Hardwired RJ11

[drummer]

I've been rearranging my work area (which houses the BT master socket) and was hoping I could pick some brains for a bit of not very urgent advice.

When I first got broadband it was with Homechoice and the very helpful engineer hardwired (round) RJ11 cable to the BT faceplate as the computer and TV were on the other side of the room.  Now that I've unpicked all the cable staples from the skirting board and architraves, the router is right next to the BT socket but I have about 11 metres of connected, but surplus RJ11 cable.

Logic tells me that the obvious thing to do is to buy a crimp tool, cut the cable and attach an RJ11 plug, but a toolbox full of tools I've only ever used once is putting me off that approach, so I'm opting for a filtered faceplate with a short, high quality RJ11 cable.  I've sent a few emails to friends about a crimp tool but I'm not holding my breath - ever the optimist though...

So, the actual question is, will it be okay leave the (unused) hardwired RJ11 cable in situ with another RJ11 cable plugged into the soap-on-a-rope filter in a standard BT NTE5 faceplate until I get around to installing a filtered faceplate? 

I'm so pressed for time at the moment that I can't allow myself the luxury of fitting a filtered faceplate and troubleshooting it if it doesn't work due to user error, so I'm going for the easy option first.

Anyone know what terminals the hardwired RJ11 cable will be connected to if I need to disconnect it?  Bell wire is disconnected and there are no wired extensions.

Mucho thanko in advance of any advice offered.

[Dangerjunkie]

Hi there,

I would agree that having a load of cable isn't particularly a good idea, particularly if you coil it up into a nice pickup coil. I've not tried it but you could take the centre of the cable, tape it to the middle of a kitchen roll tube then wind it by twisting the tube so half the cable is spiralled left and half right. In theory this will form a non-inductive coil

A reasonable crimp tool will set you back anything from £20-£100. If you want to buy one I'd look at something like this http://www.millsltd.com/productDetail.cfm?partNo=E00-2026 The price has certainly come down as I paid more than double that for mine 4 years ago. To do the job right you'll also need a cable stripper like this (I've never rated the ones built in to the crimper) http://www.millsltd.com/productDetail.cfm?PartNo=E68-3002 to get a nice clean strip you can crimp to without damaging the cable. You'll also need a decent pair of small and large wire cutters to accurately cut the cable and some plugs.

The correct wiring is usually the centre-pair of the plugs crossed:

One end:
Pin 1 - Absent
Pin 2 - No connection
Pin 3 - Red (solid colour)
Pin 4 - Green (same colour with stripe)
Pin 5 - No connection
Pin 6 - Absent

The other:
Pin 1 - Absent
Pin 2 - No connection
Pin 3 - Green (colour with stripe)
Pin 4 - Red (no stripe)
Pin 5 - No connection
Pin 6 - Absent

If you're not going to make a habit of this and don't want to be able to make your own Ethernet cables for your home network then I'd say the best way would be to ask some nice person who has all the tools to make one for you for a couple of beers or order your faceplate from Broadband Buyer and add one of these to the order for £2.44 http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=4408

Cheers,
Paul.

[Sebby]

What you want to do should be fine.

Why not save yourself some hassle and get a good-quality, short RJ11, like these? And you could get the filtered faceplate while you're there, even if you don't fit it right away.

[MoHux]

Drummer, Maplin have a special offer until 6th June, seems to be what you want:

HERE


Mo

[drummer]

Thanks for all the advice and certainly some useful information for the future.

Coo, gold plated RJ11s from ADSL Nation eh...there's proper posh for you.  Look like they're the business though, so if I get a 1m cable, plus the faceplate and an IDC tool, P&P is only £1.50 so that looks like what I'll plump for.

Popped into Maplin today before reading the replies here and the only crimp tools they had were for RJ45, but not a bad price on that offer and almost tempting...

Supplementary question - if I use the new RJ11 with the old one still hardwired and it proves to be noisier, am I right in assuming that anything other than terminal 2 and 5 can be disconnected from the rear of the current faceplate?

Thanks again everyone.

[Dangerjunkie]

Which type of face plate do you currently have? Is the front in 2 pieces, the bottom of which can be removed to reveal a "test socket" behind?

[Sebby]

Supplementary question - if I use the new RJ11 with the old one still hardwired and it proves to be noisier, am I right in assuming that anything other than terminal 2 and 5 can be disconnected from the rear of the current faceplate?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but if you continue to "use soap on a rope" filters, you can remove the ring wire (terminal 3) from the faceplate on the master socket and every extension sockets (only 2 and 5 will remain connected). If you mean once a filtered faceplate is fitted, the ring wire is no longer an issue as the ADSL signal is filtered as the line enters the house.

