Electronics! NYC! Quickly!

October 14, 2009 11:52 PM

Where can I find a cheap network cable tester, tomorrow morning, in NYC?

I just realized that I need a RJ45/Ethernet cable tester for something short tomorrow. Is there anything anywhere in Brooklyn or Manhattan that will sell a cheap LAN tester (something like this, where you plug something in one end and something else in the other and it lights up and checks each pin) tomorrow morning? Any good electronics stores? Online searches at Radioshack and J&R seem to yield nothing but a $150 tester kit, which quite frankly is overkill for me.

Thanks!

posted by provolot to computers & internet (4 comments total)

You could always hack one with an auto-crossover-capable switch. If you plug the cables in and the lights light up, the cable works. If they don't, it doesn't.

(This might give you false-positives if you intend to use the cable for PoE or gigabit. But if you are doing 10/100, then it should be fine.)
posted by jrockway at 1:20 AM on October 15

It wouldn't surprise me if one of those crappy little electronics places on Canal Street had one. There are a few on the north side of the street a couple blocks west of Broadway...sorry for being so vague, but I always just wander down Hudson Street and start walking east until I hit them.
posted by JaredSeth at 3:56 AM on October 15

Cables & Chips, maybe? They're on Fulton St. in the Financial District. If they don't have one they'll definitely know where to find one.
posted by mkultra at 7:18 AM on October 15

B&H photo??
posted by chasles at 7:26 AM on October 15