• doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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    1 year ago

    The cheapest way to get cables is to know somebody who crimps it themselves, but for the majority of people probably buy from shitty places like walmart for a 1,000% upcharge.

    • woodenskewer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      just a heads up for anyone deciding to make their own cables, make sure you buy pass through rj45 ends or it becomes substantially more annoying to make a successful crimp. with pass through you can prep your cable and it doesn’t matter how long you make the strands you’re working with because you cut the excess off, with non-pass through you have to cut them to a specific size and if it’s too long when they bottom out, your conductors will stick out making your crimp weaker inviting poor connection issues later in the cable’s life.

      thank you for tuning in for this controls tech tip

      • w2tpmf@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I like the ones that have a separate little sleeve with a pass though. You put the wires through it, clip them, then insert it as a unit into the connector.

        Like these.

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Crimper costs you about 2$, rj45 connectors cost 0.05$ and cable costs 0.1$/meter. Not that much.

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        Alright but I’m storing enough tools and large coils of various cable/wire at my home so I’m going to pass until I move into a bigger place. I don’t even work in IT so I’d probably snip one segment and have the rest laying around forever. Still cheaper than buying finished cables at the store, though, I give you that.

    • StarDreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Pretty sure the biggest cost of crimping your own cables is finding a place to store the remaining spool.

      Or ensuring the spool is still useful 15 years later while everything has migrated to SFP/QSFP

    • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      That’s me lol. I’m still sitting on my spool of Cat6 I bought a few years ago. At pre-COVID prices it was approximately (CAD) $1 per termination, and $1 per 6 feet of cable.

      Today at Infinite Cables and other Canadian stores I can buy premade lengths at almost those costs, shockingly. Prices really came down.