dale wrote:


I'm cheap and I don't want to pay for a new patch panel.

And so was I.

I found plugs that specifically said they were suitable for use on solid
core cable (some are designed for stranded only, and will potentially
cut the conductor on solid core). I then used a short length of
heatshrink (handy place to write where the cable runs to) and a snag
boot to give some strain/radius relief to the cable/plug arrangement.
Careful arrangement of the conductors, a sharp pair of scissors and a
crimper borrowed from work (I got all the other bits from CPC) made it a
remarkably quick task.

What I want to do is simply attach RJ45 plugs to the unterminated ends
and plug them into a cheap switch but... if I wire the plug to either
the 568B or 568A pattern it fails. I know that the switch is sound as
I've tested it working using cables I made up - which also suggests I'm
using the crimps correctly - so what am I doing wrong?

Well I'd check that the cables have basic contunuity (see below) and
that the sockets are correctly wired to one standard or the other, or
some other arbitary fashion. Whatever it is you 'just' need to bring
the wiring out in the same way at the plug, which can be a bit mind
turning unless you actually stare into the socket bit rather than
looking at the back plate.

To help me make sure things were going well as I went I made a little
gadget consisting of a plug with solid core crimped in and then each
pair (orange, blue,, etc) twisted together (which I think remains valid
even if a non-standard scheme has been used at the sockets). I plugged
this into each socket as I crimped the other end up, and immediately
after crimping it put a spare socket onto the plug. I then used the IDC
terminals on the back of the socket and a multimeter to ensure each pair
was connected to itself, and not to any other pair.

I was pleasantly surprised to get absolutely no problems as I did this
except for one wire which I'd punched down badly at the far end in the
kitchen, so was actually able to address 'other end' problems too.
Everyhing has been working fine for 4 years, and I recently finally
switched from 10Mbs to 100Mbs (which I though might show up any latent
issues).

Subsequent to doing the above I've inherited an unused genuine Krone
24-way patch panel, but its quite a cumbersome beastie. One advantage
of the above is the compact arrangement of things under the stairs. The
Krone would take up a lot more space. If ever anything broke I'd
probably strip one of the 3 eight way sub-units in it to make things
more compact, or simply buy something suitable from eBay.
Lesser-/no-name items are darned cheap, albeit at the risk of not being
very good quality.

HTH
IanC