Cable Tester

PBC

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As I am about to wire a fair few Cat 5e cables for my home AV set-up, I thought I would look at getting a cable tester (as I don't have a great success rate in fitting plugs to Cat cable).

Is this any good for what I want to do - CCS Tester from CableMonkey

Appreciate any help

Thanks

Phil
 
Have a chat with Mike at Aca-Apex in Leighton Buzzard.

They have a great little tester with LCD panel that will give far more I do than that CCS.

A bit more money but should be worth it.

Hth

V.
 
I bought that from CableMonkey, a good go/no go tester. It found several faulty terminations.
 
Thanks guys; will have a look at the one from CableMonkey

Phil
 
Can anyone explain the four lights on the Tester 1-2, 3-6, 4-5, 7-8 and what they show?

Just checked a working patch cable I had to hand and only got 1-2 to light up.

Thanks

Phil
 
Either it or the patch lead is knackered.

The numbers relate to the colour pairs, so you can know where to start looking for faults.

So if it is a 586b lead' only the orange pair are working, if it is 586a then the green pair are working.

Hth.

V.
 
Sorry, they should flash in sequence.
1-2
3-6
4-5
7-8

Anything different to that and you have a problem
 
Just tried some more patch cables that are working on the LAN here and they just give a constant light to 1-2 and 3-6

Do patch ethernet cables need to have all 4 pairs connected, or do they operate with only 2 pairs "live"?

Wondering if my cables are wrong; the tester faulty or everything is OK and I am still learning :)
 
A good cable tester is essential as the 8 light continuity ones tend to be a bit dodgy. The same goes for termination crimps & plugs as some just never give a great crimp.
Your cable ends need to be:

(reading from the plug clip side up)
Brown
Brown stripe
Green
Blue stripe
Blue
Green stripe
Orange
Orange stripe

+ground on casing if you are using shielding.

All 8 are required.

If you are only doing a few ends then it is pointless spending silly money on a tester. To be honest, just hook up a laptop to a router/switch and check in the network settings to see if you are negotiating correctly.
 
Is it true that all 8 are needed in a patch cable?

The cable I tested is marked on the cable "2 pair", which is what the tester is showing 1-2 and 3-6

Also I found this on the internet, which says for Straight-Through Ethernet Cable, that 4-5 and 7-8 are unused; so I assume the cables I have tested are only 2 pair and not fully wired.

Does this make sense?

Thanks

Phil
 
This is true... Ethernet only actually uses two pairs, but it is good practice to run all 8 cables to ensure connectivity. You also never know what's round the corner with regards to cable usage.
 
Thanks for the confirmation - still learning here :)

Phil
 
Your 2-pair cable is only going to run at 10-100Mb/s, to run at 1Gb/s requires all 4 pairs in a Cat5e/Cat6 cable to be connected.
 

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