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Bryann

Splicing 101....

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I'm just curious to know what methods some people are using to splice CAT5 cable. I've seen some nice stuff like heat-shrink and terminating caps, and some NASTY stuff, like prestik, clear adhesive tape, and even joins made by tying the two joining cables in a knot.....! Anything else out there? Good and bad.....

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I have seen it done in the residential for phone add ons, but I have never seen this with cameras, or networking.

 

It is funny to see the Do it yourself mistakes that can be made. I mostly seen where the F connector has come off, and the home owner has shoved the center conductor into the back of his tv set then ***ed about the quality of the video.

 

I have seen aligator clips attached to a set of wires then clipped on to the other set of wires. Fun trying to figure out why the whole phone system is down!

 

I have seen people with the telephone style connectors on the cameras modify them for bnc connectors. It never seems to work out for these people!

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For Cat5E I've used punchdown blocks, and I've used those small white "dolphin" beans to clamp the two wires together (then use electical tape to wrap it all up nicely). I've had more problems with the punchdown block as the wires kept coming out, but that was likely due to me having the defective punchdown tool.

 

For a recent coax run, I used an idea I got from here, infact I think it was Rory who posted it. I soldered the center and braid to the other center and braid. Works like a charm, and there isn't a 3db loss from a connector, nor two more BNC connectors to waste.

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That reminds me of a trouble shoot adventure. It appears someone used the punch down tool backward, and was cutting the wire, and not the excess lead!

 

Visually everything looked good. The system worked at the begining of the wiring, but nothing worked at each station. I verified the input side of the block was working. It was not till later when I worked my way back from the work stations to the block that I found the wires were missed punched.

 

I cannot believe that i missed it the first time I was standing there!

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Works like a charm, and there isn't a 3db loss from a connector, nor two more BNC connectors to waste.

Barrel connectors don't have a 3db loss. It is more like 1/2db per connector (or 1db per barrel). And if you aren't careful to maintain the correct spacing between the center conductor and the shield, you can mess up the cable's impedance causing standing waves, loss of signal level and ghosts. You could also introduce noise into the signal if you don't properly shield the splice.

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There are a lot of wires in the shielding, how long does it take to solder each individual wire in the shield?

 

LOL!

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There are a lot of wires in the shielding, how long does it take to solder each individual wire in the shield?

 

LOL!

I found a simple way to maintain the integrity of the shield. After you untwist and splice the shield essentially as one stranded wire, wrap the cable with its shield with aluminum foil or conductive tape, then apply electrical tape or heat shrink over the whole thing.

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You have taken away all of my fun!

 

I was hoping someone would attempt to solder every individual wire in the braid one, on one!

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I stand corrected Servtech. I thought someone had said they were 3.

 

Scorpion - I twist the bunch of the shields together. One giant mass of twisted shield, then solder to keep it tight. Thats how I do each strand haha.

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they make an inline splice for cat5 that is like a 110 punchdown we have used that and it appears to work well. for phone work if we don't care how it looks or we have to do a quick splice we will use the 3m beans to splice cat3 not pretty but they work. For data on cat 5 we always try for a Jack to Jack connection.

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