30 MA XIMUMPC JUNE 200 5
STEP 3 : TERMINATE
THE CABLES
In other words, attach jacks to the
ends of your cablesOnce you’ve completed all your cable
runs, you’ll need to terminate the cables
(wire them to Ethernet jacks). Take care to
strip no more than one inch of the jacket
away from the twisted pairs of wires
inside. It’s very important that the jacket
covers the wires all the way up to the
jack; otherwise, you could compromise
the cable’s ability to transmit data at
maximum speed. You’ll need a UTP
stripper and a wire punch-down tool for
this step.
For esoteric reasons we won’t go
into here, there are two different wiring
schemes for terminating Cat5e cables:
T568A and T568B. Most jacks and patch
panels have diagrams for both wiring
schemes, and there’s no signifi cant
performance difference between the two.
The key is that the entire system must
be terminated using the same scheme.
We’ve chosen T568A for this example.
Terminate both ends of all of your
cable runs and move on to the next step.STEP 4 : CLOSE YOUR
ELECTRICAL BOXES
Tidy up your mess, or face the consequences
You’re just about fi nished with the cabling part of your
project. Now all you need to do is arrange all those
cables inside your electrical boxes and screw on the
faceplates.To begin, you’ll need to strip the
ends of the wire using your wire
stripper. Most strippers help align
the end of the wires so you trim
just the right amount. Trim any
excess wire using your wire snips.Following the T568A wiring diagram on
the jack, untwist each pair of color-coded
wires and drape them into the matching
channels. Using the spring-loaded push-
down tool, push each of the wires down
into the appropriate channel. When the
push-down tool clicks, it snips off the
excess wire.Once you’ve placed and
trimmed each of the wire
pairs, run the wire through
the channel and lock it in
place with the included
black cover.A
B
C
A
B
To deal with excess cable, coil it loosely inside the electrical
box. If you have more excess wire than comfortably fits inside
the box, you can push it back inside the wall. Be sure to leave
four to six inches of excess wire at each outlet in case you need
to reattach a recalcitrant jack.Push each of the
Ethernet jacks into the
holes in the backs of the
wall plates. They should
snap firmly in place.
Note that they only go in
one way, make sure that
the UP label on the jack
and the wallplate agree.C
Once you’ve
mounted the jacks,
you can screw
them partially into
the electrical box,
just to get them
out of the way,
so no unfortunate
accidents will occur.C
NETWORK YOUR HOME