ALL ABOUT CRIMPING
Last updated: 2/11/2000

7.  Hold the wire near the RJ-45 plug with the clip down and firmly push it into the left side of the front of the crimper (it will only go in one way).  Hold the wire in place squeeze the crimper handles quite firmly.  This is what will happen:

(Crimp it once.)  The crimper pushes two plungers down on the RJ-45 plug.  One forces what amounts to a cleverly designed plastic plug/wedge onto the cable jacket and very firmly clinches it.  The other seats the "pins," each with two teeth at its end, through the insulation and into the conductors of their respective wires.

8.  Test the crimp... If done properly an average person will not be able to pull the plug off the cable with his or her bare hands.  And that quite simply, besides lower cost, is the primary advantage of twisted-pair cables over the older thinwire, coaxial cables.  In fact, I would say the RJ-45 and ease of  its installation is the main reason coaxial cable is no longer widely used for small Ethernets.  But, don't pull that hard on the plug.  It could stretch the cable and change its characteristics.  Look at the side of the plug and see if it looks like the diagram and give it a fairly firm tug to make sure it is crimped well.

9.  Prepare the other end of the cable so it has the desired end and crimp.

10.  If both ends of the cable are within reach, hold them next to each other and with RJ-45 clips facing away.  Look through the bottom of the plugs.  If the plugs are wired correctly, and they are identical, it is a straight-thru cable.  If they are wired correctly and they are different, it is a crossover cable.

11.  If you have an operational network, test the cable.   Copy some large files.

12.  If the cable doesn't work, inspect the ends again and make sure you have the right cable and that it is plugged into the correct units for the type of cable.  Try power-cycling (cold booting) the involved computers.

13.  If you have many straight-thru cables and a crossover cable in your system, you should consider labeling the crossover cable or using a different colored cable for the crossover cable so you don't mix them up.  I do not recommend implementing the crossover function, as recommended elsewhere, with two RJ-45 jacks, appropriately wired back to back, and two straight-thru cables.  This method costs noticeably more, introduces more than the necessary number of components and connections, increases the complexity and time of assembly, and decreases reliability.

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