[drummer]

Sorry for not making myself clear yesterday but it was late and I'd been moving furniture all day and was completely cream-crackered.

To recap:

I have a normal BT NTE5 faceplate with a test socket behind it.  Apart from one telephone, all that's wired to the rear of the faceplate is a very long cable with an RJ11 plug on the other end.

My question was about using a new RJ11-RJ11 cable plugged into the (existing) standard dangly filter with the other (hardwired) cable still connected.

Concerned that this may create more noise than at present, I just wanted to check that the voice side of things are connected to terminals 2 and 5, should I decide to yank out the the hardwired modem cable.

I now realise a quick Google would have confirmed this, so I'll silently slink away whilst quietly chanting the mantra: "Google is your friend, Google is your friend..."

[Rik]

Both signals should be connected to terminals 2/5, Drummer. The ADSL ones do not need to be filtered, the phone ones do. If it's standard phone cable, then a dedicated RJ11 ADSL cable should hopefully reduce noise further for you. For neatness, you may want to consider fitting a filtered faceplate at some point, but it will be a cosmetic rather than functional change.

[Sebby]

Ah, I understand now. I'd be inclined to pull the long wire out from the back of the faceplate. If that was your only bit of extension wiring, there's really no need to get a filtered faceplate then as there is no internal wiring to pick up noise.

[drummer]

Thanks Rik and Sebby for the filtered faceplate info as I'd assumed they were essential, but I'm guessing the stuff I've read was written before wireless extensions became the norm.

The ADSL Nation RJ11 cables do look excellent though, so a trip to Tottenham Court Road for an equivalent product is on the cards.  While I'm there, I'll look for a decent ADSL filter too - I'm currently using a Speedtouch filter supplied by Tiscali, but I'm sure there are much better filters available on the high street.

As a firm believer in the concept of a minimal signal path when it comes to cabling, the attached pic should give some clue about why I want to sort this out.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Sebby]

So that long cable is connected as extension wiring behind the faceplate directly to the router?

As you don't have any (other) internal wiring, this would be my advice:

1. disconnect the long cable from the back of the faceplate;
2. get yourself a decent microfilter, like the ADSL Nation XF-1e;
3. use a decent and short cable (like the ones from ADSL Nation).

[Dangerjunkie]

The ADSL Nation RJ11 cables do look excellent though, so a trip to Tottenham Court Road for an equivalent product is on the cards.  While I'm there, I'll look for a decent ADSL filter too - I'm currently using a Speedtouch filter supplied by Tiscali, but I'm sure there are much better filters available on the high street.

I've not had good experiences in TCR. I've found many of them to be full of it and to be honest I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

If you're using a cheap filter you got from an ISP I would definitely toss it and get a new ADSLNation one. Since all your stuff seems to be together I would get the XTE2005 (as I did) You'll end up with one less connection in the cable this way and get a proper tuned filter that should give you the best isolation possible. All filters are not equal.

Cheers,
Paul.

[drummer]

Having dragged my sorry arris along the length and breadth of TCR for the millionth time, I can confirm that there are no decent cables or filters to be had, no matter what your budget.

There are a couple of specialist shops along TCR which sell high quality hardware, but ADSL is the universal Achilles heel for all the offline retailers (including the regular computer fairs).

Will order the necessary gubbins from ADSL Nation and report back, but I need to post another question about my current stats in the meantime.  Something for another thread methinks...

While I'm posting, I may as well add a rant about SATA cables; the choice seems to be between the cheap type that latches securely but disintegrates when used more than twice, versus the non-latching cheap type which disconnects from the drive or mobo if someone nearby sneezes.

I want decent quality, secure SATA cables and I'm not too fussed about cost!

Ooh, I feel much better for that...

[Steve]

Western digital do a "sure connect" sata cable, I presume it only fits their drives. I have used an earlier version which worked but needed a molex connector instead for the power. The newer version I am not sure which power connector it uses.You can always add a bit of hotglue to the MB end if desperate.

Bit of word association "happy birthday simon"

[Dangerjunkie]

 

I bought a cable from Maplin. I think it was an Akasa and I paid about £7 for it. Seemed fine to me but please bear in mind I'd never used SATA before and I plugged it in once and haven't touched it since so I can't speak for its replug-ability.

Cheers,
Paul.

[Simon]

Bit of word association "happy birthday simon"

Thanks, but don't talk to me about SATA cables!   

[Sebby]

I also have Akasa SATA2 cables. I got them from Scan.co.uk I believe. They seem to be high quality - I also didn't want something too cheap.

[Rik]

Scan built my machine and used Akasa cables rather than those which came with the mobo, so it seems that they believe in them.