Cat5 color code.

This is a Cat5e cable.  You can see that there are 4 pairs of cables (8 wires).  I have them in order from pair 1 to pair 4.  This order is very important for a couple reasons.

1. Pair 1 (blue/blue white) is the 1st pair. So if you were going to hook up a phone jack, you always use pair 1 for line 1.  If you have two phone lines and you are running them over the same cable then you would use pair 2 (orange/white orange) for line 2.  You would use pair 3 for line 3 and so on.

Red, Right Ring!

When your wiring up a phone jack there is a proper way to do it. If you are using a traditional 4 wire cable (quad wire is what I call it) that means there are 4 wires in the cable.  Those 4 wires create 2 pairs.

Pair one is red and green.
Pair 2 is black and yellow.

Each pair has a tip and ring side.

Pair 1 - red is ring and green is tip
Pair 2 - yellow is ring and black is tip

This picture might be a little hard to see but the ring side always goes on the right side of the protector (demarcation point). This is an industry standard, so that all technicians follow the same rules and color codes.  Any color will work if it is same on both sides, but this way you can assume that when your fixing a jack it is right on the other end.  When people start mixing up colors it gets really hard to fix anything! Remember "ring right red" it always works.

Never run your cables in series.

Running cables in series can get you into trouble.  It is cheaper, and maybe quicker. But that doesn't make it better. If you don't know what I mean about running cables in series, it's pretty simple.  You run one cable from your demarcation point to a phone jack.  From that phone jack you run another cable to another phone jack and so on.  My crude little picture here shows you what I mean.

Where should I run all my cable to?

I have been running wires now for over 7 years.  I have seen some pretty nasty wiring jobs!  Funny thing is, is that a lot of these wiring jobs are done by the "pro's".  You would  think that licensed electricians would know how to run data and phone lines in people houses or businesses.  Some do, but most don't. I have been to new house builds, after they are finished and there has been not one phone line ran in the whole place.  A lot of people don't really use phones anymore, but a lot still do.

Cat5 is CHEAP!

 

Cat5 is CHEAP!  Run it everywhere,  you may not need it now. But you will!

Terminate Cat5 Cable

 

Here is how you terminate a cat5 cable.

more to come...

Properly Strip a Cat5 Cable

Here is how you properly strip a cat5 cable.

1. Cut open the cable and pull off the outer sheathing.

2. Find the pull string inside the cable.

3. Pull the pull string until you have enough cable that you are going to need.

4. Cut the extra sheathing and the pull string off.

5. Trim the exposed cables down to a usable length.  Note: name sure you cut the exposed cables down past where you cut into the cat5 in step 1.  This is because in step 1, when you cut into the cable you will usually score the cables inside and they may not work.  Not worth the risk!

6. Done.

Different Kinds of Phone Jacks

3 Different Phone Jacks

Here are the 3 most common phone jacks on the market right now.

Quick Phone Jack Install

When you are doing any type of renovations to your house or office you always need to consider Phone, Data and TV wiring.  I recommend you use Cat5 cable for everything  (at least for phone and data - internet).  Cat5 is the blue cable that you always use to hook your computer up to your modem or router.
Cat5 cable has 4 pairs of cables in it, so 8 wires.  I have worked in this industry for may years now and it is very frustrating to watch people use this cable wrong.

 There is a color code that should be followed:

  It would seem like it would make no difference if you were to use any color in any order, well it does.  It would probably work, but some of the pairs are twisted more then others for reasons.

Anyways... Lets talk about installing a phone jack. When installing a phone jack it is very simple.  You will use pair 1 (blue/blue white).  Hook one end up to the jack and the other end up to the demarcation point or protector.

 

On the jack you will see spots for red, green, black, yellow.  Those are the original colors that were used in 4 wire quad cable.  You can still buy this cable and it works fine but I will get into my reasons for using Cat5 later in this article. So the Blue goes where the Red is labeled on the jack and Blue/White goes where Green is on the jack.  It probably will work if it is backwards, but the polarity will be wrong.

This is the demarcation point or protector.  Blue goes on the right and Blue/White goes on the left.

Here is a picture of the quad wire I was talking about earlier.  So pair 1 would go on the jack, just follow the colors on the jack.  Then at the protector you will need to put red on the right and green on the left.

Always Run Cat5!

Here is why you should always run Cat5 cable....

Cat5 cable is that blue cable that you run from your computer to your router or modem.  That is its most popular use, but in fact it has many more uses then that. I work for a telecommunications company and Cat5 is all we run.  We use it for phone, internet and TV.  Our set top boxes (receiver) uses Cat5 instead of Coax.


Number 1 use: Phone
Cat5 has 4 pairs of wires, so 8 wires total.  When you hook up a phone you only need to use 1 pair, or 2 wires.  So that means you can have up to 4 phone lines using only 1 Cat5 cable.  There are probably not that many times when you would need to have 4 phone lines at the same spot, but we always do 2 lines for businesses.  Ex - When you have a phone and a fax line at the same spot. 


Number 2 use: Internet
 When you make a data cable or Ethernet cable you will usually use all 4 Pairs. You actually don't need to! Only 4 wires are being used (2 pairs) so this leaves 2 pairs left over not being used.  You can actually use i Cat5 cable and make to cables out of it.  This is really handy when you have one cable ran to a spot and need two connections there. Or you need to have a data connection and a phone line. So you could actually have 1 data jack and 2 phone lines at the same spot using only 1 Cat5 cable.  Are you starting to see why this cable is so nice to use?  If I can give you any advice, please run at least 1 Cat5 cable to every jack when you are doing renovations. You may not need it today or tomorrow, but when you run wire, you need to wire for the future!

more to come...