Guys, I know there were a few flaws in the procedure department for example.. "not enough outer cable pushed inside", blah blah blah..., so don't hurt him so hard in your criticism, he presented us with the point of how it works. He stated many times before in previous videos that he was not a professional installer, it's a simple guide that shows us how.... and I appreciate you sir for taking the time to show us amateurs.....Kudos.

Hi Chris, your preferred position of the cable jacket does not allow the male connector's built in jacket holding tab to keep the jacket from pulling away from the connector. After checking the color order, press the jacket as far into the connector as it will go so the connector's strain relief tab will be crimped on to the jacket. Otherwise you end up with connectors that pull away from the jacket and look like exposed/ damaged wiring and amateur work.

04:40 ProTip You can use the cut-off bit of the jacket to untwist the pairs. You can also use it to straighten the wires by running the jacket over the wire instead of just your fingers. This can help save your fingers if doing a bunch of terminations.

I use the piece of the outer jacket that I stripped off to use as an untwisting tool. Slip it over on of the wires in the pair and they separate nicely. Then slide the 8 wires over any screwdriver shaft to get the curls out.

Perfect timing on this refresher for me. My house was built in 2006 and I bought it in 2013. Luckily for me every room was wired with Cat 5E but were terminated with RJ11 female receptacles for phone use. I had changed most of them to RJ45 keystones except a few rooms. I am going to finish them off tomorrow as we are planning to sell later this summer. Thanks!

Great video. I actually looked at your recommended tools a while back and purchased these pass through ends and the same keystones as well as a new Klein tool crimper. Made my life so much better! Thank you!

The little string is for stripping back the insulation. Cut back the outer cover and wrap a bit of the string around a screwdriver or whatever and just pull. In industry, I used this plenty of times. But be careful, that little nylon string will cut skin just as easily.

I've been doing this for 15 years and you just blew my mind with that untwist tool, ordering now.

Hi Chris, CAT6 always includes the center plastic which keeps those 4 pairs twisted and separated from each other. Plenum in the cable means material of the jacket. Plenum (or LSZH) basically means those jackets gives low smoke and slows down spread of flames. About male/female connectors, you should always strip only as short amount of jacket as possible and make sure those individual wires are not visible outside of connectors. In male connectors, you should push the cable inside as much as possible and In female connectors, you should make sure jacket goes inside connector and only untwist pairs as little as possible. Good quality female connector includes place/hook for cable tie to secure cable into the connector.

The outer insulation needs to be far enough in both types on connections for the outer insulation to be held into place by the finished connectors. A tab on the male and the back of the cover for the female connectors should keep the cable end from moving without the connnector. This is important because the inner wires break easily if they are moved or pulled on a lot. This detail greatly increases the reliability on the cable.

Great video! One thing I like to do when I make the male end, just to keep things tidy, is strip it a little further down for more excess wire but before I cut I twist the ends. This way it all stays together.

I liked your disclaimer at the beginning, anticipating a barrage of “suggestions” - actually not too bad. 1. Set the blade of your stripper, so you spin one time only, but set it, not to cut all the way through, just score it to a good point where it will crack off. 2. You should have pushed the jacket into the rj45 jack. 2. When you do the keystones, Keep your pairs twisted to the point of the where you are going to punch down, maintaining the twist, to the point, then drag them down into the scissors of the keystone. Use the point of the keystone to split the pairs apart is better than untwisting pairs before.

Chris, that tip for Untwist was well worth the $5 beer I just sent your way. Wow! What a tool. I've used the back of my Klein snippers before and it stripped off the protective covering. I also LOVE the network testing tool. I've been using my trusted Fluke Networks tool for 20 years having really no reason to replace it but now I'm on the waiting list for the Pocketethernet!

