cat 5 home office wiring question

[sigpop]

if this is not the proper forum or somebody has a better suggestion where to post, please let me know.

i'm wiring my home office in the basement. it has cat5 pulled. i have a punchdown tool and the ends. how critical are the 'twists' at the end where i make the connection? the flash video i saw at leviton's site has twists very close to the termination. they must have pencil fingers. basically i am untwisting the pairs back to where the sleeve is cut off.

http://www.smarthome.com/8555.html

 

[Variable D]

If you look at the video, where the sleeve meets the connector is where I would not worry about twists. The wires will natuarlly crossover each other inside the connector to help prevent crosstalk. If you get 100Mb connections when you connect up a PC
your doing it right

Practice makes perfect

 

[spidey07]

they need to be under 1/2 inch for cat5. In other words the twist has to continue until .5" from the jack.

easiest way is to take a section of twisted wire and then just push the punchdown block in between the twist. then just punch.

 

[sigpop]

thx for the input. i did a little testing on a piece of wire and have it down now.
i do have a tester i borrowed from my brother so that should help quite a bit.