I had an occasion to use this instructable tonight and found that three refinements were necessary for the repair to work properly and in sharing them below it is my hope that others will at least give this solution a try because it is a clever option and I would not have thought of it were it not for this site. That said, let's dive in.



1. First, the need to make the zip tie head thinner is necessary and without question, however, the process by which you do it is important. I found that for the zip ties I had it was not possible to use an exacto or disposable precision blade because the plastic was too hard. I ended up using a large butcher knife and a kitchen chopping block. PLEASE use caution when doing this. Take careful note of where your fingers are before cutting. If you have smaller hands or are at all unsure about your ability to do this, get an adult or someone with strong, steady hands to do it for you.



2. Next, it is extremely unlikely that the thinning of the head with a knife will be precise enough. I found it easier and more precise to refine the thinning process with a metal nail file. The one I used has a black plastic handle about 1.25 inches long and the metal file portion is about 2 inches. They are available in the beauty section of any popular store like Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Target, etc.



The thickness must be such that the zip tie head does not stick up above the RJ45 connector when in place. I found it easier to keep the nail file still in one hand while moving the zip tie head back and forth across it.



When the thickness is precisely the same height as the top of the RJ45 connector, the next step is to cut the head of the zip tie to a shorter length, perhaps in half. This is because the point of the "click" which secures the connector in the jack is quite a precise location and my zip tie head was just too long thus causing the notch to be too far back and not click. Use the nail file to file the end square and smooth.



3. Lastly, I found that using a small rubber band around the connector under the zip tie will provide a better spring action. An additional rubber band around the cable and zip tie on the cable area behind the connector entirely will provide additional support and finally about a half inch behind that is where I put the zip tie to hold it all tight. This makes three points (see pictures) where the modified zip tie is held to the cable and this is important because any side to side movement will cause the "click" to fail and the connector to come out of the jack.



Caution: As stated by the author of this instructable, this is a temporary repair and certainly is not something you'd want to do in a business environment for more than a short time period. For the home user, however, it should suffice. However, there are certain jacks where this fix may not be suitable; for example if the jack is hard to access or is where the connector will be the only thing holding the cable in the jack. For the latter, some sort of strain relief rigging is required either with a piece of string or wire holding the cable up or some type of clever cable management. This would most likely occur if the repaired end of the cable was connected to a switch or router mounted on a wall or in a rack. But that's for another article!

Feedback: Some commenters here have suggested that the better solution is to cut off the broken connector altogether and replace it with a new one. Respectfully, this is not always feasible. Having been a network administrator for over a decade, I've run into several situations where an "in the field" repair was the only option.



