Network Cable Hack

Intro: Network Cable Hack

when i was thinking to do this instructable i thought it would be bit out dated. then i thought might be use for few. lets see how it goes.
Before you start with this instructable i will assume you have a bit of the experience of making network cables like cross over cable and stright cable. i'll include the orignal layout of the standard cable and show you what else we can achive from the same wire.
[ info: source http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ethernetcables.html ]

we'll be using:
cat5-cat5e networking cable.
few RJ45 connectors ( for network )
few RJ11 Connectors ( for phone )
Cramping tool ( for network wire )

STEP 1: Cable Know How and Tool.

i'll start with the orignal layout. this pic is taken from the site.(http://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/ethernetcables.html) and they explaind evrything in very detail. Which i won't do here.
there are few things to remmber while you are working on this instructable.

1- there are 4 wires usable for the actual cable and rest 2 pairs are useless. ( we'll utilize rest of the 4 wires)

2- orignal layout shows the color coding and which wire go were.... ( rare case if some is color blind than....???) u can choose what ever color for your cable but 2 things ( remmeber which color you are using on one end of the cable caz we'll utilize the same on the other end. and why the give these color coding.. to implement global standard for networking.

STEP 2: Orignal Lan Cable Design

before we start the hack you might have noticed 4 wires  ( 1, 2, 3, and 6  got TX+ , TX-, RX+ and RX- respectively) these are the one we'll use and rest four for other purpose.

STEP 3: Twin

twin's :
if you need to connect your ps3 and xbox360 and dont have enough room for cable or router is far from them and you don't want to spend too much money than make twin stright cables from single cable.
the concept remains the same only four wires for each connector. remmeber your color code what you using. and here we go.

CONNECTOR 1                                                                   CONNECTOR 2
Wire color        PIN no.                                                          Wire color               Pin no.
    Blue                 1                                                                     Blue                          1
Blue White          2                                                                   Blue White                2
    Green              3                                                                      Green                      3
Green white       6                                                                   Green White              6

that is for the first device for the second.

CONNECTOR 3                                                                    CONNECTOR 4
Wire color           PIN no.                                                       Wire color            Pin no.
     Brown                  1                                                                Brown                  1
 Brown White           2                                                            Brown White          2
     Orange                3                                                                Orange                3
Orange white          6                                                             Orange White        6
------------------------ for crossover --------( if you want one stright and 2nd cross over)

CONNECTOR 3                                                               CONNECTOR 4
Wire color         PIN no.                                                    Wire color         Pin no.
Brown                   1 TX+                                                      Brown               3 RX+
Brown White        2 TX-                                                    Brown White      6 RX-
Orange                 3 RX+                                                     Orange             1 TX+
Orange white      6 RX-                                                  Orange White      2 TX-

STEP 4: Network Cable + Phone Cable

If you want to put your Router some where its easy to recive the Wifi easily for your other devices and you dont have a Phone cable socket and power socket near by than we'll use the same thing ;)
so first bit will be the same Stright cable and 2nd bit will be change.

first a bit know how about rj11 phone cable connector


Phone COnnector ( Know How)
The six-position plug and jack commonly used for telephone line connections may be used for RJ11, RJ14 or even RJ25, all of which are actually names of interface standards that use this physical connector. The RJ11 standard dictates a 2-wire connection, while RJ14 uses a 4-wire configuration, and RJ25 uses all six wires. this info is taken from here (http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/RJ11_Telephone)
so we can use RJ11 or RJ25. RJ25 if you need only Phone and LAN and if you need LAN, POWER and PHOne (RJ11)

we'll do the RJ14 first than RJ11 and Power connector

CONNECTOR 3   RJ14                                            CONNECTOR 4    RJ14         
Wire color            PIN no.                                            Wire color    Pin no.
Brown                      1                                                       Brown        1
Brown White           2                                                 Brown White    2
Orange                    3                                                       Orange        3
Orange white         4                                                Orange White    4

