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A 3D-printed ethernet RJ45 clip to secure/repair/fix broken tab (2020)
- meling 4y agoThis made me think, why do we still have RJ45? Yeah of course it won’t disappear anytime soon, but couldn’t USB C replace it? Are there USB C switches (hubs) with say RJ45 input (from Internet) and USB C output ports for connecting local machines? I’m thinking about a small home network with say 8 ports. Ideally, it could also deliver power to smaller units, such as a set-top-box and wifi base station. Larger devices such as TVs could also deliver power to its connected boxes. What if we had an Apple TV with a single cable… it could receive both power and network traffic via the TV and deliver the TV signal back over the same cable.
- CivBase 4y agoUSB C relies entirely on friction to keep it secured. Seems like a pretty big issue for most RJ45 applications.
- Doxin 4y agoUSB-C has a mechanical detent. There's a metal spring in the male connector, and the center tab in the female connector has an indent on either side for that to snap into.
- ehnto 4y agoSomeone else mentioned it, it can be terminated in the field. It is a very serviceable connector which fortunately the commercial world still values. You don't want to be replacing a 100m run of USB C cable when the connector breaks. If you are a consumer who tries to buy right, buy once, commercial products are a great place to look for this reason too. Industry often requires serviceability and robustness.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- paulwilsondev 4y agohad no idea this was a thing
- timonoko 4y agoDoes not fit into my 20 meter long cable. It has fatter handles. Can I have programmable Openscad - version?
- antirez 4y agoModel complex to print without good reasons...
- madaxe_again 4y agoI mean, sure, but reterminating with a new, not broken RJ45 only takes 30 seconds, and they cost peanuts.
- michael1999 4y agoHow do you re-terminate stranded cable? I struggle to terminate solid-core in less that 5 minutes.
- Mikealcl 4y agoEasier than you think but one of those things easier to show than do. Muscle memory skill.
- dekhn 4y agoWhat do you mean stranded? If you mean standard ethernet cable, it's 8 solid wires. Putting a keystone block takes about 1-2 minutes (with a tool). I spend more time figuring out which wire goes where than the actual retermination.
- jiveturkey 4y agopatch cable wire is stranded. the clip here is meant for use on patch cables and has nothing to do with keystones
- danuker 4y agoStranded as in each wire being made up of smaller wires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire#Stranded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire#Stranded These are typical in pre-capped wires. While they allow more flexibility of the wire, their ends are hard (if not impossible) to change.
- dekhn 4y agoI've never seen stranded wire in an ethernet cable, but I see it's a thing. I occasionally turn my male-male ethernet into male-female with a keystone block and never see stranded. I dabble in electronics and I eliminate stranded wire whenever I find it. Some people love it but I find it really inconvenient.
- myself248 4y agoCan also just buy a bag of 'em: https://www.techtoolsupply.com/RJ-45-Quick-Plug-Easy-Repair-Clear-50-pieces-p/sky-con9024.htm https://www.techtoolsupply.com/RJ-45-Quick-Plug-Easy-Repair-... I'm still working my way through the 50-count bag I bought in 2018; evidently I don't actually encounter that many broken cables, they just exert an outsized effect on my psyche when I do.
- blackoil 4y agoDon't you know of the woodworking wisdom. "Why buy, When you can build at 3x price in just 100 hours time?"
- wartijn_ 4y agoI like that attitude, it’s the hardware version of “why spend 5 minutes to do something manually, when you can spend 30 minutes to write a script that does the task?”
- ilyt 4y agoThe answer is scale! For home stuff it has been 50/50 on time investment (including one of "the hardware I automated went up in smoke"), but for work stuff not putting that bit extra work almost always turned out to be wrong call.
- bradknowles 4y agoYou can also get them on Amazon: Construct Pro RJ-45 Easy Plug Repair for Cat5e & Cat6 (Clear | Bag of 50) https://a.co/d/1BsSIIn https://a.co/d/1BsSIIn
- btbuildem 4y agoSo, you can buy a bag of fifty and have it sitting around for four years because you'll never use fifty of those things? Sounds like an excellent argument for just printing one when you need it.