Chris few comments about the video. Understanding you don't do it for living so no judgement here just commenting since I have been doing it for 30+ years. I haven't read all the comments below so sorry if any of these are repeats. 1) When ever you use the blade tool tool cut off the outer sheath, the intent here is to expose the rip cord (the little string). ALWAYS pull the cord to cut down at least 2-3" to expose more conductors below the cut line and then cut the cable off just below the original cut line. We do this because the cut tool when you spin it around the outer jacket can nick the copper conductor for one (or more) of the pairs and will eventually break, usually right after you left the site :), 2) Plenum and the center core of your cable are completely unrelated. The plastic core is to keep all the inner conductors in perfect alignment for a specific grade of cable. The outer casing can be PVC or Plenum. If the wire is run in any void (is like a ceiling whether sheetrock or tile or other) where any air-conditioning or air venting air flows through that's a plenum. Plenum rated cabling is treated to make the burning sheath less toxic. Riser or PVC rated cable can never be run in a plenum (in or out of an A/C duct, if the A/C sucks air from it, its a plenum). Keep in mind a lot of A/C ducts provide cooling air to your vents but most A/C systems use the entire void for a return (warm air flow back to A/C) and that's a plenum. 3) I always cut my cable at an angle like 30-45 degrees (only on EZ). It makes it so much easier to insert the wire into the EZ connector. When you slide the wire in, you can actually force each conductor into the right channel even if they are not perfectly straight. 4) After you insert the cable into the connector push it all the way in. The rectangle square at the back of the connect is a strain relief. Its needs to squeeze the conductors and sheath to properly secure it and prevent pulling on the conductors at the connector. 5) When cables that have the core I pull on the core slightly before cutting it and then slide the thumb and index finger down the outer sheath toward the end to make it just past the core so the core doesn't prevent you from fully seating the sheath into the connector. 6) YES, before crimping I always go through the protruding cables to verify they are in the correct order. So much easier to check before you crimp then to have to cut it off and start over! 7) To straighten your cables put your index finger over your thumb nail and slide it down the pair with some pressure. The flat thumb nail takes the kinks out of the conductors nicely. 8) For cat6 specs the twist has to go all the way to the point it is punch down on the jacks. Don't untwist it. The jacks have a point between the conductors in a pair to make it easier to press them into the correct slots without untwisting. Also, FYI, Most punch tools have 2 colors so you always know where the cutting tool is without looking. All replacement blades will always line up on the same color for 66, 110, or krone.

That "string" is the ripcord, it's there for rip-open the cable.

No don't untwist for the keystone. Keep the twists and use the prongs on the keystone to split the twists. A good keystone will have nice spikes separate the pairs.

Ordered the untwist tool -- many thanks! Untwist as little as possible at the keystone end. A lot of folks will flunk keystones untwisted as shown. Some will flunk them with a pair of diagonal cutters!

String in the cable is a ripcord. It is for opening the outer jacket without having to cut it and risk cutting any of the inner wires. Works really well and no special tool needed. There is a pinout legend on the side of the crimping tool for reference.

After creating many male ends for home devices with the EZ rj45 I recommend making a slight angle cut as opposed to the straight cut before sliding into the connector. Found it makes initial insertion slightly easier.

You should push cable into connector as deep as you can, so when you crimp it, jacket will be press-locked in the connector. Your male connector is invalid. ;)

Thank you. Not many people show this. This is how I am setting up my network. I want to be able to move my rack if I need to and this help. Thanks again!

+1 for Pockethernet & Untwist Tool. Thanks, Chris!

Hey, thx for really good video. I have recently patched out my entire new home and gained a lot of experience on how to do things. First: do not buy cheap tools. Yes, You probably use them once, maybe twice, but a lot of stress will be saved during work. Klein tools are very good ones! Second: about that little gray tool comes in many varieties, but I do recommend to get one with hand regulated opening because there are so many cables and You have to test first how deep the tool shall cut the shield to not damage wires. The worst thing is to unshield cable, start preparation and realize that one or two wires have been touched by the blade and they will come off during patching. Third: cutting wires a bit after plugging in rj45 pass-through into crimping tool will make it easy to finish them correctly. Fourth: I do prefer to use Krone tool as it has these little scissors to cut the wires instead of a blade. Fifth: there are cable testers with integrated circuit breaking tool which helps to find damaged wires and to detect which cable is which if You have bunch of them tied together in one place and wondering where they're "going" into the house :)

9:36 Nicely Done Male connector and just has the jacket of the cable under the little restrainer in the RJ45 Jack without using it there is the strain on the wires.. Loved the video

Always make sure you have a decent crimper tool, i ordered one off amazon and was only getting 100mbps on cat 6 ordered the correct tool like you have and now works perfectly for 1gbs. Thanks for the video.

