Although ethernet cables are commonly sold as fixed lengths such as 3 or 5 meters, manually shortening the cable is a simple and cheap process!

Excess cable is always a minor health and safety concern as someone could easily trip over an unmanaged cable.

What you will need:

• RJ45/Cat5e Crimping tool
• RJ45/Cat5e Connectors

Lets get started!

Use the smaller blade on the crimping tool to strip the ethernet cable and expose the 8 internal cables.

 Once the internal cables are exposed you will need to untangle them and rearrange them into the correct order, this is the most important stage as the finished ethernet cable will not function if this is not done correctly.

Starting from the left; White and Orange, Orange, White and Green, Blue, White and Blue, Green, White and Brown, Brown.

Once you are certain that the cables are arranged correctly, trim the cables to the same length using the second blade mounted on the crimping tool.

After trimming the cables we are now ready to insert them into the RJ45 connector.

When inserting the cables, it is important to ensure that the clip on the connector is facing downwards and that you apply enough pressure so that each cable is in contact with the relevant pin at the end of the connector.

The final step is to “crimp” the connection. This ensures that the cables will maintain a connection with the pins.

Insert the connector into the RJ45 slot on your crimping tool (It will only fit into the correct one, the middle slot in my case.) and apply pressure on the handles until you hear a clicking sound.

Now all you need to do cut the cable down to the desired length and then crimp the other end!