INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & Networking

Cable-Making Lesson

What You Need:

Required:
 CAT 5 Cable - bulk Category 5, 5e or 6 cable (we will use both 5e and 6e)
 RJ45 Ends and IDC wall jack socket
 Crimper for RJ45
 Wire Cutters - to cut and strip the cable if necessary
 Stripper
 Cable Tester

About the Cable:

You can find bulk supplies of the cable at many computer stores or most electrical or home
centers. You want UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) Category 5 cable for basic 10/100 functionality.
You need CAT 5e for gigabit (1000BaseT) operation and CAT 6 gives you a measure of future
proofing. Bulk cable comes in many types; there are 2 basic categories, solid and braided cable.
Braided cable tends to work better in "patch" applications for desktop use. It is more flexible and
resilient than solid cable and easier to work with, but really meant for shorter lengths. Solid cable
is meant for longer runs in a fixed position. Plenum rated cable should/must be used whenever
the cable travels through an air circulation space. For example, above a false ceiling or below a
raised floor.

You're likely going to want braided type cable but it may be difficult or impossible to tell from the
box.

Here is what the internals of the cable look like:

Internal Cable Structure and Color Coding:

Inside the cable, there are 8 color coded wires. These wires are twisted into 4 pairs of wires; each
pair has a common color theme. One wire in the pair being a solid or primarily solid colored wire
and the other being a primarily white wire with a colored stripe (Sometimes cable doesn't have
any color on the striped cable, the only way to tell is to check which other wire it is twisted
around). Examples of the naming schemes used are: Orange (alternatively Orange/White) for the
solid colored wire and White/Orange for the striped cable. The twists are extremely important.
They are there to counteract noise and interference. It is important to wire according to a
standard to get proper performance from the cable. The TIA/EIA-568-A specifies two wiring
standards for an 8-position modular connector such as RJ45. The two wiring standards, T568A

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and T568B vary only in the arrangement of the colored pairs. Tom writes to say "...sources
suggest using T568A cabling since T568B is the AT&T standard, but the US Government
specifies T568A since it matches USOC cabling for pairs 1 & 2, which allows it to work for 1/2 line
phones...". Your choice might be determined by the need to match existing wiring, jacks or
personal preference, but you should maintain consistency.

About the RJ45 Ends:

The RJ45 end is an 8-position modular connector that looks like a large phone plug. There are a
couple variations available. The primary variation you need to pay attention to is whether the
connector is intended for braided or solid wire. For braided/stranded wires, the connector has
contacts that actually pierce the wire. For solid wires, the connector has fingers which pierce the
insulation and make contact with the wire by grasping it from both sides. The connector is the
weak point in an Ethernet cable, choosing the wrong one will often cause grief later. If you just
walk into a computer store, it's nearly impossible to tell what type of connector it is.

Here is a diagram and pinout:

RJ45 Jack and Plug Pinout

Ethernet Cable Pinouts:

There are two basic cables. A straight through cable, which is used to connect to a hub or switch,
and a cross over cable used to operate in a peer-to-peer fashion without a hub/switch. Some
interfaces can cross and un-cross a cable automatically as needed, really quite nice.
(Unfortunately, none of our devices will do that in the school)

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Standard, Straight-Through Wiring (both ends are the same):

568A Standard 568B Standard

10Base-T 10Base-T
RJ45 Wire Color Wire Diagram Signal RJ45 Wire Color Wire Diagram Signal
Pin # (T568A) (T568A) 100Base-TX Pin # (T568B) (T568B) 100Base-TX
Signal Signal
1 White/Green Transmit+ 1 White/Orange Transmit+
2 Green Transmit- 2 Orange Transmit-
3 White/Orange Receive+ 3 White/Green Receive+
4 Blue Unused 4 Blue Unused
5 White/Blue Unused 5 White/Blue Unused
6 Orange Receive- 6 Green Receive-
7 White/Brown Unused 7 White/Brown Unused
8 Brown Unused 8 Brown Unused

Cross Over Cable (T568B):

RJ45 Pin # (END 2) Wire Color Diagram End #2

1 White/Green
2 Green
3 White/Orange
4 White/Brown
5 Brown
6 Orange
7 Blue
8 White/Blue

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Here’s another look at the wire order if you’d like to see the cables in the clip:

568A Cable 568B Cable

(same at both ends of the cable) (same at both ends of the cable)

Crossover Cable
(568A at one end and 568B at the other)

+Note: The cross over cable layout is suitable for 1000Base-T operation, all 4 pairs are crossed.
(We can cover this difference in another lesson if you are curious.)

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How to wire Ethernet Cables:

1. Strip off about 2 inches of the cable sheath.

2. Untwist the pairs - don't untwist them beyond what you have exposed, the more
untwisted cable you have the worse the problems you can run into.
3. Align the colored wires according to the diagrams above.
4. Trim all the wires to the same length, about 1/2" to 3/4" left exposed from the sheath.
5. Insert the wires into the RJ45 end - make sure each wire is fully inserted to the front of
the RJ45 end and in the correct order. The sheath of the cable should extend into the
RJ45 end by about 1/2" and will be held in place by the crimp.
6. Crimp the RJ45 end with the crimper tool
7. Verify the wires ended up the right order and that the wires extend to the front of the
RJ45 end and make good contact with the metal contacts in the RJ45 end.
8. Cut the cable to length - make sure it is more than long enough for your needs.
Remember, an end to end connection should not extend more than 100m (~328ft). Try to
keep cables short, the longer the cable becomes the more it may affect performance,
usually noticeable as a gradual decrease in speed and increase in latency.
9. Repeat the above steps for the second RJ45 end.
10. If a cable tester is available, use it to verify the proper connectivity of the cable.

That should be it, if your cable doesn't turn out, look closely at each end and see if you can find
the problem. Usually a wire ended up in the wrong place or more commonly, one of the wires
didn't extend to the front of the RJ45 connector and is making no, or poor contact. If you see a
mistake or problem, cut the end off and start again.

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Cables to make in this activity:

 1 cable for each computer in the networking lab (8 total – varying lengths)
 1 - 35 foot cable 568B standard for Mr. Garrett
 10 – 15 foot cables for LAN night
 10 – 5 food cross-over cables
 Repair any cable testing as bad by clipping off the old RJ-45 clips and 1 inch of cable and
applying new clips to each end by using the same standard found in the cable clips now.

Test each cable by connecting the computer to the hub or a computer to a computer and
determining the connectivity provided. You will not need to open any applications other than
Microsoft Windows while in the networking lab.

All cables should be labeled with their standard and whether they have been tested.

When cables have been tested and labeled, wrap them neatly (ask if you aren’t 100% sure how
to do this) and place them in the box provided.