RJ11 male plug boot for RS232 cable

[inapottingshed]

I'm making up a RS-232 to USB cable and want to make the RJ11 end as secure as possible. Just wondering if anyone has come across a boot for RJ11 connectors. There seem to be plenty for RJ45, etc. but struggling to find for RJ11. I was thinking to use one and epoxy in to reduce risk of snag damage.

[DaveL59]

never seen one for RJ11 but they may well exist. Perhaps use some heat-shrink tube instead? You can get some that has a glue applied to the inner so that it seals the join to prevent fluid ingress. 

[inapottingshed]

Can't seem to find one so maybe they don't exist. RJ45 cables are thicker so easier to support a boot. The thin RJ11 cables don't have much in way of support. Maybe I'll try cutting down a RJ45 boot and using a pea-sized blob of epoxy inside (after supergluing it together). Plan B is a spare cable.

[Davey-T]

Had a search a while ago for RJ11 cables with boots but came up dry, there are snazzy RJ45 ones with flexi ends.

As said a couple of layers of shrink wrap tube may help, also hard to buy decent plugs with Chinese vying to see who can make them cheapest 😂

Dave

[inapottingshed]

Yep. Race to the bottom.

[DaveL59]

I've a couple of specialist MMJ/RJ8 cables for storage controllers and they've used heatshrink rather than boots, so I guess if an OEM does that then there's probably very few if any add-on boots made for them.

Something like this may do what you need, there's others out there too.
http://www.lamina.uk.com/product/heat_shrinkable_epoxy_tubing

[inapottingshed]

The difficulty to use a boot is due to the plug being shorter than a RJ45 and seating fully into the socket. I'll have a go with some heatshrink and then see if I can epoxy a cut down RJ45 boot (which seems way too big at the moment!)

[DaveL59]

1 hour ago, inapottingshed said:

The difficulty to use a boot is due to the plug being shorter than a RJ45 and seating fully into the socket. I'll have a go with some heatshrink and then see if I can epoxy a cut down RJ45 boot (which seems way too big at the moment!)

in that case there's maybe little point in adding heatshrink as it'll stiffen the cable where it enters the rj11 plug, might make it more likely to sustain damage than if it can flex freely.