I ran a staple through my dsl line. Will it catch on fire ?

[rlemmon]

So I was stapling my dsl ( cat 5 I think) line to the wall, got in a hurry and drove a staple through it. Do I need to worry about it catching on fire. Its behind my bed. I don't want to wake up in the burn unit 


Thanks guys.

[_) (V) (-)]

It's not as likely to burn you in your sleep as it is to fry your modem or NIC card. I'd at least pull the staple out and put in a new one (straddle the cable this time) and check if it still works. Them wires inside are very thin and a staple could sever a couple of them completly.

[ChadTower]

Low voltage, so very very unlikely.  It will probably eff up your hardware, though, and definitely affect your connection speed via errors.

[rlemmon]

Thanks guys. Much appreciated. I'll replace the line tomorrow.

[AlanS17]

The wires used in cat5 are solid and I think it would take quite a staple to completely split one. They're all individually sheathed on the inside, too. The only thing I think you'd need to worry about is exposing two adjacent wires and having a short. That's no cause for alarm, though. The worst case scenario is that your connection would suck.

[ChadTower]

It's probably cat5e at least, maybe cat6, and those come in both solid and stranded.  No way of knowing from here which he has.

If he's stapling to a wall a staple gun could easily sever and/or short your average cat5e cable.  Use cable staples, not flat ones. 

[Glaine]

More importantly, Will they fly a plane into my house?

...Sorry...

[ChadTower]

If it helps, don't feel too stupid for doing it, I've done it myself and spent hours debugging a network device to find that the problem is really a staple in the cable I ran to it.

[Glaine]

Yeah, me too - I drilled a screw through some wires the first time I sealed up my homemade DDR pad. Live n learn.

[shmokes]

I think there's a 95% chance that it's going to work perfectly.  But if it does cause problems, it's just the sort of thing to cause those phantom, intermittent, nearly impossible to diagnose, bang your head against the wall for hours upon hours trying to figure out types of problems.

[ChadTower]

And that 5% chance of a hellish to diagnose issue is incentive enough to just swap the cable.  Especially since over time that percentage is going to go up with environmental aging of the cable.

[edwardvci]

All Cat5 wire should not have metal staples holding it to anything. you should use plastic clips. and do not bend over 90 degrees. either of these will change the properties of the wire and can cause lower transfer speeds. the good news is with DSL you can run the signal on just about anything so if this wire from the outside to the modem just pull that staple and don't worry about it unless you have a problem. if its from the modem to the computer or router replace it..

[boykster]

Good info here...if you can, replace the wire and use plastic cable clips (with nail on one side or the other) so that you don't change the geometry of the cable when it is fastened.  At worse, use cable staples as they aren't flat and don't have sharp edges. 

And don't worry, we've all done it.  just a couple weeks ago I put an 8d nail thru a live 110v romex cable
Had to tear the drywall off of 1/2 of a wall to re-run it.  It wasn't my run and the builder used a metal cable chase to run the romex flush under some drywall, but didn't protect it above a drop ceiling.  I was framing for a drywall ceiling and POW!

 

[AlanS17]

If you're going to replace the cable, you can find them for dirt cheap online, but retail outlets will usually try to charge $20 or more.

I've pinched cables before, but I don't think I've ever put a staple through one. I probably have and just didn't realize.

[ChadTower]

If you want to learn to make your own patch cables, you can get them REALLY cheap.  I picked up 1000ft of cat6 off ebay a while back for $25.

[rlemmon]

Thanks for all your help guys    I replaced it today.

[AlanS17]

If you want to learn to make your own patch cables, you can get them REALLY cheap.  I picked up 1000ft of cat6 off ebay a while back for $25.

That's assuming you have a lot of cables to make or ever just a couple of particularly long ones. But the terminating tools aren't free so that drives up the total price. If you're looking to replace just one cable, it's likely not worth it. If you anticipate doing a lot of them, then it's a no-brainer.

It really only takes about 5 minutes to learn to make your own, though. You might even find instructions inside a terminating tool kit.

[ChadTower]

I ran my whole house with cat6 for $40.   That's the cable, the crimp tool, and the RJ45 ends. 

[AlanS17]

I ran my whole house with cat6 for $40.   That's the cable, the crimp tool, and the RJ45 ends. 

Well I've only used one crimper in the $10-$15 range and it really sucked. I've never been happy with a crimper that wasn't at least $40. Maybe you've had better luck. It also sounds like you probably got some extraordinary deals on that stuff. Those kind of prices aren't typical.

Even at $40, though, that's more than $30 more than someone needs to pay to just replace one cable (including shipping which will probably be half the cost).

In this day and age, I've found it easier and nearly as cost-effective (when you factor in your own time as money spent) just to go wireleess. Wireless equipment off the shelf is stupid expensive, but you can get it for a lot cheaper online.

[ChadTower]

The only thing that wasn't regular retail was the cat6 spool, which was something like $25 off ebay for 1000ft.  You just have to find the deal where some surplus company has tons around.

I think of the 100 or so crimps I've done with my $10 Radio Shack crimper I've had one that was any trouble.  And that one was because I got a twisted pair reversed, not the crimper's fault.  I've had a lot more trouble with RJ45 jacks than with crimping.