"Most of us, if we do not deal in high-speed digital signalling, have a kind of "DC Circuits" understanding of wiring where the most important thing is simply that the wires connect the right points together."<p>An example of this is thinking that the order of wires in your crimps doesn't matter so long as it is consistent at both ends. This is emphatically not the case! Each twisted pair in a cat5 cable is intended to carry a signal and it's inverse. If you add a signal to it's inverse you should get nothing, but if noise has skewed both signal and inverse, the result of addition will be the isolated interference you need to subtract from your signal. Cat5 connections rely on this noise cancellation to work, as the wires used have little or no shielding. If you put wires into the wrong order so that signals are not paired with their inverses, this noise cancellation system is totally fubar'd and will likely make things worse than if there was no noise cancellation at all. It might work over a few meters, but longer cables are almost guaranteed to fail.<p>Pick a wiring standard (568-A or 568-B) and stick to it. If you do this, it's pretty hard to mess up anything else so badly that your cables won't work. Bluejeanscables is a cable manufacturer, so they're probably exaggerating how hard it is to make a good cable. In particular, their "buy american" schtick is not very applicable to cabling. Monoprice is functionally equivalent, even if it's from China.<p>Note: If you're wiring your home, be sure to use plenum grade cable. Other cables may be flammable and fire codes tend to disapprove of having flammable cords running through your home.<p>Also Note: I am not an electrician. I just found out the hard way by making bad cables for my home. If you buy one $50 spool of cable, $5 of terminations, and a $20 crimp tool you'll never have to pay for network cables again. I'm not sure if it would be worth it now, but it certainly was 10 years ago!
Off topic, but I can't resist re-posting the following. It will bring tears of joy to anyone who hates patent trolls.<p>Blue Jeans Cable was mentioned on HN a few months ago in the context of Monster Cable sending them a letter threatening to sue them for patent and trademark infringement. An HN poster characterized their response letter to Monster Cable as: "That. letter. is. glorious."<p>Here are just a few snippets:<p><pre><code> if you file on this sort of basis, you are in
Rule 11 frivolous-claim territory
...
You are required, as a matter of legal ethics,
to display good faith and professional candor
in your dealings with adverse parties, and you
have fallen miserably short of your ethical
responsibilities
...
Read the patents narrowly, and Monster loses;
read them broadly, and Monster loses.
...
I spent nineteen years in litigation practice
...
I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense
of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with
litigation against me I will pursue the same
merits-driven approach: I do not compromise with
bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand
dollars on defense than give you a dollar of
unmerited settlement funds.
...
Not only am I unintimidated by litigation;
I sometimes rather miss it.
</code></pre>
<a href="http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8848842" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8848842</a>
<i>But it's a mistake to assume that just because network signals are electrical, any electrician is automatically qualified to put a network together.</i><p>This can't be stressed enough, especially when running horizontal cabling through buildings. We've had issues in taking ownership of network infrastructure that was installed by "reliable" electricians.<p>Some advice: Make sure that you keep a decent bend radius on the connections and that you're able to sustain (near) peak transfer over the connection. Cable testers and certifiers add to the confidence that you've got a solid connection. Modern switches will also report on CRC errors and issues that come from physical layer problems.
Hey, Blue Jeans Cable! These are the guys who told Monster Cable to get stuffed. Very nice way of dealing with a patent troll: <a href="http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/response041408.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/response041408.pdf</a> transcribed at <a href="http://www.audioholics.com/news/blue-jeans-strikes-back" rel="nofollow">http://www.audioholics.com/news/blue-jeans-strikes-back</a> Best part: "Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it."
I just terminated a ton of CAT5e for security cameras and I can definitely see the margin of error begin high. It sucks to do, I feel like there should be an easier way to terminate them that doesn't involve carefully trying to align the right color combination and holding them steady enough to then align them in that same order with tiny slots on the plug.
Even home electrical circuits can have crosstalk.<p>People sometimes find that LEDs and even florescent lights glow dimly even with the switch off.<p>The is caused by magnetic induction in lines, which is in turn caused by not running the hot and neutral near each other.
Another tip: Don't try to mix cat5 and 6 wire and connectors. The cat6 wire is larger, won't fit in the connectors for cat5, and the pins won't puncture the thicker insulation.
Another article on the same site (Blue Jeans Cable) makes the interesting point that some kinds of cable are more expensive not because they are better at reducing signal loss but because they are rated for more fire-resistance for certain kinds of installations.[1] The article points out that more expensive is not always better if by "better" you mean "less likely to distort the signal."<p>[1] "Good, Better, Best -- Or Not?"<p><a href="http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/good-better-best-or-not.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/good-better-best-or-n...</a>
I've crimped some RJ45s for my own house, but always got wrong, and have to crimp 3 or more times to make it work (cut off connectors at both side, and re-crimp again). Any tips on it?
Absolutely fascinating. I've been crimping my own RJ45s for a while now, surprised that I'm not quite getting the speed I'd hoped for with CAT6. Lesson learned. Thanks!
I don't find this article particularly convincing; in fact it feels suspiciously to me like the same sort of technical arguments made by some "premium audiophile cable" vendors. The fact that your fancy test equipment can detect significant differences between your cables and others' is not necessarily correlated with how well they actually work in practice. This doesn't look like one of those truly insane companies who sell $1500/m cables to a niche audience, but they're using some of the same techniques...<p>The fact that differences can be seen in the analogue domain is also not a direct correspondence to how the cable will perform digitally. Ethernet is digital, and as long as the signals pass the thresholds at the receiver, there will be no difference.<p>The most unusual thing here is that <i>they didn't mention at all whether they actually solved any of the problems the customer originally had</i>, which would be the true validator of their theory. (If they did, wouldn't it be a great thing to mention?) "Network performance issues" are vague - I was expecting to see tests of throughput/packet loss between the original and reterminated cables.<p>Edit: downvotes. Care to explain...?