White Cat5/5e Cable Retail

[Yodlei]

First: All leds, controllers are CTB16PCs on S5 Pro. Read through the 3 pages involving Cat5 cable when searching. My house is white & I need to go over the garage door to get from Controller #4 to #5 & only have black & no white option on LOR. I didn't see anything I should be negatively aware of when buying but just wanted to make double sure. I can find black, green & multiple other colors but white seems to be more difficult for some reason. I saw the notes not to use Cat 6 & some cheap brand on Amazon which I will not buy from anyway. Really don't want to buy on-line if I can help it.

Menards & Home Depot either don't have the length or color & Best Buy only has Cat6. Found this on Lowes...https://www.lowes.com/pd/Intellinet-Network-Solutions-CAT-5E-UTP-Patch-Cable-25ft/5001646141

Is this ok? If not: any retail stores to buy from other than big box hardware stores? Lighting, computer, music equipment store maybe?

Going on year 3 with no show for any holiday yet (but getting closer) ....way more planning needed than I thought as far as placement, length of zips, etc.

Thx for any help!

[Jimehc]

Make your own

https://www.amazon.com/1000ft-Cat5e-White-Network-Unshielded/dp/B073HK7FKT?th=1

[Yodlei]

4 minutes ago, Jimehc said:

Make your own

https://www.amazon.com/1000ft-Cat5e-White-Network-Unshielded/dp/B073HK7FKT?th=1

Thanks for the quick reply but no thanks. I will not buy anything from Amazon & don't need 1000'. Only need to go over my garage door...probably 25' or maybe 50. Couldn't measure today since it's raining. I'm a "young" senior woman & need to get rid of stuff; not add more. 😉 Probably shouldn't have even started this hobby at my age but love holidays & it's fun.

[Jimehc]

[TheDucks]

Monoprice is good.

You do not want wire marked 568A  (mini CAT5) from anyplace.  LOR uses the blue pair. 568 wire does not use the same twists on that (or brown) as Green and Orange (standard Ethernet). 568 is the wiring standard. the Blue pair was originally for Telephone service on the same cable (which I never saw used in the wild)

If you are using LOR CAT5 dongles 👍 (save the jacks from yanks), you want bootless. BTW The only issue with CAT6, is it is stiff and needs a bigger radius at the jacks to reduce strain on them, another reason for dongles)

[Yodlei]

12 minutes ago, TheDucks said:

Monoprice is good.

You do not want wire marked 568A  (mini CAT5) from anyplace.  LOR uses the blue pair. 568 wire does not use the same twists on that (or brown) as Green and Orange (standard Ethernet). 568 is the wiring standard. the Blue pair was originally for Telephone service on the same cable (which I never saw used in the wild)

If you are using LOR CAT5 dongles 👍 (save the jacks from yanks), you want bootless. BTW The only issue with CAT6, is it is stiff and needs a bigger radius at the jacks to reduce strain on them, another reason for dongles)

I read about the 568A & telephone wire in other posts & will keep that in mind while looking. "Using LOR Cat5 dongles, yanks, bootless???" Saw bootless mentioned but I'm not building anything & just using what came with the standard AC Controllers...just need a white cable instead of the black that came with it. Site also doesn't offer white. Saw Monoprice mentioned & also someone mentioned cablewholesale.com being good as well but I'd probably have to pay $10 shipping for a $5 cable & why I wanted to buy retail.

I posted a link from Lowes that appears will work so I'll just check that out.

Thanks much & to TheDucks as well.

[k6ccc]

Agree with using Monoprice.  Lots of cable colors available in almost any length you could want.

I do make almost all of my own cables (I stock four colors of cat-50, but on the rare event that I need some rarely used (by me) color, Monoprice is always my go to.

 

[dibblejr]

The last time I purchase cat5/6 cable I purchased the heavy duty direct burial coax style cable and it was more affordable than Monoprice. This was during covid and 1000' reels $162 1000'. Cablewholesale.com

 

I think when I purchased it , it was $130 for 1000' reel. Doesnt come in those crappy boxes.

 

J.R.

[Orville]

I've noticed the last few times I needed to buy cat5 cable, it's getting harder and harder to find BOOTLESS versions.

And cutting boots off,or trimming them back is a pain, taking care not to damage the cable or connector in the process.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Orville

[dgander]

Office Depot has white, monoprice, Home Depot. Maybe not in the store but online

[randyf]

On 9/27/2023 at 4:32 PM, Yodlei said:

I read about the 568A & telephone wire in other posts & will keep that in mind while looking. "Using LOR Cat5 dongles, yanks, bootless???" Saw bootless mentioned but I'm not building anything & just using what came with the standard AC Controllers...just need a white cable instead of the black that came with it. Site also doesn't offer white. Saw Monoprice mentioned & also someone mentioned cablewholesale.com being good as well but I'd probably have to pay $10 shipping for a $5 cable & why I wanted to buy retail.

