Make your own ethernet cable

Ethernet cable is traditionally used to connect networked computers, but it’s actually a great type of cable to have in your arsenal for other purposes. Before we get ahead of ourselves on some non-traditional ways they can be used, let’s take a quick look at the steps to make your own custom length of Ethernet cable.

The process is very well documented so I won’t dwell too much on it, but at a high level the steps are:

  1. Cut your cable to length. I use the wire cutter in my mini-toolkit or my cable stripper.
    cut-ethernet-cable
  2. Strip the cable to expose the internal leads. This can be done by carefully applying a traditional wire cutter or using a cable stripper.
    ethernet-cable-stripper stripped-ethernet-cable
  3. Insert the individual leads into your RJ-45 ethernet connector, in the right order. Generally the order doesn’t matter as long as the colors are the same on both ends of the cable. I remember the order as “stripes first, orange-blue-green-brown, switch 3 and 5”, but you may find some easier method for remembering the colors.
    ethernet-connector ethernet-colors
  4. Crimp the connector.ethernet-crimp

That’s it! You now have a custom length of cable that has 8 internal leads to use for all kinds of home automation purposes.

Posted by Matt Chiste
October 16
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