"RJ45" crimp connector flavors

I agree. I'm responsible for much of the cabling at work (small company, many hats, etc.), and I order much more solid cable, but that basically all goes in the walls. The stranded stuff is mostly used for custom length/whatever patch cables. Common length patch cables get ordered in bulk and stocked.

And yes, I've made a patch cable or three out of solid wire when necessary. But they're fragile.

But that says nothing of the relative amounts of solid vs stranded sold, "in general".

--------^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Except for those who feed cable manufacturers -- who will probably see *zero* (relatively speaking) solid wire purchases.

Agreed.

OTOH, how many patch cords get discarded over time? Broken latch? Knotted? etc. In that same time period, have you ever seen someone *pull* the wire that's in the walls out and replace it?

E.g., I'm just coming to the end of my fourth? (or fifth?) box of cable for the house. I *know* none of it will ever be replaced because it won't be accessible (no attic or basement). Yet I probably toss a "patch cord" every couple of weeks. Over the course of a home's lifetime, how many feet of "stranded" does that represent?

[Note, in my case, many drops never see a patch cord on the "far end" as they are hardwired to "devices". I don't think that is common for most installations where you'd tend to have patch cords on each end of the infrastructure wiring: from servers/switches to "distribution" and from end drops to "end devices". Plus, stranded wiring within the data center itself.]

It would be interesting to see total solid vs stranded production (consumption) "industry wide".

yeah, I've seen 25 pair "key system" wiring pulled and replaced with cat5

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On 12 Dec 2013 11:41:58 GMT, Jasen Betts Gave us:

Used to be, a set-up lasted only a couple years before the guys in charge wanted change-outs of non fastened terminations.

Nowadays, nearly everything has a bit of gold in the plating and oxidation on such terminations has fallen to near nil values and longevity is very high. and the connection counts are thousands these days as each blade in a chassis typically has a serial control connection going and many have KVM outputs. Then, there are literally hundreds of Ethernet links.

Not many problems these days, as one does NOT see folks constantly perusing a huge gateway set-up, replacing "bad" cables.

And dress is refined too, one does not see the "knots and twisting" you are so bad with (I guess).

What is "this application"?

Infrastructure wiring (more-or-less permanent stuff inside walls and whatnot) is pretty much always solid.

Don't be silly. Most cat 6 cable is solid. Check the 1000ft spools at any cable wholesaler. The only thing stranded is used for is patch cables that get moved around a lot.

Yes, the crimp connectors are different. Some crimp connectors are designed for use only with only, some for solid only, some for either.

I've once tried (unknowingly) using standed-only connectors on solid conductors. They don't work reliably in the long term.

You're over-simplifying. The design of the end of pin where it pushes through the insulation differs.

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But that's "replacing (with something different)" not replacing due to wear.

Here (US) "abandoned cable" is supposed to be removed -- unless clearly tagged "for future expansion"

The diagrams I posted should have made the distinction fairly clear. However, I got a few surprises when I took some more photos of just the contact: The beveled part has a rounded tip, probably to keep from cutting the copper wire. The beveled edges are poorly formed (die wear?) on most of the connectors I had in stock. The 3 prong universal variety seems to rely on the prongs straddling the copper wire, and not punching a hold dead center in the middle of the stranded wire bundle.

It was predictable. A $12 lunch entitles those paying to inundate me with their computah or repair problems. The food was good. The conversation, not so good.

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Then there's those connectors are sold as "universal", but have a manufacturer's code on them (under the vendor's "universal" label) that reveals they are "for stranded conductors". Hmmm.

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So you don't expect your house to last longer than cat6 is viable?

I bet the person who commisioned the key system thought that was a permanent solution, someoned later replace it wuth a panasonic digital/analogue PABX (using fewer pairs on the same copper), we replaced that with asterisk and SIP phones on CAT5e.

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On Thu, 12 Dec 2013 14:29:03 +0000 (UTC), Grant Edwards Gave us:

That is ONLY because of your first statement. Hard runs and especially LONG runs.

So the figures do not reflect the hands on stuff like patch cables and interior lab runs in open trays.

In fact, Cisco is starting to use some very small diameter stuff for inter-rack cabling and the like.

So yeah, I did not frame my remark correctly. But silly?

A lot of the new jumpers we are getting are braided shield variety with shrouded terminations. True cat 6 cables. They make the best, least 'fuzzy' eye on the test analyzer.

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 04:47:49 -0800, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno Gave us:

Lets also not forget that those hard runs have two ends that get terminations crimped. In lab patch cables, though less length gets used, get used more often and more terminations get crimped onto said wires on the whole. All of the interconnects between routers and switches, etc.. And all inter-rack connections.

Hell even runs within a lab might be soft (stranded), even if it is a couple hundred feet.