I posted a link from Lowes that appears will work so I'll just check that out.

Thanks much & to TheDucks as well.

FWIW, from a patch cable perspective, it shouldn't matter if it is an A or B type, as this only swaps the orange and green pairs.  If there is never the need to cut the end and re-terminate it somewhere there won't be an issue.

And even if you do play with terminating cables, it shouldn't matter 'cause you should be looking at the other end to make sure you match the pairs (1/2, 3/6, 4/5, 7/8, with the strips *always* on the same side on both ends; and I *always* look since i've been bitten by different terminations).  Now, if you are connecting to a terminator block, it's much more important to match the colors and stripes.

[randyf]

On 9/27/2023 at 5:07 PM, Orville said:

I've noticed the last few times I needed to buy cat5 cable, it's getting harder and harder to find BOOTLESS versions.

And cutting boots off,or trimming them back is a pain, taking care not to damage the cable or connector in the process.

For people who are not terminating their own cables, I usually recommend using booted cables, as they will otherwise eventually tear off the latch, and will have to otherwise throw away a perfectly good cable.

[Orville]

52 minutes ago, randyf said:

For people who are not terminating their own cables, I usually recommend using booted cables, as they will otherwise eventually tear off the latch, and will have to otherwise throw away a perfectly good cable.

Note: that might be true  but if you're careful and strain relief your cat cables, this isn't a big issue with bootless cables.  I am still using some bootless cables I started with in 2010!(That's 13 years of use on the same cat cable!) No broken latches on any of them either!

The BIGGEST PROBLEM with booted cables are:

#1. They don't always fit into the jack fully, which can cause erratic behavior or a completely area if your show going dark.

#2. If you manage to get them to lock(click) into the jack, when teardown comes, or if the cable goes bad, it's extremely difficult to get the latch pressed down fully to release the "booted" cable. 

I've actually broken not only the cat cable connector latch off, but ended up pulling a controllers cat cable connector completely loose from the circuit board, requiring a major take apart of a controller (CTB16PC) to either resolder the old connector back in place or solder a brand new one onto the PCB, all because of a "booted" cat cable!  And that's not much fun, and takes a lot of time too!  If you ain't got a spare controller, you're hosed!

These controllers were designed for BOOTLESS CAT CABLES, even states not to use booted cat cables in the LOR documentation.

Booted?  No thanks. Just too many issues with them.

  If I have no choice but to buy a booted cable, those boots get cut back for proper fit, and easy take out and to replace the cat cable, if, or when needed.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Orville

[randyf]

38 minutes ago, Orville said:

Note: that might be true  but if you're careful and strain relief your cat cables, this isn't a big issue with bootless cables.  I am still using some bootless cables I started with in 2010!(That's 13 years of use on the same cat cable!) No broken latches on any of them either!

The BIGGEST PROBLEM with booted cables are:

#1. They don't always fit into the jack fully, which can cause erratic behavior or a completely area if your show going dark.

#2. If you manage to get them to lock(click) into the jack, when teardown comes, or if the cable goes bad, it's extremely difficult to get the latch pressed down fully to release the "booted" cable. 

I've actually broken not only the cat cable connector latch off, but ended up pulling a controllers cat cable connector completely loose from the circuit board, requiring a major take apart of a controller (CTB16PC) to either resolder the old connector back in place or solder a brand new one onto the PCB, all because of a "booted" cat cable!  And that's not much fun, and takes a lot of time too!  If you ain't got a spare controller, you're hosed!

These controllers were designed for BOOTLESS CAT CABLES, even states not to use booted cat cables in the LOR documentation.

Booted?  No thanks. Just too many issues with them.

  If I have no choice but to buy a booted cable, those boots get cut back for proper fit, and easy take out and to replace the cat cable, if, or when needed.

All very good points; especially "if you're careful";  I find, though, that lots of people aren't careful enough.

All my devices have dongles (many are waterproof) so as to only rarely need to connect directly to one of the boards; makes replacement easy too.  I don't worry much about boot or bootless, as I can replace a connector in a matter of minutes (or less) often have added boots that can be pulled back; protects the tab when storing/pulling/fishing cables, easy to pull back to get to the tab.

However, folks need to do what's best for them.

[Orville]

11 minutes ago, randyf said:

All very good points; especially "if you're careful";  I find, though, that lots of people aren't careful enough.

All my devices have dongles (many are waterproof) so as to only rarely need to connect directly to one of the boards; makes replacement easy too.  I don't worry much about boot or bootless, as I can replace a connector in a matter of minutes (or less) often have added boots that can be pulled back; protects the tab when storing/pulling/fishing cables, easy to pull back to get to the tab.

However, folks need to do what's best for them.

That last statement (I bolded) says it all.  And I completely agree with it.