Been crimping RJ45 ends wrong for 5 years. A network guy pointed it out.

Was running cables for a small office job in Austin last month. Client had an IT guy come verify my drops. He looked at my ends and goes 'you're not untwisting those pairs too far are you?' I was like yeah whatever. Then he showed me his. Barely any untwist. My connections were all over the place. No wonder I had intermittent drops on long runs. How far do you guys strip back the jacket before you untwist?

3 comments

3 Comments

zara5721mo ago

@walker.max I mean yeah but honestly five years of bad crimps is basically a rite of passage in this trade. My uncle still crimps with his teeth and swears it's fine. That said the "barely any untwist" thing got me. I used to strip like two inches of jacket off and let the pairs go all wild like spaghetti. Now I keep it to about half an inch and it's night and day on my longer runs. You know what's REALLY embarrassing though? That IT guy probably saw your ends and immediately knew you'd been doing it wrong for years. At least he didn't make you redo all of them in front of the client. Small mercies.

walker.max1mo ago

Man that's rough, five years of doing it wrong would sting a bit to find out.

zaram9710d ago

Five years of bad habits and the IT guy probably still gets paid the same hourly rate to fix it.