Cat 5 Cable

A CAT 5 cable is used to connect two or more devices over a LAN. These are twisted pair Ethernet cables. The CAT 5 cables form a small home or office network, that is fast and at the same time simple. You should use two Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) network standards to form a network, the 10 BASE-T Ethernet or 100BASE-TX Ethernet. If you are planning to form a new home or office network, 100BASE-TX standard is recommended.

Most of the wiring is used to connect one computer to another or a computer to the hub. The solid core cable is suitable for small home or office networks as standard wire patch cables are prone to degradation due to moisture infiltration.

A CAT 5 cable has four pairs of colored wires with basic colors like blue, orange, green or brown. Each pair contains two wires twisted together with one wire colored with a particular color and the other one with stripes of the same color and white background. All the CAT 5 crossover cables are terminated with CAT 5 RJ-45 modular plug.

To make a CAT 5 cable you will need to follow the steps given below:

* Strip and expose the cable jacket by an inch. * Untwist the wire. * Arrange the wires in the desired order in which to crimp. * Hold the wires together properly, arrange them to remove the curliness. The wires should be very close to each other. * Cut off the wires with some sharp or good quality scissors so that ends of the wires are not flattened making the stuffing of the wires difficult. * Put the wires into connector and the wire should be lined up and should reach at the end. * The jacket should go even with the first indent. * Crimp it with the help of crimper.

There are some points to be kept in mind in order to keep the wire in good health :

* Do not overstretch the cable. * Keep cable away from the devices like washing machine, TV sets or printers making lots of noise. * Do not bend the cable too much. * The cable should not be run along with power cables. * The RJ-45 plug is made for either solid or stranded cable. The plug should match the cable type. It is very difficult to differentiate between the two cables. Make sure that you buy the right one to avoid any problem later on.