Introduction: Make Your Own VGA Cord of CAT5 Cable!

As most of you know, getting a descent length of VGA monitor cable is a costly thing. With this instructable I'll show you how to make a 15m long VGA cable, out of plain ol' CAT5 network cable.

Step 1: Strip You Filthy Cable You! Strip!

To make life a bit easier, strip of about an inch of the CAT5 outer insulation. And behold: 8 precious wires in pretty colors. Make sure you strip about 2/3 mm of the inner wire insulation. Try using an wire stripper. I use my teeth, because Macgyver does it too. Don't make it to long as it could shortcut when fiddling all the wires in the VGA connector.

Step 2: Soldering Is Fun!

Well the next thing to do is solder the wires to the VGA connectors you bought. The best connectors are male ones. But my local radioshack didn't have em, so he sold me the female ones with an male-male adapter. As long as it works i say! The connector have got the pin numbers on the solderside, and with the help of a scheme i stole from http://www.geocities.com/dougburbidge/vgaovercat5.html i can solder the right wires to it. Note that im not using an RJ45 connector as shown on the illustration, thats not necessary in my application (very awsome home cinema set).
Just solder the shown colors to the right pins. Good luck with the bridge for pins 5, 10 and 8, naah it's not really that hard =)

Step 3: Decoration!

I bought some VGA connector housings, it really tidies up the lot. After that i popped on the adapters, but if you bought the good connectors you don't have to, of course. Repeat steps 1-3 for the other side of the cable. You're awesome!

Step 4: Check If It Works!

Connect the cable to the computer and to the beamer. Make sure your graphic card settings are correct and presto! VGA over a CAT 5 cable! I have no idea how long this cable could be. i made one that was 15m long and it worked perfectly @ 1024x768, so hallaluja! Enjoy!