I will
recount to you what you can surmise as a “true story”….
I used to
work in the publishing industry……I worked as a advertisement sales person. One
of many multi tasks that I was asked to carry out was to “make up” a number of
patch cables.
I was
asked (goodness knows why!!) to make them "on demand" as and when
needed for a new server or workstation. My (then) manager didn't want to buy
patch cables even though we knew that occasionally, it took several attempts to
correctly crimp the 4 pairs together.
Most of the time,. these patch cords worked…..the ones that didn’t work
had invariably been made up by the manager!!!!!!!!
So, in the early days of category 3 cables, you
could make a Category 3 cable by hand, without much skill. When category 5e
burst onto the scene, followed up the rear by category 6, the frequencies as
well as the insertion loss increasing, making the self-made patch cord being
highly susceptible to failure, resulting in bit errors – so why do it?
There are
some data installers (and we see them on our courses) that install both patch
cords and then go onto to install the data cables, and never ever carry out any
tests beyond wiremapping. I have even ended up in a discussion with one chap
who insisted that made up patch cords are as good as factory made patch cords.
He said you use the cable straight out the box!!In his view, certification
testing was not necessary as the cable is already ‘certified’.
Conclusions..........patch
cords are made with stranded conductors, so that they are flexible.........the prevalence
of high quality patch cords and the fact that they are relatively inexpensive,
means that you are much better off deploying factory made patch cords.
Technically, the frequencies that Cat6 operates at means that you are going to
run into potential difficulties as the tests normally preclude channel
testing...........
