On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
> The Coax is no harder to install than twisted pair. It's no more likely
> to be stepped on and there are proper wallplates etc if you're worried
> about it getting pulled. And I find the strain relief on the BNC to be a
> lot better than that on an RJ45.
I don't. Its far easier for a coax to get pulled out of the BNC connector
than it is for a twisted-pair cable to be pulled out of an RJ-45.
> Hmm.. Fitting a plug on a piece of twisted pair behind a machine rack is
> not fun. 8 wires to get into the right channels, brown and orange colours
> to tell apart, no thank you.
>
> The BNC was _designed_ to be trivial to fit, actually. The best way to do
> it is to use a solder type plug and ignore the instructions :-). Then :
>
> Put the nut and rubber washer over the cable. Remove about 3/4" of the
> outer covering. Fan out the braid, put the T-shapped ferrule over the
> inner insulator and push it down inside the braid. Trim off the braid
> around the outside of the ferrule, cut the inner insulation (but not the
> inner wire) flush with the end of the ferrule (use a sharp knife for
> this), pull off the inner insulation, tin the centre wire. Put on the
> little disk insulator, cut the inner wire a couple of mm beyond that, put
> the pin on, solder in place. Put the outer insulator and plug body on the
> end of that, slide up the nut/washer and tighten it all up.
So you're saying its easier to work with a soldering iron, solder, a pair
of dykes, a knife and a 3-piece BNC connector behind a machine rack, as
opposed to a one-piece RJ-45 that requires one tool to cut, strip and
crimp? Wow. You ARE a glutton for punishment.
> It took longer to type that than it does to do it.
I can crimp a BNC connector in a few seconds with the right tool, and I
don't bother with the soldering. Crimping seems to do the trick quite
nicely.
> A couple of tips. Get the right cable and plugs. There are several sizes
> of BNC plug (not just 50 Ohm and 75 OHm - acutally different sizes of
> ferrule, etc) to fit different cables. A lot of hassles start when you
> use the wrong plug. Also get a couple of the special flat spanners for
> tightening up the plugs. A lot easier than trying to use pliers.
And don't use any cable other than RG-58A/U or RG-58C/U for thinnet. If
you use anything else (i.e. straight RG-58) you're going to start running
into trouble if you begin to add nodes or have long distances in between
nodes.
> Anyway, with 10 base T, there may be a dozen cable coming out from the
> room where the bub is to other machines in the house. With 10 base 2,
> there's normally only one coax cable.
Like I said, as long as you are connecting computers that are within a few
feet of each other then coax is a good choice.
> > around corners, over door frames, etc. And 4-port hubs can be had for
> > less than $50 these days. A worthwhile investment for having a more
>
> _4_ port hubs??? Surely you jest :-). Us workstation types have 4
> machines per desk with ethernet ports :-).
Ok, an 8- or even 16-port hub can be had for around $100 or less.
> Since when have any _classic_ computers had 100Mbps network ports? Heck,
> I'm looking out for any original 3Mbps stuff :-)
>
> Which reminds me. 10 base 2 is on-topic here (over 10 years old). I am
> not so sure about 10 base T
>
> > Of course, this assumes your machine can use 100baseT. Old machines like
> > your PERQs and PDP11's would be quite happy with 10baseT.
> >
>
> I thought this was classiccmp....
Well, ten years from now you'll regret using coax when you want to plug
that Pentium II with a PCI 100baseT ethernet card onto your network :)
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Wed Oct 28 1998 - 16:23:35 GMT