The following post, submitted to the board at Reddit's 'Cableporn' sub-community (r/cableporn), was in fact deleted by the social media site's moderators -- presumably for being too commercially-oriented.
The photo is of TE Connectivity's Raychem Cat 5e cable, which is qualified to MIL-DTL-24643/59 and /61 and tested in accordance with ANSI/TIA-568-C.2. Featuring an aluminized wrap for sheilding (round braid or flat), the lightweight, ruggedized Ethernet cable handles speeds up to 1 Gb/s, critical for high data rate communications in applications including shipboard, satellite, missiles, weapons, and avionics systems.
The thread of comments and discussion that the banned post generated before removal is (arguably) hilarious, informative, and worthy of commemoration:
submitted 4 months ago by CablingInstall
all 69 comments
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[–]Fyfeyy 70 points 4 months ago
I would hate to strip and terminate this
[–]YouDoNotKnowMeSir 24 points 4 months ago
I love to strip.
[–]Tatersalad96 13 points 4 months ago*
I’d ask for a demonstration, but I don’t know you...
[–]YouDoNotKnowMeSir 9 points 4 months ago
I’d demonstrate but I don’t know you sir
[–]Tatersalad96 6 points 4 months ago
Ah, I see you do not know me sir.
[–]LordPineapple 2 points 4 months ago
But do you know who's on first?
[–]chutnay 1 point 4 months ago
If I pay enough I don’t need to know you😂
[–]Fyfeyy 1 point 4 months ago
Strip me like an armoured 😍
[–]stormcomponents 2 points 4 months ago
What do you even get paid to do something like this? I was looking at the picture thinking “F___ terminating those all day", then you say it's up a tower and in ridiculous temps? No no no no.
Damn, that stuff is fairly expensive
[–]fullnelson13 1 point 4 months ago
Pretty standard for that cable. I like the turck variant though. Rf51624 @ $3.30 a meter
[–]OGCelaris 1 point 4 months ago
Custom cables are a big business. I worked for a company that did automation systems. We had a cable that was $17 a foot just for the raw cable before any work was done. No idea what they charged for the finished product.
Oh yeah, big time. However depending on the cable/material some of this stuff is so commoditized that it becomes difficult to be an outlier
[–]blahkbox 1 point 4 months ago
Wow, is that stuff flooded too?
[–]rotary79 2 points 4 months ago
It's not as bad as you'd think... Have you never worked with coax? It's similar in how you must handle the sheilding.
[–]iwanttoracecars 3 points 4 months ago
Yeah and coax has a foam layer that absorbs the razor easily, knocking pairs leads to service calls..
[–]wolfgame 53 points 4 months ago
So let's see ... pastel ... why? And no striped whites? How do you distinguish them?
This belongs in /r/cablefail
[–]thelaxboy1331 21 points 4 months ago
Since you pointed that out I noticed that. How am I supposed to get pairings right if after I spread them they all look the same?
[–]tosety 8 points 4 months ago
I've terminated cable like this and, while it's not super hard to keep the conductors straight, the panic is always there for me.
[–]thelaxboy1331 4 points 4 months ago
Yea I’d rather just not have panic ya know?
[–]tosety 1 point 4 months ago
Absolutely
The braided shield is also a bit of a pain.
[–]thelaxboy1331 2 points 4 months ago
Just imagine having a job come down and be like “hey we need 50 five feet cables”
With this cable it’d be hell
[–]xiaodown 3 points 4 months ago
"Amazon.com prime now same day delivery is right here for you, sir."
[–]thelaxboy1331 1 point 4 months ago
Oh how I wish
[–]linotype 0 points 4 months ago
You should never be untwisting things so much that you can't keep track of the pairs.
[–]koukimonster91 3 points 4 months ago
I don't know why you are being down voted. You gota maintain those twists for aslong as possible.
[–]thelaxboy1331 1 point 4 months ago
Yea I get that but still if you are terminating and a cable gets switched you’ll have no idea. Even on push throughs I’ve had cables jump spots.
[–]Bioniclegenius 3 points 4 months ago
Yeah, my initial reaction was "wow, the orange stripes are weirdly hidden from this angle." Then I looked closer. No stripes at all...
[–]ChipAyten 2 points 4 months ago
I guess they figure you can identify it if you don't look away.
[–]Segweigh 3 points 4 months ago
If you untwist the pairs all the way to the jacket you're doing it wrong.
[–]iwanttoracecars 3 points 4 months ago
For an RJ45??
[–]koukimonster91 1 point 4 months ago
Yup. There is still room in that connector for twists
[–]iwanttoracecars 1 point 4 months ago
Not really... almost all tutorials even BICSI says it's fine to untwist to the sheath
[–]evilgeniustoddDataCenter 1 point 4 months ago
I wonder if those colors are meant to help people with red/green color blindness?
[–]stormcomponents 1 point 4 months ago
I'm colour blind and terminating cables is a bastard no matter what lol.
[–]zakharov435 2 points 4 months ago
Couldn't possibly be the ones twisted with the colored wires...
[–]wolfgame 6 points 4 months ago
So long as you NEVER get them close enough to each other to get them mixed up that you might want to confirm that you have the right white wire, then sure.
[+]zakharov435comment score below threshold(2 children)
[–]Kieliah -1 points 4 months ago
What if the wires become untangled for whatever reason?
[–]zakharov435 2 points 4 months ago
Untangled all the way to the other end of the cable?
[–]Ashiev 1 point 4 months ago
You strip a bit more jacket off and find more tangles to figure it out.
I've worked with some older cables that aren't white exactly, but the striped color has mostly faded and it's hard to tell.
[–]BarryMcHawe-Kinner 5 points 4 months ago
Cat 5e is for peasants
[–]gcotw 3 points 4 months ago
6A Master race?
[–]CopperKing442 1 point 4 months ago
Cat 8 is already a thing....
Who actually uses it?
[–]CopperKing442 1 point 4 months ago
No one... I'm in the cable manufacturing business. We still pump out lots of cat 5e for standard residential installers and most small offices. Cat 6 still the go to for anything bigger/commercial.
Cat 7a drums sit on the shelf and get dusty
[–]gcotw 4 points 4 months ago
From the sales perspective I don't move much 5e. Lots of 6 and 6A. Poor 7 has pretty much been abandoned by the US market
[–]CopperKing442 1 point 4 months ago
The contractors in the UK love standard cat 5e PVC. It's mostly sold to wholesalers who then sell it to one man bands.
6a certainly getting more popular, seems to be the category of choice for many AV integrators.
I regularly visit our factory partners in the far East where most data cable is made, there is no demand for cat 8 so I am told.
Can you tell me a little about standard residential power cable in the states. Here we use twin and earth, a 2 core + earth double insulated cable rated to 500v, what is typical in the US?
6a is huge with the AV crowd here.
I'm not a big electrical guy, mainly low voltage and networking. However, from my knowledge it's a fairly similar setup, with a ground, a hot and a neutral with an occasional leg for the 240v setups.
[–]linotype 3 points 4 months ago
Shielding or armour?
[–]McGoo25 2 points 4 months ago
Hold on....people are still installing Cat5 into new installations?!?! What year is this?!?!
[–]magungo 2 points 4 months ago
Pretty sure that's just shielding, not armour.
[–]Ribbons0121R121 1 point 4 months ago
needs more armor
[–]ChipAyten 1 point 4 months ago
Look at the thickness of the plastic on the top one. Must be 1/16 of coating.
[–]Wiamly 1 point 4 months ago
Boooooo. How are you supposed to terminate that correctly if there’s no striped wire in the pair?
