- Let's go ahead now and build patch cables.
Now, usually, you would use
patch cables that you purchase.
It's a lot easier and they're relatively cheap.
We use these patch cables to connect computers
to RJ45 jacks,
and also to connect,
uh, switches to patch panels.
And there's varying other uses as well,
but those are the main ones.
Usually, you'd buy these
and they're known as straight-through patch cables
because they're wired the same way
on both ends,
with the 568B standard.
However, you might be called upon to create a patch cable.
Let's say, you need to do a custom connection
or let's say you just
didn't have any of these patch cables available.
Well, if so, then you'd need all this stuff here.
You'd need cable,
and I've already cut
a six-foot length to make a patch cable,
good cutter
and wire stripper, just like with
the last sub-lesson
with the patch panel and RJ45 Jack connections.
Then you would need
RJ45 plugs,
which go on the end,
on each end of the cable,
which we will strip and
open up the wires the same way we did
in the last sub-lesson.
And then you would need a crimper (crimper snaps)
to crimp the RJ45 plugs onto the cable.
Finally, a tester to test your cable
and make sure all the wires are correct.
So we're gonna use all this stuff and we'll start it now.
So first step, we already cut a length of cable
and we're gonna do the same thing that we did
in the last sub-lesson.
We're going to
take off some of the PVC jacket.
Don't wanna cut in too far,
'Cause we don't wanna cut into the wires.
And expose our eight wires.
And we're going to
set these up in the 568B order,
which is
White/Orange, Orange,
White/Green, Blue,
White/Blue, Green,
and White/Brown, Brown.
And you wanna try to
put them in order
and then straighten them out as much as possible
by bending them
until we have them all in order and somewhat flat.
Okay, and at this point I've
adjusted these so they're in order for 568B,
and you really gotta work 'em,
and do 'em one at a time,
and keep bending
and straightening.
And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna cut them
and cut them flat,
so that there's an edge about here.
And you wanna have about
maybe a quarter inch of
exposed wires outside the PVC jacket,
and you want to cut 'em straight.
And then immediately after
we're going to put
the RJ45 plug on there
and crimp it on, it's all kind of done in one step.
So (cutter clicks) we'll take a cutter.
Place these in like so.
Make sure they're right.
White/Orange, Orange,
White/Green, Blue,
White/Blue, Green,
White/Brown, Brown.
Hold on tight
and make the cut. (Cutter clicks)
Then we take our plug
and we put it on,
and we want the
tab to be facing down.
Stick those wires in.
And once we get them all the way in,
and we want them to be flush over here,
then we can crimp it
by sticking the RJ45 plug into the crimper
and tightening.
And you don't need too much pressure,
just until (crimper clicks) the crimper stops clicking,
or at least, uh, finishes moving.
And make sure it's secure.
Then we'll do the same thing on the other end.
And like I say, about a quarter inch,
maybe a little more
close between a quarter inch and a half inch
we cut this off.
You don't wanna do too much
because you don't want too much exposed wires.
You wanna have the twists on the cable length
go as close to the plug as possible,
but you don't wanna do it too short,
because you wanna get those wires
all the way to the edge of the plug.
(crimper clicks) So we'll cut this guy.
Hold on very carefully,
a little shorter.
(crimper clicks)
Make sure you got a nice flat cut.
Hold onto it.
Put the plug on.
And you wanna try to get that plastic jacket
underneath the tooth that's here.
You wanna get it inside there so when we crimp it,
it crimps onto the plastic jacket,
that blue jacket, and not
the
wires themselves.
Stick it in, (crimper clicks) crimp it.
And it looks good.
And so this was a quick build.
Uh, this particular cable's a little tough
because it has that plastic separator in it.
And that could be a little difficult to work with,
so if you get cable and you need to make patch cables
you might wanna get one
without the plastic separator, if possible,
But it works. You can fit it in there.
And, uh,
as you can see here
we have the white orange on the left
of each cable.
So each connection is wired to 568B.
And we're gonna test that right now
by using our patch tester.
