Unsure what to purchase to connect up cat 6a cable new build

Yep, we goofed. We let the electrician who helped us run our cat 6a cables bring them through a 20mm deep metal box at the end. We were going to use some tool less rj45's but we are apparently stuffed unless we add a spacer and faceplate. We can live with that, but unsure what brands - any advice welcome.

Have you used solid core CAT6? Or have you used stranded patch cable?

I think recovery from this depends on what is actually in place ...

Hi, thanks. On the box it came in it says...100-990-305m
Excel CAT 6A UFTP LSOH 305m ice Blue

In reply to a post by NovaScotia:

Yep, we goofed. We let the electrician who helped us run our cat 6a cables bring them through a 20mm deep metal box at the end. We were going to use some tool less rj45's but we are apparently stuffed unless we add a spacer and faceplate. We can live with that, but unsure what brands - any advice welcome.

Yeah you definitely need deeper backbones (at least 35mm) with Cat6A there just won't be enough space for the depth of the jacks and the cable will be extremely resistant to curving around in that tight space.

How many do you need to do?

In reply to a post by NovaScotia:

Hi, thanks. On the box it came in it says...100-990-305m
Excel CAT 6A UFTP LSOH 305m ice Blue

Excel is fine. We used Ito use Excel cables and accessories as our "budget" brand offering on commercial installs when I was prep'ing structured cabling RFPs going back almost 25 years now.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Yeah you definitely need deeper backbones (at least 35mm) with Cat6A there just won't be enough space for the depth of the jacks and the cable will be extremely resistant to curving around in that tight space.

RS Online Stock No.: 768-5267 [4 ways] only protrude behind an MK backplate by about 12mm. You need to go up one level and search to find the 1 and 2 way variants. I used my own choice of faceplate and found the modules were cheaper in the 4 way faceplate than singly without faceplate.

Evan at 12mm deep, [unless the boxes have been set in with a little more depth] it will be tight but doable. You need to get the correct punch tool and practice once or twice to be sure of doing a good job. Wire them all to T568B for preference. You could do A but they must all be the same.

The modules I have suggested do stick ut of the wall a bit, but overall, they lead the cable downwards with possibly less overall protrusion from the wall.

Have you tried these RS ones out in real life?

These are mine at home...Cat 6A anything (cable, jacks etc) just needs space:

Twin outlets and quad outlets (Commscope GigaSpeed XL Cat 6a going into MK Electric ‘Edge’ stainless faceplate with black shutters. These are pretty much flush fitting with almost no protrusion.

The back boxes we’ve used are 35mm deep metal. You will see the jack depth here is pretty much 30mm. Using an angled jack or shutter may reduce the depth needed ever so slightly.

Depending on how many the OP has to rectify, it may be easier and cheaper (especially on plasterboard walls) to just get replace with deeper back boxes, rather than whole new jacks + faceplates etc.

Do you mean 25mm? Pattress boxes are generally 16mm, 25mm, 35mm, and 47mm.

You should be able to get away with this if you use keystones on 45mm angled adaptors, something like https://www.tuk.co.uk/product/Category-6A-Short-bodi... with https://www.tuk.co.uk/product/keystone-faceplate-ada...

Edited by jpm (Fri 23-Oct-26 17:07:53)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Have you tried these RS ones out in real life?

Yes, on 2 houses, and I will use them again for my outbuilding.

I like the cables angled down at 45 deg. there was another type I tried which were recessed, but they were a pain to punch down and I am very pleased with these, even though they project from the wall.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Do you mean 25mm? Pattress boxes are generally 16mm, 25mm, 35mm, and 47mm.

You should be able to get away with this if you use keystones on 45mm angled adaptors, something like https://www.tuk.co.uk/product/Category-6A-Short-bodi... with https://www.tuk.co.uk/product/keystone-faceplate-ada...

It would be good for the OP to post some photos of what they are dealing with so that we can see.

A picture is worth a 1000 words @NovaScotia

😉