Great Video... I would note that the connector secure tab needs to be facing down for both cable ends. Or you could crimp one end facing up and the other facing down and cross the pairs/pins 1 thru 8.

haha love that untwist tool, i had it screwed into bottom of my crimp tool and never knew what it was !

The way I was taught to do keystone jacks was to keep the twist of the wire intact all the way up to the punch down point rather than undoing the twist. It makes it a little tricky, but that's how I was taught by a cable tech.

I am sure this has been pointed out, you are holding the snips backward the small loop in the snips goes in the ring finger, ... plenum is a type of fire rating ... the snips have the groves to straighten the wire ...Make sure the cable goes all the way to the end so the stress relief crimps the jacket of the cable. for the keystone jack, don't untwist the cable, if you notice on the jack connector it has a sharp extrusion used to go between the twisted pair. per code, the twist is supposed to go all the way to the crimp point. having the lines running parallel will create interference, and will not perform as well. I really enjoy your videos, keep them up.

@09:36 - not enough outer insulation has been pushed into plug, which will result in the outer insulation coming out quickly , thus putting more stress on the individual pairs

For untwisting we use a 6" long 1/2" wooden dowel with a thin cut in the end (about the diameter of the cable) about 3/8" deep and a slight double bevel at the top of the cut to direct the wires into the cut. Do it on both ends of the dowel. After untwisting we take a pair between the dowel and thumb and pull to straighten. I agree cutting at a slight angle helps getting it into the EZRJ45. Also stripping the cables 2.5" to 3" helps. It was my understanding that the maximum amount of untwisting on Cat 6 is 3/8" so we push the jacket a lot further into the connector.

That untwisting tool looks super helpful, I had to do this to pass an IT class and get my CompTIA A+, and the hardest damn part was getting the wires straight enough to stay in the right order and slide into the clip's slots. I was so proud I was finally able to do it that I've kept that cable and now use it for my home PC lol

My most used tool is the Klein 110/66 screwdriver. A 4-in-1 screwdriver on one end and a 110/66 punch down tool on the other. It sells for $27 list (half of what most decent punch down tools sells for). I purchased one for each of my techs. I wouldn't recommend it for punching down a bunch of jacks, but it is great for occasional use. 110 is for network jacks. The 66 block tool is used for phone. It is great to have if you must deal with T1 installs.

Hi Chris, thank you so much for the info, and demonstration.

Plenum cable is not defined by the inner separator. It's all about the outer jacket and how fire resistant it is.

I like the app on the phone and the untwist tool!! Need to get it.. thank you!!

Great video as usual. You should mention what for is plenum cable and what are differences (its not just that plastic middle part) as well as different type of plastic for again reason.

When doing the male ends you can also cut the cables slightly at an angle before putting them into the connector, you may find it easier to get them in by doing that since you don't have to have every single one aligned perfectly when sticking them through

At Lincoln tech, circa 2006, they beat A-code into us for a week. Then I got into the world and learned no one uses A-code! Something I've learned from the experience is that I emphasize to anyone I'm training to remember that the colors alternate between white and solid, and one pair is split. Seems to help guy's pick up the methodology a little faster. Also, they make keystone 'pucks' or holders, makes it way easier to field terminate keystone's without leaving divots in your hand!

Love the Blazing Saddles reference!

Hi Chris I have got me G4 Doorbell. Had to import it from USA I love it . Also just got the dream Michine. Thanks to your video on it . Thanks buddy

Dude, I been running cable for years and never saw those little cable twisters before. I am going to have to order that!

You can just use the piece of cable sheath you cut off as an untwist tool, try it.

Great video as always....one month too late for me as spent 2 days over Xmas tidying up my cabinet. The untwist tool looks good. One suggestion I saw from a video was to use the string to cut back the outer sheath so it reduces the risk of nicking the inner wires when using cutters.

