iMBAPrice - RJ45 Network Cable Tester for Lan Phone RJ45/RJ11/RJ12/CAT5/CAT6/CAT7 UTP Wire Test Tool

I bought this thing years ago and came back to find the link to recommend to a friend. It's cheap, made of plastic, but is one the most useful tools for tracking down where a cat cable gooes through a building, or testing the cables I make to be sure I didn't make a mistake. Great tool!

As advertised. Simple to use. Works well.

This device has saved me some headache and cost verifying existing cables for wire damage/connectivity before replacing them. The device is simple, accurate, and very easy to use.The detachable remote piece is useful for verifying and/or finding downstream cable connectors. The plastic build of the device means it's light and easy to toss in a bag, but it also feels a little underwhelming. My only real issue with it is the detachable piece is on the looser side and falls off fairly easily, there isn't enough tension in the slot. I remedied this by putting a piece of masking tape along the inside edge to snug up the slot without negatively impacting its use.If you are looking for something simple, light, and low cost to simply check network cable ends, this will absolutely do the job. There is nothing deluxe about this, which is sort of the appeal.

Had a faulty security camera and wanted to test a Cat6 cable to make sure it wasn’t the cable before I changed the camera. Operation is simple, just plug the Ethernet cable into the reader, hit on, and if functioning it’ll go through each pair (1-8) and light up green along the way. The separate little “remote” piece is for you to plug both ends of a finished cable to make sure it’s crimped correctly. It does the job and is way cheaper than the alternatives.

Súper

work just like it should

Pulled a mess of Cat5 throughout the framed house to support a building-wide sound system. After the drywall went up, I needed to terminate the cables and realized I hadn't thought about how I was going to make sure the connections worked. Uh-oh! Found this cable tester associated with the crimping tool I needed, and... ...Wow! I'm so happy I bought this. Most of the terminating connections were good, but a couple were kind of challenging, and if it hadn't been for this inexpensive & incredibly useful tool, I'd've drivn myself crazy trying to figure out what was wrong. This tester revealed the good connections as well as the bad and saved me what little sanity I had left.

Quick SummaryIt seems that there is a reasonable chance of getting a unit that doesn't work and if you do, the seller isn't good about returns and you'll have to engage with Amazon directly.My ExperienceTester showed problems with lights #4 (main box LED lights up, remote box LED doesn't light) & #5 (neither box lights up). This was a working cable that I had made, so I tried another cable - same result. I tested a total of 6 of my hand-made cables, all known to work, with the same result on lights #4 & #5. Then I switched to testing manufactured cables, also all known to work, and got the same exact results with lights #4 & #5. I don't know if it's the internal circuitry that is problematic or the LED lights on the tester that are defective.In either case, it said Free Returns, so I opted to get an advance replacement with a return of the broken tester. Sounded good, but when I went to print the return label (see picture), it said that I had to pay the return shipping costs. That's ridiculous. So, I called Amazon, they promptly refunded the purchase price and automatically canceled the advance replacement.As Others Have MentionedThe instructions are useless, entertaining to try and figure out what they're trying to say in a few places perhaps, but useless as instructions. However, it's simple enough to use, plug one end of cable into main box and the other into the remote box and then turn the switch to "On" for a fast run through the lights or "S" for a slow run through the lights. You want to see simultaneous green lights on both main and remote boxes for each connector (lights 1 --> lights 8), which means that both the main and remote boxes need to be side by side (or at least close together) so you can see whether or not you get simultaneous green lights.