So looking at stock figures at a place of sale, does NOTHING toward proving it "gets used more". Lineal feet yes. But we were talking about terminations. There are so many millions of those, no numbers you find anywhere will be any indication of anything.

More terminations are crimped onto stranded wire. Period.

More solid gets sold, and gets used on long, hard runs. So considerably LESS actual crimps get done on solid wire.

*This* house is a bad example. I am *sure* the cable will be here when the house ultimately collapses, is bulldozed for a new development, etc. It is just not practical to *remove* the wiring: no basement, no attic. To get the wires *out*, you'll have to rip open the ceilings, walls, etc. "Ain't gonna happen" :>

How long was the cabling there? How many feet of "patch cords" connecting that CAT5e infrastructure wiring to SIP handsets, network switches, etc. will be replaced in the time that the wiring stays *in* the walls? (i.e., assuming it *is* eventually removed to run fibre, etc.).

Most folks do not repair "patch cords". Break a tab/latch and the cord ends up in the trash bin -- even if you delay putting it there, you *know* that's where its ultimately headed. I've tossed two 50' cables in the past month because the tabs snapped off. Try to replace? Or, buy another for $20? (in a business environment, this is a non-decision -- *take* another from the *stock* of cables you prepurchased for this reason!)

[The folks most likely willing to repair the cable to save the $20 probably haven't invested in the tools and parts to do so]

OTOH, in the unlikely event that someone mangles a *jack*, you won't pull all the associated cable out of the wall and start fresh. Instead, you'll replace the jack allowing all but an inch or two of said cable to remain in place. So, the "solid" remains in use while the "stranded" gets replaced.

at-least 6 months, before that I can only speculate. key systems out out of fashion in the early 1980s, so, more than 20 years. The sockets and termination blocks were on MDF plaques so less than 35 years.

none, you picked another bad example. the buliding was demolished after the Feb 2011 earthquake,

I often re-use the end with the good plug for a purpose that would have otherwise required fitting a plug or cutting up a good cable.

We pay a bit over half that for 15m cables..

I have not seen a high rate of damage to patch cables. we buy one of the types with snag resistant tabs and run them away from crush risks, but mainly we leave them alone. treated properly they last almost forever.

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I have recently had to deal with this issue at work.

We have found that a lot of RJ45s are not reliably crimped. Maybe a 5% failure rate.

These are Chinese-made cables which we buy in, custom made, 1000+.

It appears they were *adequately* crimped i.e. the compression tool did penetrate far enough.

So what happened?

Probably they didn't use the correct wire size for the contacts.

There is a separate issue which is that a second crimp is used to hold the cable insulation in place, as a form of strain relief. This also need the correct cable diameter to be used, otherwise you get an unreliable connector.

On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 13:02:15 +0000, Peter Gave us:

That is why you perform pull testing on a sample of the lot and reject the entire lot if a certain number of failures occur in the sample.

Or, simply buy a decent brand to start with. The ones with molded on retention clip protection hood get vacuum potted, so the cable and connector are bonded together better.

Ah ----------------------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^

So, neither "COTS" nor "hand-made" (by you/your staff)

There are noticeable differences in *jacket* O.D. -- depending on material, manufacturing process, etc. (some almost seem to be

*tubing* through which the conductors are "pulled" while others are more conformally coated "bundles" of conductors).

IME, usually the diameter of the conductors is enough to drive the jacket crimp correctly. E.g., any "slop" in the jacket gets squished over to the edges.

When making a cable, I give a gentle but firm tug on the jacket after the crimp.

I also don't make cables that are expected to see lots of abuse! Why tempt fate? :>

You're misreading my comment: THE CONTACTS ARE IDENTICAL for the

*labeled* bags of "solid" and "stranded" connectors that I have. I.e., the manufacturer has apparently decided that one "universal" contact style is "good enough" for his production line.

(whether that is the *optimal* choice is debatable)

Haven't you learned that there *is* no free lunch? :>

(I routinely "treat" salesmen, etc when I head out to lunch to warp the implicit bias in that "transaction": "Um, no, *I* don't 'owe you' any business; any information I got from you I 'paid' for :> " )

Per TIA-568C.2 the (Ehternet) Category 5e network connectors are IEC

60603-7-5. In case anyone wants to acquire a copy.

?-)

Those are destructive tests. I.e., My original goal was to be able to sort out "spilled" connectors based on some visual criteria as to whether they are intended for solid vs. stranded.

[It appears they are for "either" and the solid vs stranded label is completely artificial in this instance/manufacturer]

In the future, I'd like to make sure there is no possibility of confusion -- either by selecting components that are "universal" in application *or* are so dramatically different in appearance that it is really obvious when someone is using the wrong connectors! (If you have to resort to a microscope to figure out if the connector is correct, your test/inspection time goes up dramatically!)

Ah, I didn't realize this was a variable! I thought they were all designed for 24AWG?