I make my own network cable: this is how I have wired my whole house

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I make my own network cable: this is how I have wired my whole house
I Make My Own Network Cable: This Is How I

I make my own network cable: this is how I have wired my whole house

You may have ever had to ask a friend for their toolbox and in it, in addition to finding the usual hammers and screwdrivers, you have found a bag full of RJ45 plugs. No, that friend is not in the business of tapping phones: that friend makes his own network cables at home.

In large surfaces and online stores like Amazon we can find these cables easily and to the length we want, but there are certain people who prefer to have the basic parts of these cables and make them themselves. We have spoken with several of these people to know the reasons why.

If you want to do something right, do it yourself

Network Cable

Javier Lobo, a veteran systems administrator and expert who has preferred to deploy an ethernet cable network in every corner of his home (which took him days), explains what tools these are. Everything starts naturally with buying a generous roll of network cable, like this one of 100 meters and Cat6 to support local bandwidths of 1 Gbps. Along with the cable, another basic thing is the RJ45 connectors that will go on each end of the cables that we make. Here’s a pack of one hundred.

Then we will need the tools to strip, cut and crimp the cables that we make according to our needs, which are usually sold in sets and complete briefcases. And if you already want to get an honor plate in aesthetics and pass the cables through the pipes of the electrical installation so that they are not visible, you will need a cable gland, lubricant (yes, lubricant) and some rosettes that provide some aesthetics. And if you have to connect a lot of devices in a room, you will probably need switches like these.

Cable glands A cable gland usually looks like this, with ends in which the ends of the cables are tied and the length necessary to be able to pass the cable through the inner channels of our walls.

In total, and depending on the amount of cable required and devices to be connected, we can already see that the material costs will be at least 150 euros. Is it worth this outlay when Wi-Fi networks are increasingly powerful? For Javier the answer is totally yes.

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“In the long run, the effort pays off. Moving a 4K movie from my server to my Apple Cable TV is always going to be faster and more satisfying. I’m not going to have buffering breaks or drops in quality. Large transfers files are noticeably faster and more stable over cable. In addition, the cable uptime is 100%. Even if the internet goes down for some reason, the local network continues to function if there is no power failure. The WiFi can suffer interference, saturation of channels, noise and bandwidth drops ”

If a device can be connected via ethernet cable at Javier’s house, it connects via cable. Strategic places such as the television cabinet in the living room or the computers in the office they are connected to base switches, he says, in order to properly distribute the signal.

Javier points out to me what was his main obstacle when mounting all the wiring: the difficulties that can arise when using the cable gland to route the network cables through all the interior conduits of the walls of the house. “Normally there are free ‘macaroni’ to be able to pass the cables that you want, but sometimes it is not like that and you have to go to hell. That’s when running a cable through gutters where there is more wiring can be hell.“.

It is that part of the job that Javier has had the most problems and mistakes with. He insists that we use special lubricant to pull the cables, since he has found out on his own meats how to use ordinary dish soap (some use it as a homemade lubricant) causes sticky residue all over the cable, which precisely prevents them from being well displayed on the inside of the walls.

Another lesson Javier learned the hard way is that not all houses are well prepared to be able to deploy network cables. We have to mentalize ourselves: It is possible that the cable gland guide gets stuck halfway, and we cannot continue inserting the cable or remove the one that we have already put. “In this situation, unless you want to do work at home, it is best to leave that guide and the piece of cable stuck in there and look for alternatives“These can go through trying other interior gutters that have more space, or simply run the cables outside and remain exposed if aesthetics are not too much of an issue for you.

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Network cable to work, but also to play

Router

Paco Fernández, a technician who works in Barcelona, ​​is another person who also decided in his day to make the effort to pass network cable through his house:

“I don’t like relying on Wi-Fi to download content or play games, because I lose a lot of latency in games and I like having a stable 1 Gbps to send me anything I want to see on other devices through the local network. I took advantage of a moment when I had I had to change the electrical installation of my apartment and I also began to add ethernet cables ”

At the time of installation, Paco used Category 5e cables, which at the moment he does not plan to change since the speeds of the Spanish fiber optic plans do not exceed the speed of 1 Gbps. The technician is more optimistic about the Wi-Fi networks of the future, saying that does not rule out using them if they ever outperform the cables. Javier, on the other hand, defends that the ethernet cable will always be between the walls of his house.

Someone who avoided the work of running cables through the bowels of the walls of his house is Fernando of Cordoba. Seeing that teleworking is going to be something much more common in the remainder of the pandemic and in the time that will come later, he decided to wire his office to get around the rather poor bandwidth that came to him with the Wi-Fi router.

“In general, the connection is very unstable, and I have tried different routers, Wi-Fi channels and providers, even technologies (cable, fiber and ADSL). From time to time I drop Wi-Fi … and for work it is complicated, imagine if he catches you in a virtual meeting or working remotely. I live near a military installation so I think that’s why. Either that or I have a Luddite ghost at home. ”

For Fernando, crimping the cables turned out to be “a traumatic shock”

Fernando’s solution has been to route the cable outside, fixing it with staples just above the baseboard of the floor and drilling holes to pass it from one room to another. It is the first time that he has dared to do it from a roll of network cable, and for him the biggest challenge has been to crimp the cables:

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“Crimping is hell. At first, innocent of me, I thought” let’s see, it’s putting a cable in a plastic box, it can’t be that bad “, and I cut it with scissors a bit like God gave me to understand. Chaos. Putting the eight stiff little cables and in order is practically impossible. Finally I bought a crimper, which not only closes the box well but cuts them all at the same height, and I don’t know if it was because of that or because I had tried twenty times, but it worked the first time ”

When it comes to crimping the cables, Javier also gives us some advice that will avoid frustrations: do not cut the cable too short at the ends: “We must leave a margin of error in case we fail to crimp and we have to cut the cable a little more“.

In Fernando’s words, he will consider wiring his TV zone in the living room “when the traumatic shock passes“of crimping the office cables. journey He leaves several recommendations to all of us who consider using cable in our house: buy spare material, always prioritize it before WiFi and require network cable integrated in the installation when buying new construction flats.