We’ve discussed the different types of ethernet cables and what they’re good for, but they’re also easy to hack and re-wire to fit whatever need you may have. Before you start stripping and twisting wires though, you need to understand how they work. This video guide walks you through it.
The video, from our friends at Tinkernut, starts off with the beginnings of the internet first, and gets into how ethernet cables work around the one minute mark. If you’re already familiar with cable wiring, you can skip to 1:45 to get right to the good stuff, namely how to build your own crossover cable from a regular ethernet cable, how to build a multi-network connector that will let you plug in one computer to two different networks, and how to build a USB/ethernet cable that you could use to turn your entire house into a USB extension cable, if your house is wired for ethernet, for example.
Of course, some of this may be old hat and you can always go out and buy a crossover cable or whatever you need, but learning how they work and what you can do with the cables you have lying around at home is always a good idea.
4 Clever Ethernet Cable Hacks [YouTube]
Comments
6 responses to “Build Your Own Crossover Cable, USB To Ethernet Extender And More”
If you have either Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable auto-MDIX will just kick in and reconfigure the connection without the need for a crossover cable…
Yep, crossover cables are kind of redundant these days aren’t they.
If you are lucky enough to have ethernet in your home I would highly recommend buying a gigabit switch and use the other ‘cables’ this video speaks of for gigabit speeds! these hacks are interesting but gigabit speeds outweigh them all imo
Yep, pretty much.
Can someone please explain to me how hack #2 is suppose to work? Connect to 2 networks with one network card using the unused pairs in a cat5? even the diagram that follows shows 2 separate connections between the PC and the router, then also mentions LAN teaming which is using 2 network cards (for bandwidth aggregation or redundancy). I fear I may have missed out on some fundamental network magic in my only 20 years as a network engineer…..
While I personally think this video is pointless I believe he meant for the cable to have a Y split on each end and thus its only purpose is to minimize the amount of ethernet cables/sockets required to be put into the buildings infrastructure. It would still require individual ports on each end.
of course the signal quality would be horrendous.
Its a “I cbf doing it right and I didnt bring enough cable to run 2 sockets to the server room so im going to bodgy the wiring” approach.
In other words, Don’t do it…
Yeah, there is more than enough misinformation in this video to shake a stick at (also an early form of transmitting data). Too bad those “retro” Ethernet cables are becoming obsolete…
Giving this video the send-off it deserves.