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Soldering/splicing wires sucks
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ChadTower:

--- Quote from: shmokes on September 05, 2008, 02:38:21 am ---I'm splicing it with CAT 5e.  Getting those little ---smurfs--- to stay in place while I get the solder on them is SOOOOO difficult. 

--- End quote ---


Don't solder with stranded 5e.  It's like herding cats.  If you must extend with 5e then use solid core.  Much easier.  Or hell you could just crimp some ends and use an RJ45 female-female coupler.  That's probably a whole lot easier and since it's inside the cab it won't be a wear part.
shmokes:

--- Quote from: Turnarcades on September 05, 2008, 11:04:02 am ---
Try close-threading the spliced ends


--- End quote ---

What is close-threading?  Also, trying to get electrical tape around eight itty-bitty wires, all in close enough proximity to each other that they can fit in a CAT 5e cable sounds WAY harder than what I'm doing. 


--- Quote from: ChadTower on September 05, 2008, 11:18:11 am ---Don't solder with stranded 5e.  It's like herding cats.  If you must extend with 5e then use solid core.  Much easier.  Or hell you could just crimp some ends and use an RJ45 female-female coupler.  That's probably a whole lot easier and since it's inside the cab it won't be a wear part.

--- End quote ---

I actually ordered just such a coupler at the same time I ordered the wall jack.  But it's a last resort.  A #1, I no longer have crimpers (mine belonged to my employer, back in Utah).  The CAT 5e that I'm splicing with was a patch cable, so it already had ends crimped onto it.  So, in order to use the coupler I'd either have to get a new crimping tool or do twice as much splicing.  Additionally, using the coupler won't be nearly as slick as patching one side down to a wall jack, I think, so just in terms of the cool factor (even though nobody will ever see it), I want to fail at the one before resorting to the other.

I think I finally got it all done last night.  The leads on my multimeter are too big to get into the RJ45 connector, so I couldn't test it yet.  I'll test it a little bit later today, but I'm pretty sure I got everything secured and insulated.
ChadTower:

Dude, you can get a basic crimper at Radio Shack for like $10-15.  How much is that worth in your time?   ;D
shmokes:
That's a complicated question.  Since I'm living in an expensive city and my wife is bringing in all our income right now, I find myself there's more than a cost/benefit analysis that goes on before I make purchases.  There's also a cost/do-I-have-any-money analysis I have to factor into the equation.   ;D
patrickl:
I was thinking about crimping a connector too, but I guess having one cable looks nicer and indeed it costs to buy a crimper.

BTW When metering RJ45 connectors I tape a needle onto the multimeter leads.
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