Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with rj45

Electronics! NYC! Quickly!

provolot — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:52:28 -0800

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!

How do I wire a network socket with 2 ports?

chillmost — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 02:15:17 -0800

If i want to install a network socket box in an office, each with 2 ports, how do I wire it? I have been tasked with wiring up a few newly available offices at my company in order to get them on to the network. I know how to do this for both ends of a CAT5 cable and I am no stranger to wiring up a simple network with a router and a few hubs and switches.

For this project however, I want it to look nice and pretty with this kind of network jack (German) installed on the wall. Each box has 2 RJ-45 jacks on it. I have searched and searched but I can not determine if there is a special way to wire this sort of connection.

Do I run 2 lengths of CAT5 to each box (thus doubling the expense of cable)?
or do I affix the end of one cable to the back and the internal wiring takes care of the rest?
Or, do I have to really use my brain and figure out how to carry 2 data channels over 1 length of CAT5, employing some sort of y-splitter cable?
something else?

I mention the idea with the y-splitter because I know that with 4-twisted pairs, it is possible, in theory, to be done but I'm not sure if it is practical or common in this situation. Would anyone with experience care to drop some knowledge about how this is done?

I called the place selling this but they (sales) weren't really helpful.
Da fragen Sie mich viel zu viel!

A $100 Cat5 tester?

Kwantsar — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:44:13 -0800

Please recommend a cat5/RJ45/network cable tester to troubleshoot existing wiring. I have three jacks (out of 25) that aren't working right; I don't know if they have ever worked right. I'd like to know whether the cable between the switch and the wall plate is broken, whether it is simply miswired, or whether I am missing something else.

I can't get inside the plates at the switch without moving heaven and Earth, there's not enough slack in the wire at the walljack end for me to visually inspect whether the wires appear correct (visually), and trying a crossover cable at one end (the obvious first guess) provides no relief.

Also, if I can get a good tester (within my budget) that will tell me whether the wiring can handle gigabit, that's a bonus.

Budget is about $100.

Telephone over Cat5: Is it possible without voip?

Freen — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:57:21 -0800

I'm setting up some telephone lines, and well, I really don't want to lay more wires than I have to. So this is the deal, I've got five telephone lines, and three telephone (rj11) jacks. We've just installed wifi, and so a number of unused ethernet cables. Is it possible to buy an adaptor that will allow me to use a cat5 cable to send plain old telephone over them? We have a room in the back where we have out ethernet switch and patch cables, as well as where verizon brings our telephone lines in. I want to be able to put in a jack, and then connect a patch cable from the rj11 telephone jack to the rj45 ethernet jack that goes from that location to the desk, then connect that cable(going from rj45 back to rj11) to a telephone, or fax machine.

I imagine there might be issues with electrical incompatibilities, or wiring incompatibilities, etc. If anyone has any ideas about other ways to do this without rewiring, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks!