I have a non-standard application (model railroad) where I am planning to use CAT6 wiring between a custom made circuit board and a display panel. The circuit board will have RJ45 ports (using breakout boards) while the opposite end will have multiple LED's and a momentary push button switch. One single CAT6 cable gives me enough wires to run the LED's and switch, which is why I want to use it. On the display panel end, I will be stripping back the wire and directly soldering it to the LED and push button leads. On the circuit board end, I will be terminating the wire to an RJ45 plug. I would note that I do not care between CAT 5 or 6 as I'm not using this for data transport. This is also low voltage (12 volts and amps are in the few dozen milliamp range).
I currently have CAT6 STP cable that is 23AWG and solid core. I like this because it's heavier gauge than CAT5 but more specifically because it's solid core. Doesn't really matter to me for soldering, but honestly I've had very little luck stripping the insulation off of "regular" CAT5 cable (stranded/24 AWG). Maybe it's just the CAT 5 cable I'm tryin with is too cheap, not sure. Regardless, the only success I've had in stripping back insulation so far is with the heavier/solid CAT 6 STP.
My question here is, given my non-standard application, for the end of the cable that will terminate to an RJ45 jack do I really need to buy the fancy RJ45 connectors designed for STP? They seem to be much more expensive and have extra crimping involved. I am hoping that I can use any CAT6 connector (for UTP) that allows for 23AWG wire and specifically can handle the diameter of wire I have (~1.2mm). Is that thinking correct? I mean, the shielding for me is somewhat irrelevant and I will just strip the shielding back away far enough to clear the connector.