- mmastrac 4y ago
- latchkey 4y agoI might just have to buy a 3d printer now.
- Filligree 4y agoIf you're serious about that, then please consider the Bambu Labs P1P, X1, or any of the Prusa printers. There are cheaper ones, but they're all terrible. Personally, I think the X1 is the best. Prusa's printers are good, but a little dated.
- roboben 4y agoX1 means Artillery Sidewinder X1?
- Filligree 4y agoBambu Labs X1
- silversmith 4y agoSure, if you are very serious about it. But anecdotally, a lot of folks buy 3d printers only for them to gather dust. Unless you are really up there on income, get something cheaper to start. Ender 3, while being objectively worse, can be had for peanuts compared to Bambu Labs printers. I have one sitting in the room next door, bought on a whim after noticing a very good deal. While I would love a better one, it has taught me what at-home 3d printing can be used for, and what are the main features to look for in the next upgrade. And the limits of applicability I've run into have thus far been mainly down to materials and my design capabilities, and better hardware won't solve those.
- grepLeigh 4y agoI make monitoring/automation software for 3D printers, and I'm thinking about adding a "make something every day" achievement to help with this. I'm collecting handy/functional prints (like the OP) to make it easy to achieve. It takes a lot of activation AND creative energy to figure out something useful/functional to print, then execute on your vision.
- moffkalast 4y agoThat's fantastic, just about every one of these cables I have eventually ends up tabless. They're just built so flimsily that breaking them is a complete inevitability if you need to plug them in more than once, they're like a 5 time use cable. Comparing it to other types of connectors, RJ45 is probably one of the worst ones out there (at least VGA has screws that don't break), but it's also as prevalent as USB-A so I wonder if anything will ever replace it.
- b112 4y agoThey're just built so flimsily that breaking them is a complete inevitability if you need to plug them in more than once, they're like a 5 time use cable. Erm? You must be exaggerating a bit, I use cables/connectors hundreds of times with zero isses. Misuse / mistakes happen, yes. But?
- moffkalast 4y agoNaturally it's an exaggeration, but it really depends on how careful you are, quality of the cable, and quality of the port. Laptops, especially, I've found absolutely eat the tabs since you move them around and often have collapsible ports.
- 3np 4y agoThe worst in my book is micro-HDMI. So many broken connectors, adapters, and cables... Even before USB-C became an option, mini-HDMI is just a different league of reliable without being that much bigger. A broken RJ-45 is still usable and fixable. A broken micro-HDMI makes you feel lucky it was the cable and not the device that goes in the bin this time. But only after hours wasted on fiddling with it because the closest shop carrying them wouldn't arrive until after the weekend.
- somat 4y agoSo the 8 pin modular connector(rj-45) may not be the best connector in the world(the 8088 sas connector is a serious contender for that honor), but it does one thing better than any most connectors, it is designed to be field terminated, and as such is easy to fix. the crimping dies are ubiquitous, the process is simple. because of this single fact, I think it is better than just about any other connector in widespread use. because you can fix the infernal thing. As such the article left me a bit confused, why not just cut off the end and putting a new plug on? with an 8 pin connector this is very easy. But I am in the industry and tend to have a crimper close to hand. perhaps some are not as fortunate.
- ilyt 4y ago> the 8088 sas connector is a serious contender for that honor No connector with tiny springy bit in the socket instead of in cable is worth being called "good". But I do like the big pull tab
- puffoflogic 4y agoThe pictured cable has that built-up end which is supposed to prevent cable strain; re-terminating requires discarding it.
- somat 4y agoI am not sure how important the strain relief is, I never bother, but if you really want strain relief there are connectors with it. sometimes they have a metal band you have to crimp around the cable.
- akira2501 4y agoThe strain relief is for machine made cables where they glue or melt the relief into the plastic plug. Almost all manual crimp connectors have a strain relief built into them that's meant to grab the jacket and hold the cable right at the entry to the plug. All my RJ45 and RJ45-EZ connectors in my bag have this locking strain relief tab at the back.
