If you find traditional RJ45 plugs really fiddly and hard to get working
properly but you also dislike pass-through connectors due to the possibility of shorts,
then modular RJ45 plugs which feature a load bar might be the solution you’ve been looking for!
the cable’s tip and down onto the cable before you get down to business. Make sure you do this first,
as there’s nothing worse than getting going and then having to stop, fumble around for a cable
cap, and then try to get it on when you’ve already started stripping - it’s a real mood killer!
Next up, we’ll strip about 3cm of the outer cable jacket to reveal
the 4 twisted pairs inside. Depending on the type of cable and how rigid it is,
you might be able to use the built-in wire stripper on your crimping tool,
but with this cable I’m using here that just doesn’t work very well so I use this
excellent automatic wire stripper. I love this tool, it’s literally changed my life
as it makes stripping any size of wire so quick and easy, and can even strip multiple wires all
at once to the same length. There’s a link in the description if you’re as easily excitable as I am!
With the outer jacket stripped away, pull back the braided shielding and
twist it round into itself, like this. Don’t cut it off - we’ll be
using this later to electrically connect the shielding to the RJ45 plug’s outer casing,
making it possible to have the entire cable shielded and grounded, from end to end.
Next we need to separate out all 8 cores, and you can see that extra shielding around each pair
there, so use some flush cutters to snip it away and then untwist them and straighten them all out.
Some people like to use the excess outer cable jacket to help separate the pairs out,
and once they’re separated you can also use your thumb and run along the back of
a screwdriver or pair of pliers to help get the cores really nice and straight.
Then you need to arrange the 8 colour-coded wires into the correct order so that we can
feed them into the load bar. I keep this little printout in my tub of connectors, or you can
just Google “RJ45 wiring diagram”. There are 2 main standards, T-568A and T-568B - the only
difference is the greens and the oranges trade places. The key importance is that your cable
run uses the same wiring standard on both ends of the cable, so if you’re just making a length
of cable for yourself at home and terminating both ends with an RJ45 plug then it really doesn’t make
any difference - as long as you use the same standard, A or B - on both ends. I tend to use
T-568B because it’s the most widely used nowadays. So that’s orange and white, solid orange,
green and white, solid blue, blue and white, solid green, brown and white, and finally solid brown.
If you’re adding cabling to an existing setup, or replacing a faulty end,
then make sure you use whatever standard is already in use at the location,
to make things easier for yourself and any other engineers who might do work there after you.
On this particular cable that I’m using, the colour coding on the cores is such that all
the pairs to the solid colours are themselves solid white, which means that I unfortunately
can’t make another White Stripes joke in this video. It also means that you have to
be a bit more careful and pay attention to which solid-coloured wire it’s paired with.
So, arrange them in the right order and again, run your fingers along to help straighten them
out even more so that they sit right and in the correct position. I find it helpful at this point
to take my wire cutters and gently grip the cables - but don’t snip them just yet - and to bunch the
ends right up to each other and double check the colours are still in the correct order. Then,
holding the base of the wires firmly with your thumb, snip the off end so that we have
a really neat, tight bunch at the end. Don’t worry about the length yet at this stage.
Next is the slightly fiddly bit - we need to thread the 8 wires through the corresponding
8 holes on the load bar. You’ll have noticed from the wiring order that the wires alternate
between a solid colour and a white, or white striped, colour. The load bar has 2 rows,
one for the whites and one for the solid colours so knowing that will help you make
sure you have them in the correct order on the bar as they slide in. The solid
colours will all be on the front row and the White Stripes on the back row.
It’s a bit fiddly but once they’ve been massaged into the right placement you’ll
find it suddenly slides on really easily - and once it has, you can double-check
all 8 cores are still in the right order, much like you do with a pass-through plug.
Once you’ve made sure they’re all in the right order, slide the load bar down so its base is
about 12mm from the edge of the outer jacket, and then use a pair of flush cutters to trim
all the excess away from the end of the wires that are poking out of the load bar.
Then take the modular RJ45 plug with the clip facing away from you and slide the cable,
with load bar still in place, into the plug to complete the assembly.
You should be able to see all 8 wires reaching to the very end of the plug
and you can also check again that they’re still in the right order.
Once you’re happy, insert the plug into the crimping tool and squeeze it closed
tightly - this will do two things; it will it crimp the plug and press the
little lever into the cable jacket at the bottom of the plug securing it in place,
as well as splicing the plug’s 8 contacts into the 8 wires.
Next, and this is only done on shielded cables with shielded plugs, take the wrapped up braided
shielding and wind it around so that it makes good contact with the metallic outside of the RJ45 plug
and the buckle. Using a pair of pliers, bend the buckle into place and close it tightly. Some
crimpers even have a special section to close this down, but a pair of pliers will also do the job.
Finally, slide the strain relief boot up and over the base of the plug (which also covers up and
contains the rest of the braiding, holding it in place) and that’s the first end done! A nice neat
job with all 8 cores easily in the correct order and at exactly the right length for a perfect
connection inside the RJ45 plug - with none of the downsides of open-ended passthrough plugs.
Repeat exactly the same process with the same wiring order for the other end,
and then be sure to test the cable with a cable tester like this.
This checks all 8 wires individually - it will tell you that the 8 connections are good on both
ends and also that it’s wired up correctly on both ends in the right order - or at least the same
order on both ends. It does this by performing a continuity test down each of the 8 cores in turn,
and you should see the sequence going from 1 to 8 on both ends to show that the cable
is working perfectly. Notice how the G for ground also lights up in this case,
as this is a shielded cable and we’ve used shielded plugs - the shielding for the cable
as a whole was the outer braiding that we twisted up and contacted to the buckle on the plug.
If when you’re testing the cable you get a sequence like this then you know you’ve
made a mistake somewhere - but the more you practise, and especially if
you’re using modular plugs with a load bar, that shouldn’t really ever happen.
If it’s a long cable run - and Cat7 cable should be good for speeds of
10Gigabit/second over up to 100m - then you can separate the Master and Remote
parts of the cable tester and put one at each end of the cable run to test it.
If you found this video helpful, please like and subscribe - and feel free to leave a
comment to tell me about your network setup and what cable run you’ll be doing this on.
And next up, if you want to learn how to terminate network cable on
a keystone jack in a wall socket then click the video that’s on screen now.