden said:


> Noooo! It'll work for very short distances. Ethernet is a differential signal and it must travel down the right twisted pair. Not doing so will sacrifice both speed and signal integrity (noise interference). Make sure you wire the standard at all times. Making them the same on both ends will get some crappy results.
> 
> Follow the standard :thumbsup:


I always use 568B when I introduce ethernet into a building and match what an existing system has inplace.

But, I don't think data knows what color the wire is, so matching on both ends shouldn't make a difference.


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

drspec said:


> I always use 568B when I introduce ethernet into a building and match what an existing system has inplace.
> 
> But, I don't think data knows what color the wire is, so matching on both ends shouldn't make a difference.


It's a pairing problem. Look at the pics above and you will notice 3 and 6 especially how it is split apart but always the same pair/color. You could use any color like you mentioned but (1 2) (3 6) need to always be paired (it's twisted together inside the sheath).


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## drspec (Sep 29, 2012)

8V71 said:


> It's a pairing problem. Look at the pics above and you will notice 3 and 6 especially how it is split apart but always the same pair/color. You could use any color but (1 2) (3 6) need to always be paired (twisted together) in this case.


Yes, I agree, but if both ends are the same no matter what color pattern you use, they are still paired.

Data doesn't know insulation color.


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

drspec said:


> Yes, I agree, but if both ends are the same no matter what color pattern you use, they are still paired.
> 
> Data doesn't know insulation color.


I don't follow....if 3 and 6 for example are different colors but the same on each end they will not be paired like they need to be.


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## drspec (Sep 29, 2012)

8V71 said:


> I don't follow....if 3 and 6 for example are different colors but the same on each end they will not be paired like they need to be.


If 3 is brown on both ends and 6 is blue/white on both ends, they aren't paired?


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

drspec said:


> If 3 is brown on both ends and 6 is blue/white on both ends, they aren't paired?


Paired in that sense but not inside of the cable. Each color pair, like blue-white/blue, are twisted together inside of the cable for noise rejection. In your example the pair wire for brown and the blue would be dangling or hooked to a different signal and you wouldn't get the required noise rejection that a balanced circuit needs.

If I have some extra time at work I will try to rig something up to maybe show a difference.


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## triden (Jun 13, 2012)

drspec said:


> Yes, I agree, but if both ends are the same no matter what color pattern you use, they are still paired.
> 
> Data doesn't know insulation color.


Ah but the data does know which pair it is going down! If the differential tx and rx signal are not sent down the same twisted pair, you may have a problem on your hands. If you don't have a problem, you speeds will suffer at best.

This is the pinout of an ethernet port:









Notice that TD+ and TD- are on pins 3 and 6 respectively. If you were to wire this where both ends are the same, pins 3 and 4 will share a pair and pins 6 and 5 will share a pair. That is NOT what you want! Ethernet is a differential signal and signals MUST share the same twisted pair in order to reject common mode noise.

Now take a look at the wiring standard:









You'll notice that pins 3 and 6 share the same twisted pair. This was done for a very purposeful reason :thumbsup:


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

Here is an example of how a miswired cable or sloppy connections can effect the speed of differential (balanced) data circuits. I found some cat 5 with just a little bit left in the box and hooked it into a data analyzer. Judging from the amount of errors I don't think I could have used a cable that was much longer and still stay connected to the test equipment.

I wired both ends the same and kept all of the wire pairs next to each other which made it correct continuity wise. For Ethernet purposes, pins 1,2 and 3 ended up staying correct but pin 6 was now wired with pin 5's twisted wire instead of pin 3's twisted wire.













At 10mb with the miswired cable I got normal results which are green LED's on the test set and no errors on the counters.













Switching to 100mb, a lot of errors showed up. Also notice the 84 million transmitted packets on the right and the 24 million received packets on the left. They should be pretty close to the same in a good system and this really slows things down.






















Changing back to the correct wiring at 100mb gave me a bit of a surprise. Instead of just moving the wire on the breakout card I decided to use an alligator clip, didn't work. Using 2 alligator clips on 3 and 6 and twisting them together was the only way to get error free data. Wire 3 was already correct but I had to keep it paired with 6 even with the short length of the clips.


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## ampman (Apr 2, 2009)

i don't completly follow you but it damn sure looks good


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

ampman said:


> i don't completly follow you but it damn sure looks good


Thanks.....I guess I should have become a politician or government worker.


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## ampman (Apr 2, 2009)

8V71 said:


> Thanks.....I guess I should have become a politician or government worker.


no please don't


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## triden (Jun 13, 2012)

8V71, Are you able to get gigabit speeds with the alligator clips and long stubs at all? Curious now!


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

triden said:


> 8V71, Are you able to get gigabit speeds with the alligator clips and long stubs at all? Curious now!


I only have one gigabit test card and I don't have a loopback connector made up so I would have to loop the fiber on one of our converters but that would be very easy to do. Just the breakout cards alone with no clips might not work at 1 gig but I will give it a try on Monday.


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

Triden, I tried hooking up to gigabit today. I mentioned that I didn’t have a loopback connector so I used a looped fiber converter. This is actually more accurate because a regular copper loopback connector would have doubled the length of the cat5. This way, the 10, 100, and 1gbt tests are all with the same length of cable. The fiber converter takes the input 1gbt signal and generates its own matching signal so it’s just like the signal is starting at that point, like a repeater.

Even with the cable wired correctly I couldn’t get it to link up. Keep in mind that the breakout cards don’t have paired traces. I pushed and pulled on the wires and found a sweet spot where it linked but transmitted a fair amount of errors.












Then I terminated the roll of cat5 with connectors but I still couldn’t get link with both breakout cards. I took one of the breakout cards out and it linked up but with a lot of errors. The only way I could get it to work correctly with no errors was to ditch both breakout cards.


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## 8V71 (Dec 23, 2011)

This is the screenshot after I moved the wires around on the breakout cards to get the best performance. Errors, but the transmitted and received packets are pretty close to the same.


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## triden (Jun 13, 2012)

Just goes to show how critical cable termination is when it comes to high speed signals. I always knew untwisted stubs were bad, but didn't realize it was that bad! I've seen people use those in-line RJ45 connectors to extend cables and I cringe whenever I see them.

Thanks for the demo.


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## electricmalone (Feb 21, 2013)

Would ya look at that! I'm sitting on my couch drinking my 5th cup of coffee, waiting for the baby and wife to wake up so we can hit the beach. I learned me something!!! I was always taught that data connections didn't matter as long as they were the same on both ends. Cool to see the bench tests. Thanks!


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