- 4y ago
- enriquto 4y agoHeh. The first thing I do with a new ethernet cable is to break the clip, laptop side. It's orders of magnitude better to have an occasional disconnection than to trip with the cable and make the laptop fall from the table. I did not invent this. I've seen legendary graybeards do it. I see it as a rite of maturity, like cyclists who discard the caps of their presta valves.
- rkangel 4y agoIf you're in a situation where you might trip on the cable, surely run your cable better or just use Wifi? There are already so many things that can go wrong when setting up a network and there's no need to deal with potentially flaky physical connections. When I find broken clips in the lab I snip the cable in half and throw it in the bin. £5 for a new cable is a lot cheaper than spending time diagnosing a network problem. (if I don't snip it in half, on occasion people extract the 'perfectly good' ethernet cable out of the bin)
- liotier 4y agoSend DM - I have a carton of broken RJ-45 cables to sell you !
- hollerith 4y agoThere are no DMs on this site.
- Firmwarrior 4y agoyou just hunt the guy down IRL based on his writing patterns or any personally identifiable info he let slip over the years, then leave a scrap of paper with the DM in his real-life mailbox
- lostlogin 4y agoBut you can just use the stalking tool from yesterday. https://www.handlefinder.com/ https://www.handlefinder.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33722494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33722494
- actionfromafar 4y agoI'm starting to think I have dreamt this but... wasn't there an IBM Ethernet cable with instead of the little tab ending in ... nothing, it was a little bridge that went back down, so nothing to hook/snag on. But it didn't look quite like the 3D printed one here, but it was symmetrical looking, like a tiny tiny arch bridge. Oh, and it was made of springy metal, in this maybe dream.
- opan 4y agoUnsure if IBM is involved, but there is the "industrial ethernet" connector that's different. Tried to find it and found a few variants, but the one I had in mind is the "ix industrial ethernet" that's used by the MNT Pocket Reform.
- JoBrad 4y agoPretty sure I’ve seen a version of this cable that had a solid tab that bent in the middle. I have no idea what the brand/name is, and just spent way too long looking for it. It wasn’t metal, but sounds like a plastic version of what you’re talking about. I remember really liking them. Edit: I think this is it. https://linkup.one/linkup-snagless-rj45-cat6-stp-connectors-ez-pass-through-ends-ethernet-cat-6-8p8c-solid-plugs-stp-gigabit-round-cable-connector-platinum-50-mi-gold-plated-high-performance-50-pack/ https://linkup.one/linkup-snagless-rj45-cat6-stp-connectors-...
- mastax 4y agoI don't have problems with RJ45 tabs breaking off. I do have two problems with the connectors: 1. Sometimes the connectors don't latch properly in the port and fall right out. I try to bend the tab out further to help it latch but it never stays. 2. Some patch cables have rubber over moulding that covers the latch that's so stiff that I have trouble getting it to release. Who even wants the latches to be covered? One of my cables has a thin rubber tab over the clip that stops it from snagging on things, I guess, but doesn't inhibit unlatching. But it seems that the most popular over moulding is the terrible one.
- SturgeonsLaw 4y agoOn many of those cables you can slide the sheath away from the plug so it's easier to push down the latch
- asddubs 4y agowell, clearly the latches are covered so it doesn't break off because something gets caught behind it
- travisporter 4y agoTo counter your experience tho, the clip helps with cable from coming out of my router, the rubber helps with the tab breaking when it caches on another cable.
- foxylad 4y agoImagine twenty ethernet cables plugged into a switch, and you need to remove one. You unplug it, pull it slightly to see which it is below the bundle, grab it there and pull. You will then discover that an uncovered clip magically catches on EVERY SINGLE other cable on the way through. It will also catch on the rack, any other devices within reach, and somehow the power switch for the entire installation. In fact if you ever lose your car keys down a drain, simply poke an ethernet cable with an uncovered RJ45 plug through the grate. Your keys will be firmly attached to the tab, along with five other sets of lost keys, several rodents and the grate itself.
- jccalhoun 4y agoIf modern laptops even have ether net ports, they seem to the kind with the little spring loaded flap because the laptop is too thin for a normal ether net port. So I'm surprised they haven't made a slim lightning connector type ether net port.
