10 Base-T/100 Base-TX Cabling

Purpose: This page is dedicated to a brief tutorial on making your own Category 5 network cables. This procedure is compatible with 10 Base-T and 100 Base-TX Ethernet networks (The latter is also refered to as Fast Ethernet). To learn more about the differences between 10 Base-T and 100 Base-T and a more in depth discussion of Fast Ethernet visit The Ethernet Home Page.

Also check out The Cabling Directory, which links to companies that handle any of your wiring needs.

Plenty of Shielded Category 5 cable

Two RJ-45 round wire connectors/ per run of cable

A small wire-cutter

One RJ-45 Crimping Tool

• Lay the wiring to the appropriate places (usually from a hub to a network card in a PC) before installing the ends, so that the ends do not get in the way. For some ideas on how to start planning for your network and more information on cabling specifications Here is a good starting point.
• Take one end of the wire and remove the outer sheathing to reveal about 3/4" of the end of the twisted wires.
• The wires are grouped in pairs for a total of eight copper wires. All Category 5 wire colors are standard. There are four solid colors(Brown, Blue, Green and Orange) paired with white striped with the appropriate colors. I will refer to these wires as: white/brown, white/blue, white/green and white/orange.

• Untwist all of the exposed wires and straighten them out as much as you can. The next step is to rearrange the wires in a flat manner, as close together as possible, from right to left in the following order:
• Brown, White/Brown, Green, White/Blue, Blue, White/Green, Orange, White/Orange
  
  
• Note the above figure is looking into the jack where your cable connector plugs.

• Take all of the wires and cut them to the same length - approximately 1/2" exposed.

• Hold a connector as shown and insert the wires from the bottom, making sure to keep the right order (Brown to the right). You will notice that each wire should slide into separate grooves toward the tip of the connector. Push the wires in as far as they will go.

• Be sure that the outer sheathing is up into the opening as well. The connectors have a tab at the opening, that when crimped, ensures that the wires do not pull away from their position.

• After everything is in place crimp the connector down with the crimping tool.

• Repeat these steps on the opposite end of the wire and you have just made a Category 5, 10 Base-T/100 Base-T network cable.

It is a good idea to have some type of cable tester to verify that the cable was fitted properly. It does not have to be an expensive multipurpose device, just something that verifies the signal passes through the wire without any interference.

The procedure on the preceding pages creates cables that are commonly refered to as "Straight Through" cables. The most common use for such cables is to connect a PC to a hub, or a PC to a wall jack. It is also possible to use Category 5 wire to connect two hubs together. You use the same procedure for this type of wire except for one alteration.

To create one of these "Cross-Over" cables, simply substitute the order of wires shown on the right for one of the ends of the cable.

It is not good practice to use this type of cable for long distances between Hubs or if you will be daisy-chaining several hubs. For small networks and short distances these wires can be quite cost effective without sacrificing reliability.

This was a brief, hopefully helpful, introduction to making cables. It takes a few tries to get the feel for the wires and how they should fit into the RJ-45 connectors. Just make sure you leave enough slack on both ends and have plenty of connectors to account for a couple of mistakes. Do not be afraid to try this yourself because there will not be any damage done if you connect a bad network cable - it simply won't pass the data.