Home networking explained, Part 3: Taking control of your wires

Now, let's start with the cable itself.

This is more than you need to make or adjust the length of a network cable. Note that I cut off one of the connectors from the ready-made cable; there's a bag full of connector heads that are eagerly waiting to be the replacement.

1. Making your own network cable
A network cable basically consists of a patch cable and two network connectors (formally known as RJ45 modular plugs) attached to each of its ends. The job of making your own cable is attaching these connectors to a patch cable.

Note: By network cable, I mean the CAT5e cable, which is the most popular type of networking cable that can handle gigabit connections. The newer network standard, CAT6, however, has exactly the same wiring (with the same tools), but requires CAT6-compatible parts.

What you need:
A crimping/cutting/stripping tool: This the most important tool; it helps cut, strip, and crimp patch cable. It costs just about $15. I personally use the Trendnet TC-CT68.
Patch cable: You can buy this in bulk; it costs anywhere between $40 and $100 for 1,000 feet. Shorter length costs less, accordingly. You can also turn an existing network cable into a patch cable by cutting off one or both of its network connector heads. This is typical when you want to make a cable shorter or want to replace a broken network connector.
RJ45 modular plugs: These network connector heads are very cheap; you can get 100 pieces for just a few dollars online.

Here are the steps to make your own network cable. Remember, the wiring scheme is the hardest part (click to enlarge).

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

The steps:
a. Use the tool to strip the patch cable's jacket about 1.5 inch from one end; you'll find eight color-coded wires (twisted into four pairs) that you'll need to arrange in a particular scheme. (In my experience, it's easier to spread these wires out and put them in the right scheme when you strip more than 1.5 inches of jacket. Later on you can cut the wires shorter if need be.)
This scheme, from left, is: white/orange -> solid orange -> white/green -> solid blue -> white/blue -> solid green -> white/brown -> solid brown. Remembering this order is the hardest part of making the cable.

Note: The wiring scheme above reflects the popular 568B wiring standard, which is recommended. You can also use the less popular 568A wiring standard ( white/green -> solid green -> white/orange -> solid blue -> white/blue -> solid orange -> white/brown -> solid brown). There's no difference in terms of performance between these two wiring standards, and you can also use both of these wiring standards on one cable (one for each end) to make it a crossover cable used to connect two Ethernet-ready devices directly to each other.

b. With these wires pulled out straight and close together in the order above, make sure they are all the same length (you can trim them a bit if needed). Now insert them into a modular plug with the plug's bottom facing you. This step is actually very easy. Despite the small sizes of the parts involved, the plug has pin grooves on the inside to accommodate the wires, and the tiny size means that the wires can't easily go to wrong pins as long as they are properly aligned coming in. Check to make sure the wires go into the plug in the right order.
c. Insert the plug (with the wires now inside) into the crimp slot of the tool and crimp it.
Repeat the same step with another plug on the other end of the patch cable, and you have made yourself a network CAT5e cable. A quick calculation shows that a homemade network cable costs just a few cents per foot.