Hi,
I am trying to make my own CAT6A cable with RJ45 connectors.
Can anyone help me with color codes for crimping cable with RJ45?
Thanks in advance.
-Joseph
There’s more than one “standard”!
Pick one & stick to it - don’t mix them up. The ones I have from Van Damme are T568B, so I stick with that if making up my own.
Wikipedia is as good a place as any to look.
The key pairs are 1&2 and 3&6 (Transmit & Receive). They should each be a twisted pair of wires (primary color + white / primary color). Also purchase a Cat cable tester if you are making your own cables. Also as Mark pointed out, choose a standard scheme, and stick to it.
@Scott - these are key pairs for dSnake/ME, DX and other 100Mbps connections. But it would definitely be best to connect everything just in case you want to make any gigabit connections including gigaACE/GX.
Thanks Mark.
@Kieth - can you please confirm can we use T568B termination bother ends as Mark suggested?
Incase if we wired “straight-through” (pin 1 to pin 1, pin 2 to pin 2 and so on) is there any problem? or any performance issue?
Thanks.
-Joseph
@Joseph - yes, @MarkPAman is spot on (as usual) 
You can indeed use T568B and you absolutely should be wiring straight through! If you mean from a performance point of view, then I’m afraid I don’t know the reasons that standard came about or became so common (someone may enlighten us) - but it would be better to stick to a standard, if not just for you, for anyone who comes across your cables in the future.
If you have any reservations, we would recommend buying ready made cables, as network cables and connections are almost certainly the most common failure point for any digital audio system.
Cheers,
Keith.
If you follow Mark’s link you’ll see that both of the standards illustrated (T568A and T568B) are doing exactly the same thing; they just put the colours in a slightly different order. The important thing is to make sure that the four twisted pairs in the cable are patched properly.
You can safely pick either standard, as long as you use the same one on both ends. And as Mark says, it’s wise to pick a standard and then stick to it when making cables. Less likely to make stupid mistakes that way.
I’ll also add: if you’re going to make your own cables, invest in a good crimper. Don’t just get one of the basic things that they used to sell at Radio Shack. These things can be fiddly to do, and if you don’t have the right tools and technique you’ll be troubleshooting bad connections forever.
Thanks Kieth, Mark, and Peter.
Got it. I will be using T568B.
@Joseph You should definitely be wired straight trough, but which pins share on a single twisted pair of wire
- matters
Pins 1&2 are on a single twisted pair for example, but pins 3&4 are in different twisted pairs. Make sure that you follow one of the standard wiring schemes, or you could wind up with bandwidth issues.
You don’t have to care to much on bandwidth on cat6 cables, but only if distances are more than 50 meters (164 feet). The speed handled by this type of cable is up to 10 Gb of data, but if you increase the distance, you will need Cat6A cable, which can handle that speed for 100m (328 feet). For Cat6, if distance is over 50 meters, the speed it will be decreased to 1 Gb of data transferred.
Cat5E is almost the same as Cat6, the same data can handle both of them. The only difference is the material used and the speed. Cat5E handles maximum of 100MHz, but Cat6 handle up to 250MHz.
Now, for the colors chosen explanation:
You should use T568B schema, because its matches AT&T 258A color code schema, which is used mostly in all countries. Was implemented a long time ago, and has NOTHING to do with bandwidth issues
You can make your own schema (but attention to be straight-through, not cross over) an you can test, there is no difference!
Regards,
Vali
Both of those schemes ensure that pairs 1-2, 3-6, 4-5 and 7-8 are on individual twisted pairs, which is the point that I was making. I never implied that, different color patterns would cause bandwidth issues. That would be absolutely ridiculous. I was pointing out that if the twisted pairs go away from the above pattern, there can be issues.
As an example, if you paired 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8, you will have issues. ← DO NOT DO THIS!
That was the only point that I was making, which has nothing to do with the color scheme chosen.
Why not use the color scheme, that has been tested, proved and improved for over 30 years?
Besudes, by using either of the T568 schemes, you know the cabelling is ready for Dante, AVB and/or regular Ethernet if you need it.
On my day job as IT support/admin, 7 out of 10 times we see errors on the network, it is cables using a non standard scheme.
(rest is usually picnic errors, or dead equipment) 