- Joined
- Aug 12, 2006
My First Mod! (Ethernet Splice)
Not 100% sure if this is the right spot, but it is actually a networking mod, so close enough.
Anyway:
I was trying to tame the mass of wires under my desk. I had hardly started when I decided to set the router on top of the modem. I know that'll get a bit warm, but I'm not foreseeing any OVERheating or anything of the like resulting from it.
Problem was, I now was going to have a coil of ethernet just sitting in back of them, to transfer the connection about 2 inches. That, of course, simply would not do.
I checked to make sure I had another ethernet cable (because I really don't trust me, having never done anything like this before) and then cut each end of the first ethernet cable about 6 inches or so from the end. Yes, I was going to splice the two ends together... I checked online realy quick, and people were talking about all the interference and crap connection that it results in, but I didn't really care, I wanted to try it.
I'll wait until I get the pics off the camera (need to find cable/see if it works with ubuntu) to go more in-depth, because there isn't much reason to bore you with explaining how I spliced something without a couple goofy pictures to go along with it.
Edit: Ok, wasn't sure if I'd have an easy time with the pics (Linux newbie...), but I have them now.
Here's the two ends after one of them has been fully stripped. I don't have wirecutters in the house so I was using a pair of scissors and the blades on those pliers. It wasn't really all that bad, except sometimes I pressed to hard with the pliers and cut/creased the wire. This was a problem later.
My goal was to reduce any negative effects of the splicing by keeping the wiring as close to a normal ethernet cable as possible. I wrapped the exposed wires around one another rather than doing the more normal splicing (or at least what I've seen more often) of putting the two together and twisting.
Wrapped that in some tape, then I had a problem. I wanted to continue the twisting of the wires as they appear in an ethernet cable, again, to keep it as close to a normal cable as possible. The second wire in this pair was pretty beat up though, and I wound up breaking the exposed portion completely off. I had to strip a little more, and, it's really tough to see in the pic, but there's less than 1cm of connection between the two wires.
At this point, I've given up all hope on it working. There's no way I see that carrying a decent connection, if a connection at all. I kept going though. Intertwining the first wire, and then just twisting the ends of the second wire around each other, like a twisty tie, because it was way to hard to intertwine them AND have them spiral around the other one. I just taped the second wires to the first, figuring it'd be fine so long as there was insulation between them.
The Finished Result:
And a picture of it in place, normal wire next to it, illustrating the whole purpose of the 1-hour mod (yea, I work slow):
Amazingly, it actually works, and pretty damn well.
Now I hadn't run a test in Linux yet, but that's the higher end of what I got running windows a few weeks ago (if we wanna go back years, I'd get 10mbps... we havn't changed service, but it dropped anyway ). Planning on running some tests with a normal wire to see if it makes a difference.
Edit:
Ok, did the test three times with each wire (mine and the normal one). Very consistent results, both accross wires and on each wire. I'm declaring no loss in speed. Perhaps the cable *can* carry less now... but it's NOT.
Not 100% sure if this is the right spot, but it is actually a networking mod, so close enough.
Anyway:
I was trying to tame the mass of wires under my desk. I had hardly started when I decided to set the router on top of the modem. I know that'll get a bit warm, but I'm not foreseeing any OVERheating or anything of the like resulting from it.
Problem was, I now was going to have a coil of ethernet just sitting in back of them, to transfer the connection about 2 inches. That, of course, simply would not do.
I checked to make sure I had another ethernet cable (because I really don't trust me, having never done anything like this before) and then cut each end of the first ethernet cable about 6 inches or so from the end. Yes, I was going to splice the two ends together... I checked online realy quick, and people were talking about all the interference and crap connection that it results in, but I didn't really care, I wanted to try it.
I'll wait until I get the pics off the camera (need to find cable/see if it works with ubuntu) to go more in-depth, because there isn't much reason to bore you with explaining how I spliced something without a couple goofy pictures to go along with it.
Edit: Ok, wasn't sure if I'd have an easy time with the pics (Linux newbie...), but I have them now.
Here's the two ends after one of them has been fully stripped. I don't have wirecutters in the house so I was using a pair of scissors and the blades on those pliers. It wasn't really all that bad, except sometimes I pressed to hard with the pliers and cut/creased the wire. This was a problem later.
My goal was to reduce any negative effects of the splicing by keeping the wiring as close to a normal ethernet cable as possible. I wrapped the exposed wires around one another rather than doing the more normal splicing (or at least what I've seen more often) of putting the two together and twisting.
Wrapped that in some tape, then I had a problem. I wanted to continue the twisting of the wires as they appear in an ethernet cable, again, to keep it as close to a normal cable as possible. The second wire in this pair was pretty beat up though, and I wound up breaking the exposed portion completely off. I had to strip a little more, and, it's really tough to see in the pic, but there's less than 1cm of connection between the two wires.
At this point, I've given up all hope on it working. There's no way I see that carrying a decent connection, if a connection at all. I kept going though. Intertwining the first wire, and then just twisting the ends of the second wire around each other, like a twisty tie, because it was way to hard to intertwine them AND have them spiral around the other one. I just taped the second wires to the first, figuring it'd be fine so long as there was insulation between them.
The Finished Result:
And a picture of it in place, normal wire next to it, illustrating the whole purpose of the 1-hour mod (yea, I work slow):
Amazingly, it actually works, and pretty damn well.
Now I hadn't run a test in Linux yet, but that's the higher end of what I got running windows a few weeks ago (if we wanna go back years, I'd get 10mbps... we havn't changed service, but it dropped anyway ). Planning on running some tests with a normal wire to see if it makes a difference.
Edit:
Ok, did the test three times with each wire (mine and the normal one). Very consistent results, both accross wires and on each wire. I'm declaring no loss in speed. Perhaps the cable *can* carry less now... but it's NOT.
Last edited: