Ethernet cat 5 cable questions.

[IreM72]

Eventually when I come to wire up my cp I'll probably use cat 5 ethernet wire. Which are the best disconnects to use, the 187 disconnects or the .25?

also is it correct that "one" coloured wire of the group of wires in an ethernet cable is used to for one connection from the encoder to button/joystick?

Thanks

[BobA]

the best disconnects are the ones that fit your switches.   .187 being the most common.   Only a single wire is needed for each connection either a single color or a colored stripe.

[Benevolance]

I used Cat 5 to wire my cabinet. The most difficult part I found was that the internal ethernet strands are...what, 24 gauge? 26 gauge? Whatever the size, my wire strippers did not not do that small. When you open up the Cat5 cable, you'll notice that the wires are twisted together into 4 pairs. I found that if I left the strands twisted together and stripped both at once, it worked better. It still wasn't very elegant, but it worked alright four times out of five.

[ghettodish]

I wired my first cab with Cat5. I used a lighter to "strip" the ends of the wire. The casing burned away clean from the bulk wire I was using.

I tried the same technique later on a pre-made cable but the casing turned to goo. A razor did the trick.

[ViciousXUSMC]

Having a real wire striper is nice but for thin wire like that you can strip it easy with cutters, just apply a gentle pressure on the wire case enough to pinch it some and pull, the case will  rip off leaving you with the wire.

I just built my most recent adapter box and moved form 24ga to 26ga rainbow wire and it was ok to strip but when I hacked my gamecube cables those must be around 30ga and even my smallest setting on my wire stripper did not touch them, I had to use that cutter method.

I never owned one of those auto wire strippers but a few guys in the field when I did electrical worked used them and liked them.

[ivwshane]

I don't know about you guys but for me the smaller gauge wire was a pain to crimp and never really held well. One thing that has seemed to work is if I double over the wire before crimping.

Is there a better way?

[SavannahLion]

Is there a better way?

Solder.

[Bluedeath]

I soldered them to the terminals.

[ivwshane]

I soldered them to the terminals.

Even the ones that are insulated?

[severdhed]

when we wired my friend's control panel with cat5, we just stripped the wire with our fingernails.  it doesnt take much effort..although the tips of our fingers were pretty sore at the end of the day.  we stripped them back longer than we needed, and then folded the wire to make it thicker...then just crimped them on....it worked just fine.  i don't remember what size the terminals were..but they had little blue sleeves on them.


also, just FYI..if you are using cat 5 and need to have separate strands of a considerable length.  take one of the twisted pairs...fasten one end  in the end of a drill and have someone slowly pull the two wires apart as you run the drill in the proper direction...  a few seconds later they are completely apart from each other and you didn't just spend all that time untwisting them by hand.

[Bluedeath]

I soldered them to the terminals.

Even the ones that are insulated?

It depends on the kind of insulation if is rubber just extract the terminal that needs tpo be crimped  and put the insuòlltion on the cable before crimping the connector, if is the plastig kind i wolud just avoid, anuhow for the microswitches insualted terminals ar not needed unless you have a very ramped control panel.