Have you ever had issues with internet cables on your property, home, or office? I guess you were probably wondering how the broken internet cable could be fixed.
No matter how often we use wireless connections, cable internet is still the best and fastest. If you have cable connections in your house or office, then there are a couple of times when you have to deal with broken cables.
Sometimes, you will have to call the experts to deal with your broken cables but many times, you could easily fix them by yourself.
To be able to fix internet cables, you will have to know how the cables are made. Knowing how the cables are made will help you know how to fix them.
How are internet cables made?
The internet cables or what we also call ethernet cables are made up of copper wires. Forget about the Fibre cables. They are currently the ones used to draw from the main tower to the homes. But the ethernet cables we connect from our routers to our computers are copper wires.
Standard Ethernet cables come in CAT5e and CAT6 and it is believed that the CAT6 cables are faster and more reliable than CAT5e.
The cables come with eight multicolor-coated copper stripes. If you are not getting what I am trying to describe, then look at the cable in the image below. If you have an Ethernet cable, you can take it and check the number of colored stripes extending to the tip.
Try and count the number of colored wires in there and you will see it is exactly eight. Each of them is colored so they can be easy to work with.
The color cables are pushed deep into the RJ45 connector and if you try to pull them, you will realize they feel firm than something that was just pushed in there by normal means.
How to fix a broken internet cable
Fixing ethernet cables can be easy to fix with the right tools. Usually, it is the RJ45 connectors that get broken so replacing them can fix the cable.
You will need RJ45 pass-through connector and an RJ45 crimping tool. These two tools are very easy to get. You can get 20 pieces of RJ45 connectors for as little as $1.00 on AliExpress. You can also get a multipurpose RJ45 crimper for as little as $16.00 on AliExpress. See the photos of the items I am talking about below.
If you have your tools in place, follow the procedure below to fix the cable.
1. Cut the wire such that it has a straight tip.
2. Cut again such that the eight colored wires extend about 2 inches from the main coating. Do not peel any of the eight tiny wires. If you cannot get what I am describing, refer to the image below.
3. Take the RJ45 connector. If you have purchased the crimper I recommended above, then use the color coding on it to arrange the wires into the RJ45 connector. You can also Google “ethernet color coding” and switch to photos for how to arrange your colors.
4. Push the wires through the connector holes such that the cable coating can not go any further into the connecter. In the end, you should have something similar to the one in the image below.
5. Insert the RJ45 into the crimping socket and crimp. Cut the excess wire at the tip of the connector and your cable is fully fixed.
This is how to fix the cable. But you can also follow this same process to make your own ethernet cable. In such a case, you also have to add a new ethernet cable to your checklist.