Did I just do something stupid?

[Pandasaurus]

So, I've been researching, reading, thinking, planning, etc for the last week or two on the hardware I want/need for a home network/lab setup (studying for CCNA, likely going beyond that into CCNP or something related in the near future). As of last night (more specifically, almost 6AM this morning, when I hadn't slept yet {Note: This was probably a bad idea}...), I put in the orders for switches and some other relevant hardware. This included a spool of Cat5e cable, because I plan on crimping my own cables, for a couple different reasons. However, possibly related to the fact I was doing this at an absurdly late hour, I did not realize there was an option for solid or stranded cable. As you may have noticed, I got solid. After reading the sticky in this section, I have to ask... Will this be a major issue for use as a patch cable, or is it more of a "it's not a good idea, but you'll be fine" thing? If it's a "major issue" sort of thing, I can get an exchange and ship it back. If it's "a bad idea, but you'll be fine", I'm not going to go to that much trouble for this purpose (lab environment, cables won't be exiting the rack).

I appreciate any input, I can handle it if you tell me I did something stupid.

 

[ch33zw1z]

You need stranded to crimp them into patch cables with rj45's. Solid core is for punch downs into keystones and patch panels.

While you may get it to "work", it can cause some problems. But, on the bright side...it's all part of the learning experience.

 

[taq8ojh]

Solid core cable is a big fat no. I tried it semi recently, and couldn't crimp a single one. Gave up after roughly two hours. It's friggin' impossible.

 

[drebo]

If it's just for a lab and you don't intend on moving the cable around a lot, you'll be fine.

You can crimp ends on to solid core without issue. The reason they don't recommend it for patch cables is because it has a higher risk of the actual wire being broken when bending it. Stranded tends to be more malleable in that regard than solid core.

That said, it'll work just fine for your purposes.

I would not recommend crimping your own cables using either solid or stranded in a production environment. In fact, just yesterday I ran across someone who crimped their own "crossover" cable. Not only were the pinouts not to standard, the crimps were incredibly poor quality. The link was flapping. I replaced it with a machine made crossover (had to be a crossover due to the equipment involved) and had no issues what so ever.

 

[imagoon]

In the long run it generally is better to just buy a pile of 1-3-5 foot cable from monoprice for CCNA, CCNP etc. It will be cheaper than the tool, wire and mod end in nearly all cases.

 

[JackMDS]

These days Crimping you own cables is like building you own toilet bowl from wood instead of buying a nice porcelain one.

That said, a s Drebo mentioned if you do not physically plug unplug and move around the Patches making them for Solid might not be an issue.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

You can crimp them, they will work, they will usually die after a year or so

 

[Mushkins]

Frankly, i'd return the spool of Cat5 and just buy some premade patch cables. If you're studying for your cisco exams, you want to be spending your time troubleshooting actual cisco networking issues, not diddling around with whether or not the cables are working right. I can tell you right now there isn't going to be a single question on those tests where the answer is going to be "its probably a bad cable."

 

[hextet]

You need to buy stranded cables, and a crimper. If you have crimped your own cables before, it can be a little tricky and annoying, but once you get it down it's quite easy. If you plan on crimping your cables you'll need a cable tester, this can range from basic ones that just test the electrical signals, all the way to flukes which cost a ton of money. If you plan on crimping, get a high quality crimper, and at minimum a basic cable tester. In the end, you're probably better off buying premade ethernet cables in my opinion.

 

[Pandasaurus]

Thanks for the answers everyone, I appreciate it. I've crimped my own cables before, so I have that under control. I've just never used solid cable before.

 

[imagoon]

It still cheaper and more reliable to buy the cables. Crimping is the biggest waste of time, money and reliability you can do in networking. You can typically buy and ship short patch cables that you need for cheaper than you can buy the tool for and still cheaper than you can buy the ends, cable and boots for.

The only exception to this is custom cables like a T1 crossover or T1 loop back that only has to work well enough for connecting a couple of routers in the same teaching rack.

 

[John Connor]

I ran Cat5e all through my house and crimped my own cables. Bought everything on eBay. I'm about to buy a Fluke LAN tester because I do have a problematic cable run.

 

[avos]

Frankly, i'd return the spool of Cat5 and just buy some premade patch cables. If you're studying for your cisco exams, you want to be spending your time troubleshooting actual cisco networking issues, not diddling around with whether or not the cables are working right. I can tell you right now there isn't going to be a single question on those tests where the answer is going to be "its probably a bad cable."

Hey it might be a good learning experience. I can't tell you how many small businesses and schools that I have gone to that look like they just had their normal maintenance worker run all of their cat5. And the answer to why their "internet won't work" is "it's probably a bad cable." I now rarely go out to a new site without a fluke cable qualifier and linkrunner.

 

[imagoon]

I ran Cat5e all through my house and crimped my own cables. Bought everything on eBay. I'm about to buy a Fluke LAN tester because I do have a problematic cable run.

If you ran the cable properly, you wouldn't have a single crimp in the system.