Plug each end in.
And we test this just by pressing the test button.
Press test and
you can see the lights go on
for pin 1,
pin 2,
pin 3,
4, 5,
6,
7, 8.
And it's all good.
So,
for a straight-through cable,
for your standard patch cable, that's what you want.
And so this test's good.
And boom, we've got a Cat6 patch cable.
Place this to the side.
Now you may also be called upon
to create a crossover cable.
And a crossover cable uses 568B on one end,
and the older 568A on the other end.
And here we have an example of that.
And quite often I'll use orange cables to show
crossover cables.
And you can see on this connector
the leftmost pins are orange,
and that's 568B,
and on this connector,
the leftmost pins are green.
That's 568A.
So we could use a cable like this to connect two computers
directly together
or two other like devices directly together,
like two routers or two switches.
Although nowadays that's not usually necessary
because you have auto-negotiation of the ports
and they can, uh,
tell what type of cable you have connected.
But you can also test these guys.
We could place these plugs in here. (plugs click)
And, basically, what a crossover cable is,
is a cable that crosses
the orange and green pairs.
So if we press the button, we get 1 goes to 3.
White/Orange is the first pin in 568B,
but it's the third pin in 568A,
2 crosses to 6,
that's the Orange pin.
And vice versa, 3 crosses to 1,
that's the White/Green,
because it's the third pin and 568B,
it's the first pin in 568A.
4 goes to 4, 5 goes to 5, so Blue is normal.
6 goes to 2,
and that is your Green pin.
And 7 and 8 are normal,
those are the Brown.
So that's how we can tell if, uh,
this crossover cable is wired properly.
And so this one was a molded one,
it's orange.
And I also have my own that I created.
I usually keep one or two with me in my kit,
just in case I need to connect something.
This one I actually built.
And it tests fine.
So, a little bit of a testing with straight-through cables,
which connect
unlike devices,
like a computer to a switch,
and crossover cables
that test like devices,
like a computer to another computer,
or a switch to a switch.
And so I do have another crimper here (crimper clicks)
and it's just the same thing,
whatever works,
whatever crimps the plugs on good for you is what you need.
And a lot of these crimpers come with the
RJ45 connector,
as well as the RJ11,
so if you're doing any telco work.
And that cutter.
You know a good cutter on the crimper is really necessary.
You could use something like this,
but you might not get a really straight cut.
And so this works very well. (crimper clicks)
And there we have it, our patch cable's done.
We've got a Cat6
six-foot straight-through cable.
Unshielded twisted pair.
And so, you know, you can build these pretty quick.
In real time I could make one of these in
under,
the fastest I ever did is maybe, uh, two minutes.
But again it's easier to just
use the ones that you purchase.
For example, these molded cables here
which are machined and will most likely last longer.
But if you ever have a problem where you suspect a problem
with a patch cable, use one of these RJ45 patch testers.
And make sure that all the wires
go across for a straight-through cable.
Great tool to have.
So that's it. Tools you need.
You need your cable,
you gotta have that cable, I'm using Cat6.
You need your crimpers.
Always want to have your cutter
and your wire stripper available.
And RJ45 plugs,
this is, I got a hundred-pack here.
These are for Cat6 as well.
And remember, that everything has to comply
along the chain.
If any link along the chain is less
than Cat6,
then the whole chain
gets reduced
to that lesser amount.
So the plugs have to be good.
The cable has to be good.
The patch panel, the RJ45 jack,
all of it.
And another great tool to use.
We have the
Loopback Tester,
which you can use to test
network cards and also switches,
really good for switches.
If you wanna plug these into,
say an RJ45 jack,
it'll help you to test the switch,
whether the port is good or not.
There's actually a couple uses for this.
And I talk about these more in my books
but, uh, a great tool to have:
RJ45 Loopback Tester.
It's got the female and the male ends.
So you can do a lot of different testing with that.
But generally used to check switches and switch ports.
So there you have it.
Patch cables.
And that pretty much sums it up.
That's the end of this sub-lesson.