- ilyt 4y agoIf you already need a dongle might as well just have usb dongle tbh. There were some thin ones with retractable ethernet socket (via clever mechanics) but apparently pretty fragile
- jccalhoun 4y agoI thought about that and nearly didn't make the post but I still think it would be worth it.
- rnhmjoj 4y agoI had the same thought some time ago and went looking for alternatives to the 5P5C connector. It turns out they exist and are used in industrial applications, like the "ix Industrial" [1], precisely because how fragile the standard connector is. Unfortunately there's no standard and the designs are proprietary. [1]: https://softei.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Hirose_10-03-2020.jpg https://softei.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Hirose_10-03-2...
- bluedino 4y agohttps://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/cables-and-adapters/cables-&-adapters_adapters/4x90q84427?orgRef=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/cabl...
- jccalhoun 4y agointeresting!
- VBprogrammer 4y agoI've just remembered that while having our second child the nurse couldn't get the monitoring in the nursing station due to one of these clips. The ethernet socket was quite high up the wall so the weight of the cable was handing from the slightly broken clip. Thankfully even in my frazzled state I was able to suggest turning the cable around end for end so that the one with a good tab was plugged into the wall.
- Waterluvian 4y agoThere’s a joke on Instagram of a lady in the delivery room giving her partner (an electrician) a stern look because he’s testing the outlets for compliance and discussing why some are inverted with the ground up. I’m picturing you and your partner having a similar scenario and it’s rather amusing. :)
- MartijnBraam 4y agoOr... snip off the connector and crimp a new one on.
- markandrewj 4y agoThe best option is probably re-crimping the cable, but in a pinch you can make an extra clip with spare zip ties also. https://www.cabletiesplus.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/18iy30vzex16bjpg-300x225.jpg https://www.cabletiesplus.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/0...
- iLoveOncall 4y agoI have printed this very model and it wasn't compatible with any of the cables I tried. It's also extremely weak and will break very easily (they all broke within a minute of trying to install them). It's less than 10 min of print time so it's worth trying, but expect it to fail.
- dekhn 4y agoif you need more strength in a print, increase the vertical and horizontal perimeters (not the infill).
- djfobbz 4y agoThis is a very good design! Great job and thank you for sharing. Happy thanksgiving everyone!
- oso2k 4y agoThis one is fine. But I had better luck on my booted CAT6A cables with this other design. The longer one is what I used and even then, I had to shave the nose a mm or two. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2009495 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2009495
- thesaintlives 4y agoBrilliant! I have a servo cable that needs this.
- jameshart 4y agoLooks like a poor match for FDM printing. There's no orientation where the layers won't leave some part of this component very weak. In any orientation, it requires support material; in the suggested print orientation, it requires internal support material, which will leave rough surfaces on areas of the part that have to interface and fit with the ethernet jack. Essentially doesn't really look like a 3D-printing project so much as an injection moulded part design.
- travisporter 4y agoWhat about sla?
- longtimelistnr 4y agoSla should be fine. However I do believe this part can be redesigned to become fdm friendly
- stevenhuang 4y agoFDM prints are usually stronger than SLA prints. Not sure why you think an FDM printer can't print this component with sufficient strength, it'll be plenty strong enough.
- stevenhuang 4y ago> Printing the tab from the base to the tip in X-Y axis makes it stronger and more flexible since its printed in one continued string. The component won't be undergoing any stress at all, and for a continual print like above it will be plenty strong for the application.
- jameshart 4y ago> The component won't be undergoing any stress at all It has a compliant clip that bends to clip and release; its entire purpose is to retain cables against being pulled out of sockets; and it is designed to press-fit around the body of an ethernet connector which, if it is not too loose or a perfect fit, will subject it to a continual stress. Are you looking at a different object than me?
- FounderBurr 4y agoCopying is not designing
- engineer_22 4y agoNicely done
- grizzles 4y agoEthernet / RJ45 could displace USB 3/4. It's technically superior in every way. The only barrier that I can see is the standards folk would need to come up with a new RJ45 connector that is designed for end users.