Cheap tools for ethernet termination

Comments

• xanadu Posts: 3,347

  2013-06-02 12:46 edited 2013-06-02 12:46

  Oh god... No cheap crimp tools. Sorry man it's a real sensitive area. Some "low voltage" guy that used to work for me in San Diego was making cables and they all had issues after a couple years because of the blades in his crimp tool weren't pushing the contacts down far enough (we think). He admitted that he used cheap tools and never replaced blades a few times. At the time I didn't think anything of it because the cables worked great. I had multiple businesses with networks running like total Smile and it unfortunately took a long time to troubleshoot because the cables would actually get link but randomly drop packets. Somehow I knew I was the common denominator too. It's not the dropping packets that took forever to troubleshoot it's the fact that rarely has there has never been an issue with physical layer for me. What a nightmare that was. I guess it's possible the RJ45s he used had shoddy gold plate on the contacts, but when looking at the cables (very closely) you could see the contacts were at all different levels into the plastic.
• ctwardell Posts: 1,716

  2013-06-02 13:06 edited 2013-06-02 13:06

  I'm going to second xanadu's thought, no cheap crimp tools.
  
  I had an issue recently with a lower cost crimp tool that was deforming the latching tab causing latch failure.
  
  C.W.
• skylight Posts: 1,915

  2013-06-02 13:27 edited 2013-06-02 13:27

  Oh well at the price I had to give it a try perhaps it was a combination of cheap parts and not using the tool correctly? Might be one of those getting a feel for it type of thing?
• xanadu Posts: 3,347

  2013-06-02 13:43 edited 2013-06-02 13:43

  It could have been something other than the tool, but the crimp was still uneven. The blades that push the contacts down into the conductors are really thin and I think they break and people don't replace them, or can't find replacements. I ruled out corrosion because I had cleaned the contacts with alcohol and the problem continued. It seems like it would be corrosion since it happened over time, so it is hard to tell what exactly was going on.
  
  I saw the crimp tool and the word cheap and relived that freakish nightmare for a few seconds and had to chime in lol.
• skylight Posts: 1,915

  2013-06-02 14:10 edited 2013-06-02 14:10

  No I fully understand, I have somewhat mellowed in my standards since I've got older, perhaps because I don't have the spending power I used to when a single man. I always insisted on getting the best pliers or other hand tools and ignored the cheap options but as the years went on I noticed a fall in quality of what used to be the top brands and eventually went for the cheaper tool brands, for instance I bought a cheap pair of ratchet crimpers for bullet connectors years ago and they have worked well since, though regarding the loss of packets you mention I didn't think of high frequency data where a top quality connection is paramount.
  Anyway when it arrives I'll put it to the test and see what sort of connection is made with it.
• NWCCTV Posts: 3,629

  2013-06-02 15:34 edited 2013-06-02 15:34

  I agree with others/ I do this for a living and there is nothing worse than having to go behind someone that used cheap crimpers and redo their work. I use Ideal crimpers so I only have to swap out the dies for various connectors. This is one area that it is best to use quality tools.
• kwinn Posts: 8,697

  2013-06-02 22:28 edited 2013-06-02 22:28

  I have to agree with all the responses regarding cheap crimping tools. Lost count of the number of service calls over the years due to poor crimps, but they were numerous and in many cases very costly to the customers. I would never use a cheap crimping tool.
• xanadu Posts: 3,347

  2013-06-03 00:50 edited 2013-06-03 00:50

  Well if you ordered it definitely let us know because the price is nice. The three places the cables caused issues at were big pharmacies in downtown San Diego owned by one amazing family that ended up selling them.
  
  Each pharmacy had a robot One of them was a big arm that is probably a commercial welding robot or something. Before I could do any work there, I'd have to watch it for at least a couple minutes. Occasionally there would be a robot tech there working on it and I'd have to pace myself with all the questions lol. It had a 1 U Dell server for a brain. Good times. Now I get to watch Fastems robots using Predator DNC wireless systems which is a nice step up. Moar robots!
• Gadgetman Posts: 2,436

  2013-06-03 12:39 edited 2013-06-03 12:39

  The most important thing about these crimping tools is if they press the blades down evenly and far enough.
  
  When I bought mine(at a bargain store no less), I actually brought a couple of pieces of Cat5 (both single-strand and multi-strand), a few connectors, and a 60x handheld microscope and asked the people in the store if I could test it first.
  (it helped that I was also in the market for a big reel of Cat5, bags of connectors, wall-sockets and terminating tool for those, too)
  I had to buy it as I had been told that I could no longer take the one at the office with me for my 'home improvement' projects in case someone else needed it for workrelated things...
  
  But buying a 'cheap' crimping tool over the net?
  Mmmmmno.... Not that mad, yet...