I am looking for feedback on stripping back the outter jacket of cat5e cable. I can not find any written documentation on the web. I have done alot of cabling and find if the jacket is to close to the punch down block it puts stress on the wires so I have been stripping them back to the point where they enter the 12 port punch down that is surface mount, no rack, and not having any problems. I dont untwist any wires. I open it a little and punch it in. I bring this up because a response to another forum message someone said not to strip them back so far.
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations strongm on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Stripping Cat5e cable back
- Thread starter DTSMAN
- Start date
You have to strip it far enough to be able to work with it.
You want to go back far enough so you don't have any tight bends to get the wires to the punch downs, if this means 1/2 to 3/4 inch thats fine. The more critical part is to maintain the twist in the individual pairs up to the point of termination and if its out of line you can ussually give it a slight twist to line it up (not an untwist)
You want to go back far enough so you don't have any tight bends to get the wires to the punch downs, if this means 1/2 to 3/4 inch thats fine. The more critical part is to maintain the twist in the individual pairs up to the point of termination and if its out of line you can ussually give it a slight twist to line it up (not an untwist)
- Thread starter
- #3
mikeydidit
IS-IT--Management
It does not matter how far you strip it back but it does matter how long you leave it. The ansi/tia/eia codes call for no more than 3/4" left form the part that is striped back to the termination of the cable on jack and patch panel on cat 5 and 5E. On cat 6 it is 1/2". That is why the jacks are made with the terminations closer than cat5. If you find any mistakes, please consider that they are there for a purpose. And everyone needs a purpose.
Hope this helps, Mikey.
Hope this helps, Mikey.
daronwilson
Vendor
If you are stripping them back 6-8 inches there is no way you can maintain the charactaristic impedance of the cabling. The cable is designed with the pairs being in very close proximity to one another, and as speed increases this becomes a more important factor (some manufactures put a plastic divider in there to keep them right where they want them.
Generally 1/2" is achievable, that is what we strive for since some installations are Cat6 and some are Cat5e, we just always strive for that. At any rate, it should be the minimum possible to do the termination correctly. When you have failures in testing at higher speeds, they will generally be at the termination points. The first Cat6 we did, until we realized how absolutely anal you had to be with the connection, every other one or so would test out. Once we did a few to see, and figured how tight the thing needs to be, they went fine.
Are you punching them down on a 12 port rack that fits as a 66 block would into an 89B backplane? Those can get very cramped if all the wires come in from one end, care must be taken in termination indeed but it can be done.
Good Luck! It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com
Generally 1/2" is achievable, that is what we strive for since some installations are Cat6 and some are Cat5e, we just always strive for that. At any rate, it should be the minimum possible to do the termination correctly. When you have failures in testing at higher speeds, they will generally be at the termination points. The first Cat6 we did, until we realized how absolutely anal you had to be with the connection, every other one or so would test out. Once we did a few to see, and figured how tight the thing needs to be, they went fine.
Are you punching them down on a 12 port rack that fits as a 66 block would into an 89B backplane? Those can get very cramped if all the wires come in from one end, care must be taken in termination indeed but it can be done.
Good Luck! It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com
- Status