Parallel Port Network Cable Tester

This is one of my earliest projects as a maker. Yes, this is an old ancient technology. But it's an old project I made in the past to document it on instructables.

This is a network cable tester I built with my brother using PC as the testing brain and the parallel port as the interface with the cable.

Here is my Channel on Youtube:

AeroArduino

Parallel Port cable. Old printer cable

2 RJ45 socket surface mount box

74157 2 Input Multiplexer

We used C to write this code.

Here are the steps of software operation flow:

- Sending Code to the shift register to configure which pins to choose.

- Sending signals to the parallel port on four terminals.

- Receiving signals on the parallel port to check for continuity.

- Sending Code to the shift register to configure which pins to choose the other four pins of the RJ45 connector.

- Sending signals to the parallel port on four terminals.

- Receiving signals on the parallel port to check for continuity.