Help the kid with keystones

[DanF]

Hello everyone!

I've been doing IT support and providing basic IT services to small (or shall I say, micro) businesses for around 15 years now, but as these businesses grow, their needs also grow.

I happened to have onboarded systems administration at my full time job late, when most of the stuff was already moved to cloud, so the exposure to maintaining physical cabling myself was very limited. Most of this work is now contracted to third parties. The most I did was patching, and RJ45 plugs, which I have no problem with. However I never got to do cable termination to keystones, for example.

So I decided to first build something in my own apartment, which I happened to move into at the same time I had new requests from such businesses. I bought some keystone samples, some different faceplates, with the hope of finding what I find works best and in what circumstances. And yes, I can't seem to find the ideal keystones, or else I'm overcomplicating things I mean, all keystones I did work, but the efficiency is very low.

Being from Europe, I purchased some keystone samples from AliExpress and FS. I decided that FS ones were slightly better, and also had a great turnout time (2 days). Aliexpress ones snapped in my hands. Not to annoy anyone with long stories, although for some reason I felt like I need to justify this post ...

1. I tried toolless keystones... and I thought they are too cheap for my liking. If this worked, it would have saved me quite some time, I thought. But the latch wouldn't fully close unless it's forced with a plier (or cables terminated with a punch down tool... which defeats the purpose. Anyone tried anything similar? If yes, is it me or they are a pain to use? Or is it the brand?


2. I then moved to the manual punch-down ones, which I did using the traditional punch down tool. Everything works but...
- since one side of the punch down tool is wide, it strains the individual wires a lot. And because there's obviously all pairs running through inside, there is no way the individual cables are punched down to the very bottom. This means that, again, the top case (similar to the one shown in the toolless keystones) is not going all the way to the bottom and it's half hanging out when installed in the patch panel / wall port.



So, while all keystones I did so far worked (for how long, we'll find out by time) what I want to know from the experienced is... am I complicating things and/or doing things wrong, or did I select the wrong tools / parts?

 

[Markverhyden]

I've never seen any of the above on this side of the pond. There are a handful of specialized systems designed to supposedly speed up work. But I've found them to not make much of a difference.

I use a punchdown tool which comes with a 66 and 110 blade. Each one has one end for cutting the excess and the other not. Pic below is the keystone style I use. There's a couple of variations available.

 

[DanF]

The punch down tool looks quite similar and it also has a flat side and a cutting side, although the flat side looks much wider. Doesn't the flat edge side damage the individual wires inside the keystone when pressed? It kind of flattens them to the point that they look dodgy, although not to the point they're cut through.

I didn't use the keystones you showed because the wall plate boxes over here are not as deep, so you have to keep in mind the depth of the box, the depth of the keystone, and the flexibility of the cable. In fact I'm using wall plates in which the keystones are installed at an angle, either downwards or upwards.

 

[mmerry]

I've started to use a keystone punch tool. Here are the two I have looked at.

Crimp Tool for Cat6 90-Degree RJ45 Slim-Profile Keystone Jacks

Cable Matters RJ45 Crimp Tool is specifically designed to terminate our 90-Degree Slim Profile Keystone Jacks (Model 180070).

www.cablematters.com

The Vertical Cable one seems to be the better of the two. They do require specific keystones but work pretty easy.

 

[DanF]

I don't believe VC are available in Europe.

This is what I can get, and it seems similar? https://www.fs.com/products/162413.html
It also happens to show the same keystones I shared in my OP, so maybe I'll give it a shot.

The problem is, I might be restricted to using their own keystones.

 

[Markverhyden]

@DanF I understand what you are saying about flattening the wire. But I'm not seeing anything like that. The center cutout is what forces the wire into the pinch point to contact the copper core. The depth of that cut out is industry standard and is designed to force the wire as far down as possible with out any damage. The no cut side is used for multiple hops such as distributing the same dial tone to multiple outlets. Obviously that's not used in TCP/IP networking.

Those tools. can be convenient but only if there's plenty of space available. In my situation more often than not I'm crammed into tiny spaces, like under desks, terminating/re-terminating. So placing all 8 wired pinched in enough can be very challenging. More often than not I'll punch down one wire so the cable can't move away. Then finish the rest in pairs.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

In the old days we'd use a punchdown tool to individually snug each wire in the keystone 1x at a time, like Mark showed a pic of.
These days we use Dynacom punchdown tools that will do the whole thing in one squeeze.

DYNACOM PUNCH TOOL

Tool

www.commgear.com

And for the male end of cables....I use Simply45 pass through setups....so dang quick....

 

[HCHTech]

These days we use Dynacom punchdown tools

That looks like the one my wiring guy uses as well. I don't think I'll be buying jacks from them, though - $8 ea.?!? (ok, $6.75 ea. if you buy a hundred, still robbery).

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

That looks like the one my wiring guy uses as well. I don't think I'll be buying jacks from them, though - $8 ea.?!? (ok, $6.75 ea. if you buy a hundred, still robbery).

Think we paid around mid 2 bucks per...bit time saver. Time is money.