To ease assembly of the RJ45 keystone male connector I use an easy to make tool that assists gathering/holding/forming the 8 straightened wires in correct order. Cut a keytag size (50mmx 22mm) rectangle from scrap fibreglass PCB - use a fine hacksaw to cut a 1mm (W) x 10mm (L) slot in one end - drill a 3mm hole in the other end to fit a keyring. The 22mm W dimension provides a trimming length width gauge that suits most connectors. This small tool greatly assists gathering/holding the wires together pre insertion.

I got some neat cat-6 male terminators recently that come with a mini cable-comb for every plug. Slide the pairs into the comb, then insert the whole thing into the terminator, and crimp.

I was always told to insert the jacket into the connector as far as possible so that the jacket crimp takes the strain off the wire.

You should only untwist the absolute minimum cable on each pair when doing the female connector/punchdowns. this will reduce cross-talk and will be more important when doing 10Gbe connections

I only have one suggestion: CAT6 & CAT6A trueCable, and their passthrough crimping tools make terminations a breeze. I have own plenty of good Platinum Tools as well. Nice video!

Great video. It causes flashbacks to my networking class in college. We used the the male ends where you had to put the wires in flush, which is a PITA, especially when you have old eyes. The keystone jacks are fun though. Like a puzzle. This is so much better than the videos by professionals. They make it look so easy and it isn't. It requires practice. So buy extra wire and jacks and run your cables extra long! I do prefer the professionals method of stripping off the cladding using snips instead of strippers, which ensures there are no incidental cuts. It wastes wire, but the last thing you want to be doing is diagnosing intermittent issues.

Nice! Good video, and I like that cable tester you have, especially with the app.

Very good work and explaination❤

In every Cat 6 cable I've worked with, the order of the wires is the same, and we can use that order to our advantage when arranging the wires to minimise the number of wires crossing over each other in the arrangement. I normally do 568A because that's the preferred order in Australia. For some reason, the US switched to preferring 568B at some point. For 568A, the wires in the cable are ordered around the circle as green, orange, blue, brown (clockwise at one end, anti-clockwise at the other) Untwist the pairs so that the white-striped wire in each pair is first for green, orange and brown; and second for blue. That is, the wires will be ordered around the circle as white-green, green, white-orange, orange, blue, white-blue, white-brown, brown (either clockwise or anti-clockwise). This is almost the exact order for 568A. Just the solid orange wire needs to be pulled into place between white-blue and white-brown. Simply gather all the wires together maintaining the order as you go. For 568B, the wires in the cable are ordered around the circle as orange, green, brown, blue. Note that this is the same order as above, just going in the opposite direction around the circle starting from orange. Untwist all pairs so that the white-striped wire is first. Then bring together the orange, green and brown pairs maintaining that order. Then fold up the blue pair and slip it between the two green wires. Using these approaches helps keep your wires much neater and reduces the risk of a wires accidentally swapping places as you're trying to straighten them out or push them through the jack. For punching down keystone jacks, a Krone tool is so much better than a 110 punchdown tool. But you have to make sure you're using jacks that are compatible with them. Outside of the US, krone tools are much more common.

Couple bits of advice...cut a little more sheaf off, and will make getting them inline / in the connector way easier (you want enough length so that your thumb isn't up against the connector as / before the conductors go through there individual holes... also when cutting them flush, don't move your thumb, just leave them all at length, and flat cut (I use the other tool rather than snips as wont disturb the flat end) that way you will never accidentally mess up the order / flat effect when re-locating your thumb back to the bottom... Also push the cable into the plug better! The entire point of the plastic lug that clamps onto the cable, is to clamp onto the sheath! That way the sheath takes all load / stress if cable is yanked, and not the conductors..push it right in as far as it will go...that way you wont end up with a cable hanging out of a connector by strands of wire after 5 minutes of use...looks way way tidier that way also! That untwist tool looks like a gimmick to me, pretty sure that would never be faster than just unwinding them for the second per pair it takes! Might be useful to a some people :)

We use the EZ-RJ45 ends and tool at work and they are awesome. We recently did a big job and used the TrendNet keystone jacks. They are tool less and work great we haven’t had any failures (300+ terminations). The only thing that is a little bit of a pain is the cable sticks out a bit on the sides of the jack and are really hard to cut. We used cuticle clippers and it work great to cut the ends off. The jacks are very clean and easy to use, highly recommend them!

