VCE Pass Through Crimping Tool

I hadn't worked with cabling since the late 1990s, aside from small jobs at home, so I always made do with a bucket of old RJ45 plugs, a crappy crimp tool and a few hundred feet of cat5. I recently decided to wire the attic and redo some dodgy cable, so I bought cat6 cable, 'pass through' RJ45 plugs and this crimp tool. The pass through, if you don't know it, works like this: you remove the sheath from the cat6, straighten the twisted pairs and line them up. But instead of having to get them perfectly parallel and exactly the right length to reach the end of the plug without leaving too much or too little sheath, you just leave them long (like, 15cm if you like) and pass them all the way through the RJ45 plug which has a window at the end for them to go through. This crimp tool crimps the copper connectors onto the wires, but it also chops off the excess wires at the same time. This is basically the only innovation in 30 years of cat/rj45 networking, but it's an absolute must. This tool came with replacement blades for the chopper and cable stripper, an has RJ45 wire colour coding printed just below the crimp socket. It's basically impossible to screw up even if you're an unpracticed fool.

I've been making up RJ45 connectors for about 30 years and they still annoy me as it's so difficult to see if the wires are inserted correctly before you crimp. So I decided to take the plunge and invest in these crimps for the pass-thru connectors. A complete revelation, why didn't I get these earlier? The 8 wires go all the way through the connector so you can see instantly that they are correct, the crimps then make the connection and trim the excess wire in one operation. Cheap deal on Prime Day made extra sense, I'm using the VCE connectors but there's no reason why other brands wouldn't work. The correct sequence for 568A and B standards is printed on the tool, there are built in cutters and strippers and you get spare blades in the pack, they feel solid and well made and are really compact so take up much less space in the toolbox than a traditional pair. My only negative comment is that the design means these are not really suited to left handed use and I'm left handed, but they have a decent easy action so it's not really a problem.

This is a brilliant crimper for RJ45 passthrough connectors. It crimps them with no issue and cleanly cuts the excess cable with no issue. The cutter is perfect for cutting lengths off of the spool, but it's unfortunately not excellent when it comes to stripping cable jackets, at least not on the cable I've been using. The cutout is too large for the cable I've been stripping to crimp (It seemed like some pretty thick outdoor ethernet cable to me) so it's not really possible to cut the jacket with it, and there's not enough precision to cut just the jacket with the cutting part of the tool. It's not the end of the world though, I have several wire strippers, but it's something you may want to consider. It may not be the greatest multifunction tool for ethernet, but it crimps a passthrough RJ45 with no issue, so I'm happy with it.

Really good tool, made terminating my cat 6 and shielded DB cat 6 cable a breeze.

I'd just run a Cat6 cable around the house to expand my home network. I came to make the RJ45 ends.Three days, many failed crimped RJ45 connectors and a frayed temper later, I gave up trying to make a successful connector (that and I ran out of connectors!) with one or more strands either in the wrong order or not pierced.Looking for alternatives, I found pass through RJ45 connectors and this crimping tool. Result? 100% success rate and my sanity restored.It's now all so easy. Pass through each strand, check it's in the correct pin, place in the crimping tool, press the handle. Job done! It even trims the excess. This tool is perfect.Just make sure you get some quality RJ45 plugs too.

Great piece of kit

Have bought many of these over the time as i take them and show people how good it is and how easy it makes terminating cat 6 cables. Saves so much time and money. very strong and sturdy metal with good grip so your hands wont get crampy.

Great crimper. In case you haven't realised, it's designed for pass-through RJ45 plugs, which are different to the ones you'd normally buy. It makes building cat5/6 cables a LOT easier, but there's a definite technique to using it effectively.My advice is once you have detangled your cat5 strands, and are ready to push it into the plug, grip them with your thumb and then snip the ends off with some wire cutters. This way, the strands all all nicely straight. If you don't do this, it's quite difficult to get them into the plug nicely lined up.The main design flaw on this tool is the 'lock' button. It's lined up perfectly with where your right index finger sits when crimping, so no matter what you do you will end up locking the crimpers (meaning they only extend 1cm open instead of the full jaw width). Why this lock feature is even there I have no idea, but the lock button offers zero resistance, so you will press it every single time without realising it.Get rid of this poorly thought out feature and it would be a 5 star tool