STEP 5: Network + Phone + Power

------- for RJ11 and power --- RJ11 USES ONLY Middle 2 pins (2 and 3) not 1 and 4

CONNECTOR 3 RJ11                                                      CONNECTOR 4 RJ11
Wire color      PIN no.                                                            Wire color      Pin no.
   Brown             2                                                                         Brown          2
Brown White     3                                                                      Brown White 3

and power on rest of the two wires. be carefull while soldring the wire and the plug plus the orignal black and red cable connections vs cat5 wire color

Power connections

Wire color            Power wire color                          Wire color            Power connector wire
Orange                            RED                                      Orange                  RED
Orange white                 Black                                  Orange White          Black
-------------
these were not the only hacks possible you can use these cables for many things like connecting diffrent connector to make any cable or cable extension. like stereo to stereo cable for your computer input or aux. and other side ur mobile or mp3/4 player output.
stereo cable extender.
rest is up to you what you want to do with this cable ;)

BBye
Arif

Comments

[Computothought]

Newer network cables (gigabit( use all 8 lines, Caveat emptor.

[LazloH]

I also feel like it should be notated that cables have a specific amount of twists in them to pair them up and a specific amount of twists for each pair around each other. Its done like this to reduce the amount of cross talk between a cable pair and reduce whats called NEXT and FEXT. By changing a cable in this fashion you run the risk of introducing a LOT of signal noise and generating packet loss in your network. Pairing two cables together or adding a phone cable probably will not cause a problem. When you add a power brick that is spliced into the cable.. you will have problems with signal.

[Blackice504]

Hi mate just to let you know from what i seen so far this power adapter is DC
and DC does not produce such noise when the AC is filitered correctly, yes AC you will get cross talk but as its a analogue signal it would be ignored by the switch or router or other network device.

i have Run many POe devices and did not see any packet loss at 100Mb or 1000mb on Cat5e but for those people really worried there is cat6 or cat5e shielded and cat6 shielded.

as for phone lines and data one is data the other is voice analogue and digital so there maybe a small amount of jumping on long distance but again ignored by the device.

btw Full Duplex and half Duplex when in Full Duplex its 8 pair when in Half is 4 pair full duplex on 100mb is 200mb one pipe of 100mb up and the other 100mb down same for 1GB but its run at 2Gb = 1Gb in each direction.

laptop power Supplies depending on the laptop you will need different wattage so lets say your laptop is 19volts at 4Amps 76Watts is what i see most laptops at now days, i would not want to run 76watts via cat5+ as the wattage is too much when cables get warm thats a bad thing.

small devices like routers / modems / wireless access points are 12v 2amps 24watts and thats the worst case most are way less then that and that is what POe is for.

thanks for the instructable.

[hintss]

and you know what? I have a gauss meter sitting on my desk right now. lets test some stuff, shall we?

netbook power cord, DC side: undetectable
DC wires in LED desk lamp: undectable
netbook power brick: off the scale
AC power cord: off the scale
the wiring in the wall: about 3 mG

you are wrong, my friend

and at 100,000 packets a second, and error correction, and packet checksums, does a single dropped packet really even matter?

[arifsethi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet
hope this artical will be help full.

[mathieulj]

Just as an FYI for everyone's benefit;
There are four pairs of wires in cat5 cable. With basic 10/100Base ethernet, these work since only two pairs are being used. If you want the more recent 1000Base(or higher speeds), all four pairs are needed.

[hintss]

however, gigabit will automatically drop down the speed, and, although its not part of the standard, some stuff will run at 500 using half the pairs

[arifsethi]

you r quite right my friend 1000base-t or gigabit ether net utilizes all 8wire or 4pairs. sorry i never said about this in my instructable and 2ndly i said in start it will be bit out date but will be helpfull for few :).
thanks again.

[LazloH]

PoE is a little different than a basic power adapter. That being said.. I encourage your experimentation and wish the best with your cables.

[hintss]

I know. That was for people too cheap to buy PoE machines and power injectors and such