Monoprice Cat6A RJ-45 Keystone - Black | Slim Type, 180-Degree, Shielded, Die Cast - Entegrade Series

I got a bunch of these and it took me a long time to figure out that it was the keystone itself that was bad. There was either a short between contacts or crossed or not connected at all. I assumed I had issues with either cables or runs or the punch down of the cable into the keystone not making contact, but eventually I was able to determine that the problem was the keystone itself, which I had never experienced before.

Contacts would not cleanly peirce into the individual twisted pair strands, o n shielded cat6a cable. This left me with several wires that would pass data inconsistently or not at all.

These are Krone (diagonal) connectors, not IDC (perpendicular) connectors. Not a super big deal, but an IDC 110 punch down tool doesn't fit them as well as a Krone punch down tool, so it would be nice to know in advance.

I've used these connectors before. I like them because they are quite small for fully-enclosed shielded keystones so they fit most places that regular keystones do. These are not the easiest nor the most reliable connectors to work with (the Cat8 keystones now sold here probably are) but the price is right, they are small and, in the past, I could make them work. This time, however, I regret using these. After putting 16 connectors on 8 cables my tester showed 5 of the cables had problems. One of the problems was unique and mine (a wire didn't seat properly) but the tester complained of an identical issue for the other 4, also confirmed with a multimeter: pin 7 was shorted to the shield. The tester's TDR suggested which cable end had the problem and opening the back of those connectors made the short go away, but it came right back when I squeezed them closed again even with the wire ends taped over. Note that the wires were all flush-cut to the cap anyway, the plastic inside the cover was still intact with no evidence of wire contact and I could find no wire insulation nicks or other damage to explain the short. And it would be a miracle if I caused damage like that to the wire on pin 7, and no other, in all 4 connectors. I'm pretty sure the problem is in the connector itself. Replacing those 4 connectors fixed it, but the problem didn't end there. It turns out that 2 more connectors show shorts of pin 7 to ground when the connector is unconnected, but the short goes away when something is plugged in. I've included a picture of the tester screen showing this ("OPEN" is normal since the far end is unconnected; "SHORT" is not). These work with something plugged in but I don't trust them to stay that way so I'll probably be replacing these too. I do notice that all the connectors with the problem came out of the same bag-of-10, with those from the other bag all being fine, so it may be that I just got a bad batch. I've wasted more in time chasing this than I ever saved in money buying these connectors, however, so I think I'll look for something else next time.

I highly recommend you don't buy these as when you fully close them they create a SHORT and you have redo them. If you don't close it all the way then it's perfect no short but looks bad. I recommend you purchase a different brand.