In more than 26 years, I have never set the cable that far back on any jack. This can lead to the wires coming loose and can also lead to issues with certification due in part to newer species on a Fluke meter. Keeping your wires as close to the punch down point as you can will always provide the best results. I would be willing to say very few technicians know the maximum IEEE allowable untwist on each pair or cat 6 wires? Before the punch-down jack? Without using google.
Hello! Indeed, it is good to maintain the pair twist right up to the point of termination, if possible. That said, some times it is NOT possible. Generally speaking you take the cable jacket right to the rear plastic of the jack, with little or no room between the jacket itself and the start of the plastic. Our particular keystone jack (like many others) does not permit jacket ingress into the channel between the IDC terminals themselves as this would cause issues punching down the conductor wires. So, get as close as you can. A good trick is to tack down the rear two IDC slots FIRST before working on the front ones and pull the jacket right to the jack housing rear in the process. This ensures the rear two pairs are automatically untwisted minimally as possible by default. The front pairs, if you are lucky, will untwist so that they fall naturally into the terminal color code pattern you are using. Half the time they don't fall naturally this way and this gives you two choices: 1. Knuckle the conductor to MAKE it right to the point of termination or 2. Utilize the permitted 1/2" untwist allowed for terminations to untwist the conductor pair just one more untwist so the wires can be punched into the slots without undue effort. Of the two options, #2 is the acceptable way of going about it. #1 means altering the electromagnetic balance of the cable and a unrealistically tight termination that is tough to work with. If you review (I assume you have a copy of) ANSI/TIA-568.0-E - Generic Telecommunications Cabling for Customer Premises, Section 6.2.3.1 Table 2, the maximum allowable conductor pair untwist is 1/2" whether the cable Category is Cat5e or Cat8. In short, you may have been making it unnecessarily rough on yourself the past number of years. I have used a Fluke DSX-8000 and permanent link testing on various untwists to include right up the point of termination, plus the 1/2" allowable. Performance was largely identical and within the margin of error on RL and NEXT. I hope that helps clear this up!
@trueCABLE : I am not disagreeing, however, a recent project I was on found many of the punch downed jacks on cat 6a cables that where close to the 100 meters would test good but with noise at higher end. After re-punching these jacks and making sure the wires were much closer, each of the failed jacks passed with no issues.
@@ssrrocks22 Hello and that is quite interesting. Also, it is not unheard of. I can think of three factors that contributed to that, but don't know which ones with looking at the Fluke test results up close. 1. Over limit length for ambient temp. -- 68 deg F provides the max distance of 295ft (90 meters) of permanent links. 100m is the channel limit, which includes a total of up to 33 feet of 24AWG patch cords on both sides. That can cause finicky results, and those links may fail as the temp rises in structure, even now, as Certification is only a one time snapshot. 2. Channel rated keystone jacks. Essentially, the jacks impedance match but the PCBs are not tuned specifically for Cat6A (despite being marked so) and this can require you to rely on the cable quality to a higher degree than you otherwise would need to. 3. Enough cumulative imperfections in the cable itself to demand tighter terminations regardless of whether the jack is channel or component rated. It could be a combination of all three. I hope that sheds even more light on it!
Thanks Don, for another terrific video. Question: if straightening the wires can degrade the signal strength, is it best minimize the number of connections - e.g., is it better to run male (RJ45) terminations on both ends, rather than wire a Keystone Jack outlet? Thanks so much!
Hello and thanks for the questions, Adam. Any time you introduce a termination (whether keystone jack or RJ45) into your Ethernet channel you cause a bit of signal degradation. Now, there is enough "headroom" in the specification to allow for a permanent link (jack to jack) plus two patch cables (in totality, this is called a channel) and still give you the application performance you are looking for. You would think that just using a single cable with two terminations (RJ45 to RJ45) would give you even better performance and technically it does, but not enough that your application bandwidth will noticeably increase. The main advantage to a permanent link + two patch cable channel is flexibility since you can buy different lengths of patch cable as needed if you decide to move equipment around the room. Further, this is one of the biggest reasons to avoid RJ45 to RJ45 couplers. They can take a functioning channel and push it outside of the specification by exceeding your available headroom.
Hello Jonathan. Even if you had RJ45s on either end, as long as you are using the same TIA color code scheme at both ends it does not matter. If using keystones, then A to A or B to B is what you are after as well. This concept applies to any type of Ethernet termination unless you are specifically trying to create a cross-over termination.