You can also use the indentations of your wire snips to hold the wire down with your finger to smooth and straighten the wires.

To separate and straighten the cable, I tend to use the outer casing that was cut off to expose the twisted wire and use that to separate and then place 1-2 at a time in the casing (squeeze and pull). Normally straightens very well

Amazing work

I really like those Tool-Less Keystone Jacks.

Hi Chris, I agree With StiX You need to slide the jacket in as far as it can so the crimp on the back of the connector can catch the jacket and also reduce crosstalk in the connector.

Hi. It's November 2021. Thanks for the vid. I get the idea of the wires being in order, but once they are, do you insert them into the connector with the little retention clip facing up or down? Probably dumb question, but I'm going to devote time and $$ into this project and I want to get it right before I start drilling through walls LOL.

as usual, Thanks, Chris!!

Thank you for information 🙏

If you use a connector with LSA plus rails you can also use a cable with stranded wire. Lsa plus has pins that are at a 45 degree angle

Hi Chris just an observation but try holding the scissors the other way round with the yellow cover in the pal of your hand, it usually stops the scissors from getting stuck on your fingers.

Thank you for the excellent video

Oh my, DO NOT UNTWIST all the wires when doing a keystone jack. It is not necessary and if you need to 'certify' the cables it will cause problems and they will not pass. Lay out the pairs and see where you need them to be to get them in the slots. You may need to slightly untwist in the area where the cable will go in the slots. Excellent video on how to terminate modular plugs. However, I have had circumstances where the 'pass through' plugs will short out the pairs that are exposed at the tip of the connector, on the inside of the jack in a switch or router.

On keystone jacks, ALWAYS CHECK THE LABEL. I've had two from the same batch have different pinouts that I didn't realize because I thought I'd memorized the order on the first few only to have one not work during testing.

It also helps your EZ rj45 tool also has the colours printed on it

Very helpful, thanks!

A personal thing .. don't do the "wiggle" if a cable hasn't cut after punching a wiggle can inadvertently loosen the connection. Re-punch or chisel it with an appropriate sharp blade. Some keystone jacks have the colour coded wiring legend - they're cool. Really sexy ones come with dust caps and a bit of clamping for the cable sheath on the back (if you don't strip too much off). RJ45 cable boots are great added protection and as they come in lots of colours they're good for coding. I'll just throw in that most RJ45 plugs and crimpers are compatible, but NOT all.

One thing that was obvious from watching, but you failed to mention is that in that diagram, it is intended for the end to have the clip DOWN, not up. If you do it with it up, you'll get them in the wrong positions.

I used Fluke Microscanner to check the cabling.. is very usefull to check your termination Good luck for this chanell

I'd say keep the twists all the way to the termination post on the keystone. Reduces interference ever so slightly.

super great resource, should have done my research before giving up on terminating a cat6 cable for my home network and going to home depot and buying a new 30ft cat cable lol

Nice Explain With Latest Equipments

Can I use a CAT6A RJ and CAT6A Keystone on a CAT6 cable or do I need to match the RJ45 and Keystone to the cable being either Cat6A or just CAT6? Or am I overthinking this and either way will work. I would like to just get a bunch of CAT6A connectors instead of having to have two sets of connectors?

I've heard of issues from other installers about the passthrough connectors - specifically, that the crimper's cutter failing after some time. I use a two-part connector; you slide over a smaller plastic piece onto the wire, which goes on pretty easily and allows you to positively identify that you've gotten all of the wires on correctly before installing the second part of the male jack. Trim the wires flush with scissors and the second half slides on before crimping as usual. The untwist tool is new to me and I'll be ordering that soon - Current procedure is to use the back of my scissors and my thumb to unravel and pull the wires straight. I have a feeling that I'll be going through a lot of those untwist tools as they'll get lost in the bottom of my kit bag.

i prefer the style that you put the wires threw the guide boot, snip and crimp... i have crimped hundreds of ends with that style and.. hand full of fails, i do agree the pass threw connectors are far better then non-pass-thru cubes... one job i had we started buying our own cubes via monoprice because we all loathed the ones the company provided 15k worth of... that eventually they sold them and bought us the ones most of us preferred... via monoprice...heh...

