I bought a role of cat 5 to run my telephone lines, now I need to make one cable that runs to a spare bedroom directly from my router to my computer, what's the cheapest way to do this? I've seen wall plates at radioshack but they were $10 bucks! crimp tools aren't cheap either, don't they have just a couple of cat5 connectors that snap on like a line tap or something?
Hello You can try manually crimp RJ45 jack on cable. It's not perfect and I would not recommend that, but you don't wanna spend money on crimping tool. So you can use small flat screwdriver do punch down each connector on RJ45 jack and plastic lock for UTP cable All best Andrew
You either have to get a crimp tool to put on the connectors, or use the wall jack that use self-punch-down jacks on them (also known as Keystone Jacks). The wall plate is not a bad idea, it allows you to add a longer cable from the wall to PC if it's ever needed YOu can usually buy Keystone jacks on OKorder, along with the blank wall plates - a lot cheaper than and Radio Shack prices Buy several, saves on shipping and lets you add more jacks (like 2 on each end, so you can plug in two devices at the same time)
The end connectors to the cable require that you firmly insert the wire into the pinch holders. Any box of end connectors comes with this little tool to push the wire in there. They also come with instructions on which wire goes to which position (very important). If you are in the US the wall plates and connectors are available at Lowes or Home Depot and might be a little less expensive than Radio Shack. However this is not going to be a really cheap project.
