I’ve lived in several homes with awkward telephone wiring, and have as a result needed to re-wire things a bit to the point that I bought my own crimping set. What’s always baffled me though are the ridiculous prices most stores chart for minor wiring adapters, like line-splitters and in-line couplers. There’s nothing in them but a few tiny pieces of plastic and some elementary wiring, yet today at Office Depot I saw line-splitters on sale for seven dollars a piece! I can buy a new phone for that much. I can’t believe that people who make their living doing wiring actually pay such prices for these parts; where do they buy them?
Are you talking about just regular old 4-wire in a residence? In my house, I just strip and twist the wires together. When I was a cable splicer, we used a variety of fancy connectors. The company was concerned about total cost and could afford to pay for connectors that enhanced our productivity on the job because of the savings in labor costs. Of course, they bought the connectors wholesale in HUGE quantities; I’m talking about the old Southwestern Bell company. You’ll never get the same unit price on three connectors as you’ll get on three million connectors. But even back in the 70’s, there were a couple of toll cables where reliability was so important that the company specified that the wires in the splices would be individually stripped and twisted (my point being that the telephone company used connectors because they were faster, not because they made a better splice).
Yes, I am talking about 4-wire in a residence, and this item specifically:
That’s $6.99 for a single piece. I’d be reluctantly willing to pay three or even four dollars, and I have in the past, but that is ridiculous.
I’m self-taught at wiring; believe it or not all the times I worked on my phones it never occurred to me that the lines going from the wall jacks to the phones could just be stripped and twisted together like the lines in the walls; and the stuff in the walls I avoided messing with. I bought the crimper so I could cut and plug 4-strand to convenient lengths when hooking up all the devices that needed to get through that one jack in the corner to our two separate lines. I can stand only so much extra cord length hanging off the back of a desk.
In truth, I have very little experience with the actual wires inside the insulation. I was looking at adapters because I’m in a place where I need to re-work things again, and I’ve been aware for a while that the work was going to require a more serious technique this time. I’m going to go Google a tutorial for proper wiring, but if anyone can recommend one I’d appreciate it.
They’re only $2.95 at Radio Shack, and I have seen them for like $1.99 at Big Lots.
Office Depot is just expensive for no other reason than they can get away with it.
Buy a TiVo; it comes with one free. Living in a cellular, cable, & ethernet household, I’ve been chucking any telephone accessory I have more than one of. Next time, I’m selling them on eBay.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.810
$1.35 including shipping.
The most expensive part of anything like this you buy in a store is the real estate and the retail shelf space.
Oops, I misunderstood you, so you should disregard my previous advice.
I just looked at your link and it turns out you were talking about
I thought you were talking about
I don’t mess with the adapters and the modular wires themselves. The connectors I was referring to were NOT the modular connectors but splicing connectors used on the “stuff in the walls” (and in the outside phone cables, etc.). If I needed two connections to a modular wall plate or block, I’d modify the wiring to provide a plate with the number of modular sockets I needed. That’s not your goal. As other posters have pointed out, you can get your adaptor more cheaply than at Office Depot.