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Splicing cat5 cables, yay or nay?

splicing the individual wires ruins the impedance control of the cable, whereas using the punch down junction box I linked does not

they also make weatherproof versions if it needs to be outside
I think that concern is overblown. The Cat5 run feeding this computer is about 70 ft and uses a RJ45 terminal block with screw terminals and still works just fine at 10base100 speeds--a camera is unlikely to exceed that.
 
I always have the opposite problem because I'm overly paranoid about pulling a run that's too short, so I always pull way more than I need out of the other end...*glances at wasteful pile of cat5e scraps*
 
My problem this time is I was pulling a cat5 cable and a cable for controlling a sprinkler. I mistakenly put the two ends together at the start of the feed. By the time we got to the end of the run, they were wrapped around each other a couple times. And while I have hundreds of feet left on my cat5 spool, I only had a few feet left on the 100 ft sprinkler wire. so I pulled both cables to a good length for the sprinkler, but that turned out to be 4 or 5 feet short for the cat5.
 
Whichever way you go is totally up to you of course, but before I retired as communication officer for a large federal law enforcement agency, I oversaw a lot of of cat 5 installation, and splicing was not an option. But, and just a tip, whichever way you go, you are going to have to 'tape' the results. Personally, and more favorably, I would enclose the connector unit in heat shrink.
 
I used solid cat5 for both sprinklers and camera's, and it works fine on the longest 40m run with 24VDC solenoids.
Why 24v - less prone to voltage drop, and DC cause it's easier to make into 5v or 3.3v for adding sensors at the far end.
 
Heh.... zero bit errors at 10 Mb/s (brown and green pairs only) for 30 feet of Cat-5 ScotchLok'd (UY version) to a Cat-3 direct bury 5-pair, 30 feet later UY'd to a second 5-pair, 30' later punched down on a 66 block to a Cat-5. Both ends are RJ45-F punch down and 12' patch cables.

Telco 'beans' = 3M ScotchLok connectors

Mama needed wired internet in her she-cave over the garage and that's what I had in the ground. :)
 
Heh.... zero bit errors at 10 Mb/s (brown and green pairs only) for 30 feet of Cat-5 ScotchLok'd (UY version) to a Cat-3 direct bury 5-pair, 30 feet later UY'd to a second 5-pair, 30' later punched down on a 66 block to a Cat-5. Both ends are RJ45-F punch down and 12' patch cables.
I have a direct burial 3-pair Cat-3 run a bit over 150' long to my barn, in the same trench as the water, gas, and power (240V fed by a 90A breaker). It runs 100BASE-TX without errors (but no Scotchlok splices). We threw that cable in the hole when the barn was built and I never thought at the time that I would ever use it for ethernet...
 
Practically I'd agree that 100Mbps seems pretty tolerant of poor cabling, and every IP cam I've seen only does 100 anyway...
 
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