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Saturday was amusing. I was hopelessly confused about where we were gaming. It was either at Richs, which isn’t too far from where school is, or it was at Jims, which is a good half hour or more from school, and school is closer to Jims than my condo.
School was good. The class itself is sucky in scheduling: 8:30-5. I HATE having to get up at 6am six days a week! Not to mention how nasty losing a weekend day is. The class is called Panduit Introduction to Voice and Data Cabling. It teaches you how to build network cables (not too difficult), install building network wiring (can be tricky) and a lot about building codes and standards (yech!). This was a particularly good session I succeeded in building my first network cable! This is important, aside from it being a vital skill to pass the class, its something I tried a few years ago when I first studied Cisco networking and I couldn’t make a good cable to save my life. Now, from a network administrator perspective, this is no big deal because you just buy all the patch and workstation cables that you need, you normally don’t touch building wiring. This class is geared towards the network engineer/installer, thus it becomes a critical skill.
The big diff between then and now in my success is two-fold. First, better tools. We were working with a bunch of crap tools in my first class, this class is partially sponsored by Panduit, a premier maker of tools and supplies for network installers. Its kind of silly at one level: we used special scissors, end-cutter wire snips, insulation strippers, a wire-holding tool, a crimping tool, and a special tool for closing the connector for a wall jack. We used the scissors to cut a length of 8-pair cable, that was their only job for that lab. We used the end-cutters twice, each time to trim 8 wires. We used the insulation strippers twice. We used the wire-holding tool once, and with practice you don’t need it at all, though I know Ill be using it for a while with the problems I have with my right hand. The crimping tool seats the RJ-45 plug on the cable, used once (twice if your cable has two RJ-45 connectors obviously). And the wall jack connector closer was used once.
The thing is, you need all these tools to do a good job! With the exception of the connector crimper, they’re all relatively inexpensive. It just doesn’t seem like you should need all of them, but you do, at least when you’re learning this stuff.
Well, we were making a cable that simulates the run from your wiring closet to the jack in the wall. One side has the jack for an RJ-45 plug, the other side has the plug. I found out why I was unsuccessful the first time I tried to make such a cable: I was reading the diagram backwards. The view looks like you’re seeing the plug end-on and clip-down, as if the cable would be going away from you. You’re actually seeing it as if you’re holding it about to plug it in to the jack.
Fortunately I hadn’t crimped the plug, Id just placed the wires inside. My teacher saw what I was doing, corrected me, I pulled the plug out, turned it around, and crimped it.
The cable tested 100% correct first time!
I was happy.
School was good. The class itself is sucky in scheduling: 8:30-5. I HATE having to get up at 6am six days a week! Not to mention how nasty losing a weekend day is. The class is called Panduit Introduction to Voice and Data Cabling. It teaches you how to build network cables (not too difficult), install building network wiring (can be tricky) and a lot about building codes and standards (yech!). This was a particularly good session I succeeded in building my first network cable! This is important, aside from it being a vital skill to pass the class, its something I tried a few years ago when I first studied Cisco networking and I couldn’t make a good cable to save my life. Now, from a network administrator perspective, this is no big deal because you just buy all the patch and workstation cables that you need, you normally don’t touch building wiring. This class is geared towards the network engineer/installer, thus it becomes a critical skill.
The big diff between then and now in my success is two-fold. First, better tools. We were working with a bunch of crap tools in my first class, this class is partially sponsored by Panduit, a premier maker of tools and supplies for network installers. Its kind of silly at one level: we used special scissors, end-cutter wire snips, insulation strippers, a wire-holding tool, a crimping tool, and a special tool for closing the connector for a wall jack. We used the scissors to cut a length of 8-pair cable, that was their only job for that lab. We used the end-cutters twice, each time to trim 8 wires. We used the insulation strippers twice. We used the wire-holding tool once, and with practice you don’t need it at all, though I know Ill be using it for a while with the problems I have with my right hand. The crimping tool seats the RJ-45 plug on the cable, used once (twice if your cable has two RJ-45 connectors obviously). And the wall jack connector closer was used once.
The thing is, you need all these tools to do a good job! With the exception of the connector crimper, they’re all relatively inexpensive. It just doesn’t seem like you should need all of them, but you do, at least when you’re learning this stuff.
Well, we were making a cable that simulates the run from your wiring closet to the jack in the wall. One side has the jack for an RJ-45 plug, the other side has the plug. I found out why I was unsuccessful the first time I tried to make such a cable: I was reading the diagram backwards. The view looks like you’re seeing the plug end-on and clip-down, as if the cable would be going away from you. You’re actually seeing it as if you’re holding it about to plug it in to the jack.
Fortunately I hadn’t crimped the plug, Id just placed the wires inside. My teacher saw what I was doing, corrected me, I pulled the plug out, turned it around, and crimped it.
The cable tested 100% correct first time!
I was happy.
