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

This review is for iMBAPrice - RJ45 Network Cable Tester.I find the meter to be priced right and adequate for the task.This device is a simple and effective continuity tester. We use it test CAT6 cables that we are making to connect our electronics inside our house. This tester does one thing and does it well.It's not absolutely required. I could have used a simple ohm meter to test connections one at a time. That would have been a lot more time consuming.The plastic case of the unit I received is robust enough for its intended purpose.To be sure, it is not as robust as my $500 Fluke meter. Neither is it the lowest quality plastic coming out of China.An additional unintended benefit was when the young ones in our hose-hold were looking over my shoulder, to make sure I was doing it right no doubt. The slow blinking LED light going sequentially from 1 to 8 held a certain fascination that went beyond just being entertaining. Now there is talk of abandoning a future in politics for a future in electronics.That there is worth a million dollars.lol

Item worked great. No issues. Reliable

As handy as I often think I am around ethernet cabling, I was finding a few errors in cables and connections I was making. This tool makes it super easy to see the errors in my crimping ways. It's survived over a year of my casual use, and performed perfectly. Easy, fast, visual. Miss a connection? It shows it. Conductors crossed? No way to miss that. Value for the very low price? Awesome.But I messed up. I was terminating an open pair of cables for security cameras, and had my cable sniffer connected to the camera end while I sniffed in the patch panel to ID the cabinet end of the same cable. Found the corresponding end, and plugged this tool into the socket Before Disconnecting The Cable Tracer At The Other End. Mistake!!The tracer injects a low-level tone into the center two conductors in the connector, meaning 4 and 5 in the 8-pin RJ45. That was enough to cause conductors 4 and 5 to no longer indicate continuity through the tester. But I didn't know it, and carefully re-terminated the end of the cable. Same result as before. Hmmm... On a hunch I plugged the two test tool pieces together with a known-good ethernet patch cable, and again both 4 an 5 failed to show continuity. Apparently I killed 4 and 5.Moral of the story: This is a great handy simple and inexpensive ethernet cable tester. Just be absolutely sure that both ends are completely open before you plug them in to test.I looked inside the source unit and couldn't see anything that looked remotely like its smoke had leaked out, so no opportunity to try a field repair. Looks like I'm going to spring another $10 or so for a replacement. I will scavenge my still-good 9V battery from the old unit to use in its replacement. Small consolation... sniffleNew one is just a few clicks away, and thanks for the very low-cost lesson. :)

Needed a inexpensive tool to use 1 or 2 times to verify ethernet cables. I have a problem with rodents chewing though my CAT 5 cable that is run in my attic. This handy little device shows if the signal from one end is being received at the other end.

Works great

Does what it says it does. Good product.

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.

I was kind of forced to do some CAT 6 termination, which I've never done before. I wanted a simple cheap tool to verify that my work was correct.This did a great job of doing that. I was able to verify my work as well as pick up on the fact that some existing jacks were wired to a different convention than the current standard, so this enabled me to re-wire the other ends to make it work without connecting things and wondering why things weren't working.Well worth the money. Yes, it's plastic and lightweight, but as long as you take care of it, it seems like it'll last for quite a while.