I hoped you make a video terminating FOC,using different connectors. really will appriate it.

impressive am really interested with your teaching, i got got what i want thanks

The color code pin out for your cat5 cable is also on your crimp tool

thank you for helping me i did it in a few seconds thanks big help

Thanks for this

Can the Pockethernet be used to trace cables? Ie...map from switch back to wall mount(or the like)? Thanks for the video...I have always tapped someone else's shoulder to come terminate for me.

On the keystone jacks it appears that different manufacturers put the wire colors in different locations on the block. Can I assume that they are wired internally to still match up with the plug ?

great video!!! I have one question... do i HAVE to do the same color sequence that you use or can i just make my own (as long) as its the same on both ends?? Thanks in advance

Nice video, Chris. It's my least favorite job in IT. I wonder why no one ever does a video of this process while standing on a ladder or on your belly in the attic?? The un-twist tool looks interesting. I think I'll get one. ~Frank

More than adequate for the home user wanting to do some terminations. Pros will have their own method and many are negative about the pass through method as they have spend years snipping the conductors to the correct 100th of a mm. I personally prefer the pass through method but never bother getting the conductors too straight as isn't really needed. Couple of sideways jigs straighten them up enough to stuff then through. Never timed myself but easily less than 30 seconds to strip and term a plug.

I love my Ez crimper mine has the stripper on it... best to buy spare new blades if you seer em.

Has anybody (besides me) tried using the EZ Cat6 connectors with 23 AWG as opposed to the more common 24 AWG conductors? It is a bit tougher to get them to pass through because they have a tendency to crimp and buckle because of the thickness. I am also guessing that the crimp tool Chris used was designed to also cut the conductors that pass through the connector at crimp time. I am using an older one that does not do that and have been using a box cutter to get a clean, close cut. I recently ran into a situation where I terminated 2 sides of a 40' length of CAT6 UTP (23AWG) that tested OK (via my Monoprice LAN Cable Tester) but cut my 300 Mbps internet speed down to < 100 Mbps - It turned out that even after the box cutter trimming, 2 or more of the conductors were making contact with each other externally. I used a file to correct it and it popped me back up to 300+ Mbps. Also it might be a good idea to explain that you cannot mix 568A and 568B on the same cable. When you are new to doing this it is an easy trap to fall into when your instructions show both A an B on the same sheet. Love the Channel, Chris -- Thanks!

if you make a mistake with the keystone jack can you reuse it?

Do you have a video on Terminating true cable cat 6 that has a small bare wire and foil?

I find that if you add the step of splitting the sleeve of the plenum cable about a half inch more, you can cut the divider/stiffener lower. This aids in getting the sleeve in the male ethernet connector.

Can both ends of the interior ethernet cable terminate at a wall socket? So a cable from modem to socket, a cable through the walls from socket to socket, and then a final cable from socket to device.

On the keystone. Don't unwind the pairs completely. Strip the jacket back further at least 3" ( I usually work with about 4" to 6") can be as long a you like, then just un-twist about the 1st 1.5 inches from the jacket so the ends are still twisted. Then place the jacket all the way up to the back of the keystone and start slipping the closest pairs in 1st. This way the jacket is as close to the keystone jack as possible and no bare wires are showing. This will really help if you are punching on a panel especially if it's already mounted and you are adding more wires. On the mod ends I try to work the wires at the jacket after untwistng and I push the wires in a little further so the crimp catches the jacket amd no bare wires are showing.

Hey, i would love if you could put your mic audio track to mono. You seem to record in stereo and then not have the center of the stereo field where you are sitting, making the audio either be on the right or left.

You can also use the channels on the outside of the Klein scissors to straighten your wires.

thank you a lot dear

It’ll take my electrician scissors over the cutting on the strippers on everything. Sharp clean cuts. I also enjoy them cheaper plastic squeeze type strippers if using 5e. Cat 6 light scorch and it snalps. I learn to pull as I untwist and it helps untwist the cables a lot easier. But that is a neat little device for untwisting I have to check out. And I like the jacket up into the module. Never used the “pass through”. Guess I’m too old school. 🙃