Re: CAT5e cable

On 4/20/2025 5:41 PM, Joe Gwinn wrote:

On Sun, 20 Apr 2025 15:56:08 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
 

As I suspect "paid help" would be less meticulous than I, it
would be wise to specify materials that they would be less
likely to abuse.  <frown>

>
The simplest way I know of is to get samples and cut them open for
detail inspection.

>
That only works for the samples you have in your hands.
I don't see any criteria that is *specified* for the
cables that highlights the differences that I am seeing.

 True.  You can specify such things, but dream on - the vendors won't
notice of care.

But a purchasing agent (or manufacturing engineer) can use the criteria
to decide to accept or reject a potential candidate.  And, it would alert
installers to the issues that they could encounter before they'd run
thousands of feet of cable.  E.g., *I* was lazy enough to NOT replace those
drops.

The only things you can specify are  the overall system-driven
requirements like max attenuation versus frequency and distance,
shielding effectiveness, and the like.
 And buying sight unseen is almost guaranteed to end in tears.

Sadly, I hadn't considered this aspect of their construction when
I purchased each box.  As most of the runs are interior, this
was my first experience with this issue.