[edit note: I put this post here because "wiring" is listed as one of the sub-subjects for this forum...I apologize if it should be somewhere else.] Hi All, I recently bought a 50' Cat 6a ethernet wire but now I don't need it for its original purpose. Therefore, I'd like to cut it into various lengths as necessary for different purposes. To that end, I have a question about how to terminate it. As a note in advance, I have wired ethernet cables to wall jacks before, the kind with the screws for each wire (not a keystone). For those, I stripped the insulation off of each of the 8 wires (leaving a bit of bare copper for each) and then wrapped each bare copper wire around the appropriate screw and tightened the screw (using B scheme). However, I have seen pictures of keystones that have been wired for ethernet - it looks like the individual insulation is NOT stripped off each wire: Am I understanding this picture correctly? Is it not necessary to strip the small insulations off, and it would still work? If not necessary, that would make life a LOT easier. (Is it also not necessary for doing wall jacks with the screws?) Similarly, for RJ45 terminations, it seems like I only need to cut all 8 wires to the same length and then push them into the RJ45, and that I don't need to strip any insulation off of each of the 8 wires. Is that correct? Or is some stripping necessary? I do have wire strippers that I have used for speaker wire in the past, but none of the strippers have the capability to strip something as small gauge as the 8 ethernet wires - so I'm left using a utility knife (not fun!). Any thoughts? Lastly, and somewhat unrelated, my house has some ethernet walljacks (put in by previous owners). They are each labeled as "Cat 5 PS". Does anyone know what this means? Is it just Cat 5? Does the "PS" mean anything? If they are very old/outdated, I can replace them (especially if I don't need to do much wire stripping, as asked above!). Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, I was just wondering if anyone out there can suggest what the previous owner was going for when they added these remodel boxes shown in the picture? This is a house built in 2007. The lower box is at switch height and gets power lines (from somewhere, maybe the outlet) and appears to feed them to the upper box. The clock is battery-powered and I put that up. You can see the refrigerator behind the boxes, the kitchen is to the left and behind me is the living area (yeah - "open concept") so this wall is in view from a big area. To the right is the laundry room and a door to the garage. I can only assume the were trying to put in a switch to control power to something, but it's not even centered on the wall. Oh, and the boxes do have cover plates on them... Thanks, Brian