I spent 30 min trying to get this working with the speed termination tool and kept breaking cables. Also, my cables kept popping out of the holes as I was trying to shove the jack into the speed punch-down tool. What am I doing wrong? Only difference I can see is shorter cables and untwisting them before putting them in the spot. I've only ever done this with other brands before
Hello! Sorry to hear of your trouble. It sounds like you may wish to contact us at www.truecable.com/pages/contact-us. We will want some details about all the hardware you are using and get some pictures as well to diagnose this. For the moment, I would say STOP and contact us as it is difficult to figure out what may be wrong from your description.
Hello and great question! The answer is YES, absolutely. Our keystone jacks may be re-terminated up to 20X. Take note that if you initially terminate to 23AWG conductors then you cannot switch and use thinner conductors (like 24AWG) with that same keystone jack. If you start with 24AWG conductors then you can re-terminate to a cable that uses 23AWG conductors.
Hello Ser Cav. You are welcome! Unfortunately we don't have distribution to Australia. Our channels are domestic only at this point in time, to include Puerto Rico.
Our trueTERM tool is specifically designed for use with our trueCABLE unshielded punch down keystone jacks. We have not tested it for compatibility with any other manufactures keystone jacks at this time.
Hello. Great question! Yes, in most cases this is not a problem. That said, there may be some punch down panels and keystones out there that don't recommend doing that. In the case of trueCABLE hardware, you can punch as thin as 26AWG stranded conductors in our punch down keystone jacks.
@@trueCABLE thanks, i tried and its not very reliable with 26awg and keystone i have. I had to work it a bit to make all wires have contact, so it is possible indeed
@@Boz1211111 Yeah, I expected that some 26AWG conductors out there may run a bit thin. It is hard to discern what the results from brand to brand may be since stranded 26AWG conductors are rarely punched down and typically not subject extensive testing unlike solid copper 24 and 23AWG. Thanks for the heads up!
Always great cabling videos from this channel.
Thanks Sylvia! We are glad you find the content useful. More to come!
In more than 26 years, I have never set the cable that far back on any jack. This can lead to the wires coming loose and can also lead to issues with certification due in part to newer species on a Fluke meter. Keeping your wires as close to the punch down point as you can will always provide the best results. I would be willing to say very few technicians know the maximum IEEE allowable untwist on each pair or cat 6 wires? Before the punch-down jack? Without using google.
Hello! Indeed, it is good to maintain the pair twist right up to the point of termination, if possible. That said, some times it is NOT possible. Generally speaking you take the cable jacket right to the rear plastic of the jack, with little or no room between the jacket itself and the start of the plastic. Our particular keystone jack (like many others) does not permit jacket ingress into the channel between the IDC terminals themselves as this would cause issues punching down the conductor wires. So, get as close as you can. A good trick is to tack down the rear two IDC slots FIRST before working on the front ones and pull the jacket right to the jack housing rear in the process. This ensures the rear two pairs are automatically untwisted minimally as possible by default. The front pairs, if you are lucky, will untwist so that they fall naturally into the terminal color code pattern you are using. Half the time they don't fall naturally this way and this gives you two choices: 1. Knuckle the conductor to MAKE it right to the point of termination or 2. Utilize the permitted 1/2" untwist allowed for terminations to untwist the conductor pair just one more untwist so the wires can be punched into the slots without undue effort. Of the two options, #2 is the acceptable way of going about it. #1 means altering the electromagnetic balance of the cable and a unrealistically tight termination that is tough to work with. If you review (I assume you have a copy of) ANSI/TIA-568.0-E - Generic Telecommunications Cabling for Customer Premises, Section 6.2.3.1 Table 2, the maximum allowable conductor pair untwist is 1/2" whether the cable Category is Cat5e or Cat8. In short, you may have been making it unnecessarily rough on yourself the past number of years. I have used a Fluke DSX-8000 and permanent link testing on various untwists to include right up the point of termination, plus the 1/2" allowable. Performance was largely identical and within the margin of error on RL and NEXT. I hope that helps clear this up!
@trueCABLE : I am not disagreeing, however, a recent project I was on found many of the punch downed jacks on cat 6a cables that where close to the 100 meters would test good but with noise at higher end. After re-punching these jacks and making sure the wires were much closer, each of the failed jacks passed with no issues.
