If only other cables were this easy to make, like HDMI :(

iiiiiiitttttttttttt @lemmy.world

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Please dont bend and pinch your cables. Make a loop as shown in the bottom middle.
Add a piece of string to tie it.
And no zip ties. Zip ties are for attaching cables to other things, and should never be tightened fully.
- tie the cable into a knot, it's the fastest and least damaging way to store cables
  
  If we are taking a gentle loop, sure. But if you mean (and I've seen this BTW) tying like a pair of shoes and pulling it tight, I'd kick you out of my IDF.
  Not saying thats what you were thinking, just had to share my memory of that pain.
  I still prefer a bit of waxed thread though. Great for any cable, be it utp, f/utp, armored, fiber, coax, whatever. But that's also how I started, so it probably plays a role in why I like it.
  Edit: plus a string makes a nice and neat way to hang it on a hook.
- Velcro ties ftw.

Ugh this takes me back to my electrician days: trying to splice these fuckers in a dark, hot attic, with only a blue-hued headlamp to help you piece out what color everything actually was. Good times.

I mean they make HDMI over CAT extenders, just get a pair
- HD baseT
  
  If only this had taken off in the consumer market.
  
  HDBaseT is cool, except in my experience the transmit/receive units get WAY hotter than I think make any sense. We used then at my last job for AV solutions, both 'high end' Crestron units and cheap Amazon.com randos - they all got HOT to the touch!

Orange-white, orange, green-white, blue, blue-white, green, brown-white, brown.
- Ewww T568B.

tbh high bandwidth cables over copper are a bit of an anti pattern.
Would be a lot cheaper and compact if ethernet and video over fiber were more popular already
- Having professionally terminated fiber, that shit is nasty and hazardous in a way copper will never be.
  The little fiber bits can be razor sharp, you have to be careful of the naked fiber end, because it can get into your skin like a splinter, only it is clear, nearly invisible, can shatter if grabbed too hard, and is invisible to MRI and X-RAY scans...
  
  I mean, if it weren't more dangerous, it would be really unbalanced. You want the player to have to make active choices with upsides and downsides.
- The equipment required to fuse glass fiber to connectors is still slightly more expensive than a set of crimp tools. Really cool machine though
  
  You don't need to fuse every fiber connection unless you're doing really long distance fiber.
  For runs inside a building, single pulls with mechanical splices would work just fine. You shouldn't get much loss as long as there aren't more than two or so mechanical splices.
  Source: worked as a technician for a fiber optic ISP.
  
  Yeah, probably wont be possible for people to make their own data cables for much longer. Fiber cables are much cheaper and thinner than copper at least, so not as much of an issue to buy different sizes instead of making them yourself.
  
  That's mostly because too few people use them.

Just be careful unspooling it, it loves to kink up and any bend with a radius tighter than like 2 inches ruins the cable.
I once helped my brother run about 15 strands through his house and only around half of them actually worked when we were done. Wish we knew that when we started.
- Back-coiling is a game changer. Every other coil is reversed, leaving a net zero in coils. It just pulls out straight.
  
  It was a leftover spool from a contractor friend of his that would have just been thrown away otherwise.

Category 5 is even easier to make than 5E.

Patch cables are stranded, spool cable is solid. Spool is good for between jacks and patch panels, less good for crimping RJ45 ends onto.
- You can buy stranded in spool too, and its not uncommon in shops that actually make their own patch cables, though most just buy them.
- What are you talking about? You can get both solid and stranded cable on spool. Depending on the standard you might be required to terminate into a patch panel or jack, but you can get just about any cable on a spool you might want.
- They make stranded bulk cable, but there's really not much use for it.
  Nobody wants to pay people to terminate cat6 patch cables. It's not cost effective compared to just buying premade cables of various lengths.
  Maybe that's why you are downvoted? You are otherwise factually correct. You shouldn't use solid cable for patches...solid cable belongs in the wall/plenum to the back of the patch panel, where it doesn't get messed with. It's too fragile to be used outside of a wall.
  Stranded is more flexible, making it better suited for patches, but it also doesn't punch-down into jacks as nicely (making it a poor choice for runs between patch panels/wall jacks)
  Just...whatever you do...don't get CCA. Cheap crap shouldn't even be allowed to call itself CAT6.
- Like others said they come in both, I usually just buy solid and it works just fine for patch cables as well, no issues whatsoever crimping RJ45 onto em
  Plus it always seems like stranded is just lower quality anyways, yea it's more flexible, but how much flexibility do you really need? For most cases, not much
- All the patch cables I’ve ever cut open (with the exception of one that came with my ISP’s modem) have been solid copper cable.
- In my experience, long term reliability of crimped stranded cable (that particular combo, to be clear) has lower longevity with vibratory environments.
  There are some crimps that are great for stranded, but the RJ series (and others which stamp down) generally don't seem to be good enough.
  Again, anecdotal, but yeah.
  
  I think that has to do more with the heads being used and the quality of the cable than anything. I've seen tons of cheap heads on good cable, and it goes poorly after a while.
  I generally recommend cable thats been third party tested for both performance and physical resilience. Haven't seen any decent riser that wasn't, but I have seen some patch from major brands that definitely wasn't.
- I've only ever had spooled stranded cable (with solid copper strands). It's very good for making patch cables.

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