- In this sub-lesson,
we're going to talk about network cabling tools.
And we're gonna break it down into two categories.
The first is the patch cable,
that smaller cable that connects your PC or your laptop
to the RJ45 jack on the wall.
The tools we'll use to build a patch cable
include a wire stripper, a crimper,
RJ45 plugs which go on the ends of the cable,
and also a patch tester which will test and make sure
we have continuity for each pin within the cable.
The second category is longer cable runs.
Cable runs that might go from the server room,
from a patch panel, all the way through the ceiling
and through the walls down to the RJ45 jack
which is near your workstation.
And the tools we'll use for that include a wire stripper,
a punch-down tool, and a cable certifier
to make sure that the entire run is working properly
and that all the wires inside the cable are working as well.
If you want to build a patch cable such as this,
you'll need a couple tools at your disposal.
First you'll need a good cutter
so you can cut into the cable,
and cut off a nice sharp piece of the cable.
So a good cutter is important.
But then, to get this plastic sheath off,
to get this PVC off of here,
you're gonna wanna have a good wire stripper.
Now, you can use a lot of different tools for this,
but the wire stripper is my choice
and it's on the exam objective, so you should know it.
And basically you open it up and you put the cable inside.
And this is a little bit more difficult
because I already had stripped this.
And then you just run it in a circle
until you can get that PVC off of there.
You don't want to go too far
because you don't want to cut into the wires inside,
you just want to take the plastic PVC jacket off.
And there you go.
And you can also use the thread that they give you
to cut longer distances of the PVC.
So a good wire stripper is important,
that has an edge on there, that you can adjust,
that can help you to cut these nice and evenly
without going into the copper wires.
You don't want to mess with the copper wires there.
So a wire stripper's first,
and then you have to apply,
you have to cut the wires and then you have to
arrange them properly and place them into the RJ45 plug.
And maybe I'll show that in a different video,
put that on my website or something,
but for now, the RJ45 plug, you can buy these in bulk.
The wires go inside that,
and then you have to crimp the plug onto the cable.
And the reason for that is because you have some teeth here.
See if we can see this a little better.
There's some teeth on here
that are meant to bite down onto the plastic jacket.
And so what happens is
you take this crimping tool
and you put the plug in there
and tighten it until it crimps,
and that'll apply those teeth
that'll have those bite down into the wires.
So this is an RJ45 crimper, and here's a RJ11 also.
So you just squeeze it until it crimps it.
And this is just another crimper.
Always have a couple around just in case one fails.
Then you use a cable tester.
This is a patch tester, and it has two RJ45 ports on it.
And you just plug both sides of your patch cable
once you've made it.
Or if you wanna test one that you're not sure
if it works or not, you know,
if you have a patch from a computer to an RJ45 jack
or a patch from a patch panel to a switch,
you can test that with this.
Just plug both ends in and then test by pressing a button.
And it'll test each pin.
Pin one, pin two, pin three, pin four,
five, six, seven, eight.
You know, let's say you have pin one and three lit up,
then you know you have a problem.
Something was miswired on one of these.
Or if one doesn't light up at all,
then you know that pin is not getting connectivity.
So the patch tester can tell you a lot.
And you're looking at white-orange, orange,
white-green, blue, white-blue, green,
white-brown, brown. The standard 568B.
Here's a really important tech tip for you.
Make sure you test.
This is for everything you do in computers.
Test it, make sure it works properly.
And this especially applies to cabling.
You want to use the correct testing tools
for the particular type of cable you're making.
Make sure you test it after you build that cable
or run that cable line.
And apply that method of thinking
to everything you do in the IT world.
Now, let's say you're doing a longer distance run
from, say, an RJ45 jack to a patch panel.
Well, you're gonna need a punch-down tool.
This guy punches down to those ports
on the punch panel or on the jacks
and attaches those wires permanently.
This is a punch-down device
and you can use it with 110 blocks,
that's what it's meant to be used for.
They also have these for 66 blocks for Telco.
But this is a 110-block tool for punching down.
And here's an example of a jack
that you might install for a surface mount.
And you can see here, this is a CAT 5E jack,
and that's the RJ45 connection.
That's where the patch, excuse me,
that's where the patch cable would plug into.
And then if you look here,
you see that you would plug in all the individual wires,
you would punch them down to this
and it's all color coded for you.
If you're using,
whether you're using the 568B or A standard.
And then finally you have a tracing tool.
This is an inductive amplifier.
And the inductive amplifier has a tip here
where you can check for actual wires.
And basically what this does is it looks,
it traces the tone that you may have generated
somewhere else.
You may have generated tone from a patch panel
or from another jack,
because you're not sure where a cable is
that's giving you trouble.
And you know, you might have a bunch of cables.
You might have a hundred cables that you need to test.
This guy will trace that tone that you generate.
And you can use a lot of different items
as a tone generator,
including a cable certifier
or just a plain old tone generator.
But this will trace that.
And it's got a little speaker here
so you can hear the noise once it finds the actual cable.
And speaking of that tone generator,
most cable certifiers or cable testers,
like the one shown in this image
have built-in tone generators.
And you use those cable certifiers to test
from a jack like this to the patch panel.
So you wanna check all your punch-downs that you did.
So you use the cable certifier tool.
You'll plug one end into the patch panel port
and the other end into the jack that you've installed.
And you can generate tone
or you could do a pin-by-pin test,
which is recommended for actual cable certifying.
You do the pin-by-pin test to make sure
all eight pins have continuity.
And so that's known as a cable tester or a cable certifier.
So that's some of the tools for twisted pair.
Take a look at some of these online,
take a look into some of your, maybe in a store,
and look at what people have to offer.
If you go to your electronic supplier or electrical supplier
you'll probably see a lot of these tools out there.
And take a look on, you know, your shopping portals
and see what's out there as far as punch-down tools,
RJ45 jacks, and patch panels, and inductive amplifiers,
which, by the way, have a lot of names.
You have the tone generator,
which is that device that creates tone
whether it's your cable certifier
or just a tone-making tool,
and then you have the inductive amplifier.
It's also known as a Fox & Hound kit.
You know, because they're chasing each other,
you're chasing up the signal,
you're usually looking through hundreds of wires
or what have you.
And it's also known as a tone and probe kit.
So the tone generator makes the tone
and this probes for it.
This probes for it.
So, you might even see it listed as toner probe,
which I never use that term
but you might see that out there.
But generally, scientifically,
this is known as an inductive amplifier.
It finds the tone that you generate.
So there you go. Some twisted pair cabling tools.
And so that's it for this sub-lesson.