Jiangxi Ship Electronics Co., Ltd.

     First thing you need to do is get the proper ingredients for making your network. You will need a quality crimper (this is really important), a cheap (as in quality) one could end up costing you more time than you really want to spend on this project. You will also need a box of cable, and some ends. I''ll just say this with cable selection: Plenum isnt better, its not needed, spend your money elsewhere and just use riser cable. The only time you''re required to use plenum cable is in air ducts, also called a plenum. When you buy them, always buy more than you really need. You will make mistakes or something unforseen will happen, and you''ll need to cut the cable to start over. A cheap network cable tester is optional but very helpful in finding shorts. The higher end ones are out of the scope of this howto and will not be discussed. Snagless boots and/or strain reliefs can be used but they are optional. The most important thing you will need though is time. If you''re working all night and going to school all day, this might not be availible to you. Then again if you''re in school, you cant afford buying cables anyways...

     For Category 5 network cables you have two ends availible to you, TIA/EIA 568A and 568B. If you want a straight through cable (for use between a network card and switch or hub) use the same end on both ends. If you want a crossover (for use with network card to network card) it will require you to use one of each end on the cable. 568A to 568A, or 568B to 568B will both be straight through, 568A to 568B would make a crossover cable. Crossover cables are sometimes required in older equipment or for connecting 2 computers directly together without a switch or hub between them. The following two pinouts denote which color cables go to which conductors in the cable end. Note that these are given from left to right looking at the bottom of the connector with the tab facing away from you and the cable end down.

     Okay, now that we''ve covered the theory and rules, I will cover how to actually go about making the cables. You will need to get out the crimper and cable discussed earlier. If you are starting off a new spool or spool-in-a-box of cable, go ahead and cut off the tied end of the cable (as in rule 4). After it is cut you can put on the snagless boot far enough on to be out of the way. Take the fresh end of the cable and cut off just under a half inch of the jacket. Leave the insulation on the 4 pairs of wires. Examine the wires and if there are any nicks in them cut it off and try again. A slight nick in the insulation might not be too bad, but if you can see copper, start again.

     Now that the jacket is off you can straighten out the wires and arrange them as needed. Remember not to untwist more than you need. The straight edge cutter on your crimpers should be used to cut the wires all to the same length after they are in order. The end can be put on next, but do not crimp. Looking in the sides and bottom of the connector you should be able to see that all the ends of the wires actually go to the end of the connector. This is really important, a bad connection means you''re starting over again. After you are 100% sure that everything is correct, go ahead and crimp the cable. I usually go through crimping each end 2x just to make sure that it wont be a problem.

     After both ends are crimped you can go about testing it. There are inexpensive testers that use LEDs on one end and will show you wiring problems, shorts, etc. Another simple test is to use the cable to transfer por^H^H^H large files over the cable while you are making the next one. If you do see a lot of dropped packets/errors/etc you will know to cut the ends off and try again. Being able to do the test with a known good cable will further show that the bad cable is in fact bad. So now that you have the cable, go get your LAN on.