@@ssrrocks22 Hello and that is quite interesting. Also, it is not unheard of. I can think of three factors that contributed to that, but don't know which ones with looking at the Fluke test results up close. 1. Over limit length for ambient temp. -- 68 deg F provides the max distance of 295ft (90 meters) of permanent links. 100m is the channel limit, which includes a total of up to 33 feet of 24AWG patch cords on both sides. That can cause finicky results, and those links may fail as the temp rises in structure, even now, as Certification is only a one time snapshot. 2. Channel rated keystone jacks. Essentially, the jacks impedance match but the PCBs are not tuned specifically for Cat6A (despite being marked so) and this can require you to rely on the cable quality to a higher degree than you otherwise would need to. 3. Enough cumulative imperfections in the cable itself to demand tighter terminations regardless of whether the jack is channel or component rated. It could be a combination of all three. I hope that sheds even more light on it!
Thanks for the video, you're the best!
Plenty more to come! We are thrilled you enjoy them!
Thanks Don, for another terrific video. Question: if straightening the wires can degrade the signal strength, is it best minimize the number of connections - e.g., is it better to run male (RJ45) terminations on both ends, rather than wire a Keystone Jack outlet? Thanks so much!
Hello and thanks for the questions, Adam. Any time you introduce a termination (whether keystone jack or RJ45) into your Ethernet channel you cause a bit of signal degradation. Now, there is enough "headroom" in the specification to allow for a permanent link (jack to jack) plus two patch cables (in totality, this is called a channel) and still give you the application performance you are looking for. You would think that just using a single cable with two terminations (RJ45 to RJ45) would give you even better performance and technically it does, but not enough that your application bandwidth will noticeably increase. The main advantage to a permanent link + two patch cable channel is flexibility since you can buy different lengths of patch cable as needed if you decide to move equipment around the room. Further, this is one of the biggest reasons to avoid RJ45 to RJ45 couplers. They can take a functioning channel and push it outside of the specification by exceeding your available headroom.
If terminating a cable with keystones on either end, does it really matter A or B as long as they are the same on both ends?
Hello Jonathan. Even if you had RJ45s on either end, as long as you are using the same TIA color code scheme at both ends it does not matter. If using keystones, then A to A or B to B is what you are after as well. This concept applies to any type of Ethernet termination unless you are specifically trying to create a cross-over termination.
Is the speed termination tool compatible with other brand keystones or just the truecable ones?
We have only tested our speed termination tool with our brand of keystone jacks. Other brands may or may not work, depending upon their design.
@@trueCABLE , thanks for the response!
I spent 30 min trying to get this working with the speed termination tool and kept breaking cables.
Also, my cables kept popping out of the holes as I was trying to shove the jack into the speed punch-down tool. What am I doing wrong?
Only difference I can see is shorter cables and untwisting them before putting them in the spot. I've only ever done this with other brands before
Hello! Sorry to hear of your trouble. It sounds like you may wish to contact us at www.truecable.com/pages/contact-us. We will want some details about all the hardware you are using and get some pictures as well to diagnose this. For the moment, I would say STOP and contact us as it is difficult to figure out what may be wrong from your description.
@@trueCABLE I got it finally. I had to cut more wire off. Then it stayed while I used the tool.
Is it possible to reuse the Connector if I want to use it for another CAT6 cable?
Hello and great question! The answer is YES, absolutely. Our keystone jacks may be re-terminated up to 20X. Take note that if you initially terminate to 23AWG conductors then you cannot switch and use thinner conductors (like 24AWG) with that same keystone jack. If you start with 24AWG conductors then you can re-terminate to a cable that uses 23AWG conductors.
@@trueCABLEVery helpful. Thanks :)
Thanks for the informative videos. Just wondering can I find your tools in Australia?
Hello Ser Cav. You are welcome! Unfortunately we don't have distribution to Australia. Our channels are domestic only at this point in time, to include Puerto Rico.
Will it work with the commscope jacks?
Our trueTERM tool is specifically designed for use with our trueCABLE unshielded punch down keystone jacks. We have not tested it for compatibility with any other manufactures keystone jacks at this time.
Can i punch down stranded wire
Hello. Great question! Yes, in most cases this is not a problem. That said, there may be some punch down panels and keystones out there that don't recommend doing that. In the case of trueCABLE hardware, you can punch as thin as 26AWG stranded conductors in our punch down keystone jacks.
@@trueCABLE thanks, i tried and its not very reliable with 26awg and keystone i have. I had to work it a bit to make all wires have contact, so it is possible indeed
@@Boz1211111 Yeah, I expected that some 26AWG conductors out there may run a bit thin. It is hard to discern what the results from brand to brand may be since stranded 26AWG conductors are rarely punched down and typically not subject extensive testing unlike solid copper 24 and 23AWG. Thanks for the heads up!
Nice.
Thanks!
Hello
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