RJ11 plugs - Stranded vs. Solid wire...

[twocvbloke]

I'm thinking about how to wire up the Panasonic 616 at the moment, and got it into my head abut stranded wires vs. solid wires, and whether the standard 2-conductor RJ11 plugs can use either, or if there's one for each type of wire when it comes to crimping them...

The reason this came into my head was cos I was looking on ebay yetserday and saw a couple of listings from the same seller offering one lot for solid and the other lot for stranded, so, I thougt where better to ask than here where there are experts on such things...

I'd only be using Extns. 22 thru 36 as I'll probably keep a phone on 21 by the unit (and eventually would be a Panasonic systemphone for programming), so only really need 2-conductor plugs...

[Phonesrfun]

There are two different kinds.  I believe the ones I have seen are clear plastic for the stranded cords and smoke colored plastic for the solid.  I don't know that color scheme to be any kind of standard.  Do you have any kind of electrical supply houses in your neck of the woods that have telecommunications supplies?  Here in the US, Graybar Electric has them.

On a side note, I use the clear ones all the time on solid wires, and have rarely had one slip off.  The ones intended for solid would probably have no problem on the stranded wire.

I don't think I have ever seen two conductor plug ends in bulk.  Only 4 and 6.  I have used the stranded type 4-conductor plugs with solid wire on my 616 without fail.  Since the plugs going into the Panasonic go to a punch-down block in my house the wires never move around any way.  If you get a phone for programming, you will need all 4 conductors connected from the first extension to that phone.

If you use just one pair on a 4-conductor or a 6 conductor plug, just aim for the center two slots in the plug.  You have to be a good aim, however,  I have had to snip a lot of plug ends off from having "missed".

[paul]

There's no color scheme I know of, but there definitely are different plugs for solid and stranded wire. They differ in the area of the pins that make contact with the wires. Now, you could get a connection with the 'wrong' plug, but it runs the chance of failing because the wire isn't held properly.  I believe there also is a difference in the plug molding for strain relief as well, so that can lead to lost contacts too. Better to use the correct plug than have to locate and replace bad wires later.

[twocvbloke]

Thanks, sounds like I'd be okay with buying a pack of RJ11s and using those with my reel of 2-pair cable...

Do you have any kind of electrical supply houses in your neck of the woods that have telecommunications supplies?

Nothing that would really supply parts to make up cables, the usual shops and big stores tend to only carry pre-made cabling, and that stuff doesn't always like being used with IDC terminals (usually too thin a core to reach through the insulation to connect with the terminals), places like Maplin usually carry such things, but they seem to be discontinuing a lot of stuff that they used to be good for, so may end up supplying pre-made cables only, and of course, they charge way over the odds for what are cheap basic electronic components...

I'll just see what ebay has to offer, I need to get a crimping tool anyway, so may aswell buy a bulk bag of plugs to practice with!!!