Network cable help

[Angelfire]

Hiya folks,

I need to run a cable from one side of a room to the other. This cable will terminate at both ends in keystone blocks mounted to an electrical box (low voltage). So far so good. Where I have issues is the cable will run parallel to a 120v, 15A circuit used for lights elsewhere and separation between the two will only be 2-3 inches. So now I’m worried about interference and induced voltage. So I think, great, just go with shielded cat6 but because neither end of the cable is tying into a patch panel, I am not sure how to ground. I could ground to a nearby receptacle box?

So two questions really. Will shielded cable do much for me here (or maybe I’m making this into an issue and it isn’t?)? How should I ground it if shielded cable is recommended?

Cheers

 

[PhysicsDude]

Probably nothing to worry about, and it sounds like its not a very long run.

Shielded Cat5/6 is very rare in the data world. 99% of the cat5/6 runs in regular buildings are non-shielded. You only typically run into shielded cables in high grade specialty type stuff, like communication towers, very high end production facilities, etc. Even in industrial settings where data lines intermixed with 480V high amperage runs to machinery you'll rarely see shielded Cat5/6.

What will usually cause the most interference is lighting ballasts. If you steer clear of the lights, I doubt running 3 inches from a 120v line will cause any issues.

 

[mvusse]

If it is cat 5 or cat 6 cable, you will be fine. The pairs of wires carrying the signals are twisted together. This makes them pretty much immune from outside interference and at the same time don't cause interference on anything else nearby.

You can pay extra for shielded cable if you really want to, but that would probably be a needless waste. You also have to remember the frequencies of the network signals are WAY higher (in the 100 MHz range or higher) than the 60Hz signal of the 120v circuit.

Make sure the length of untwisted wire where you connect to the keystone jacks is as short as possible as those are the points where you can get crosstalk interference between seperate wires in your network cable.

 

[ripperd]

ground just one end of the shield.

What type of signal is traversing this wire? If it is ethernet, it won't matter. But if it is some other dc low voltage signal there could be issues.

 

[Angelfire]

Folks, thank you very much for the inputs. Seems I may have made a mountain out of a mole hill. I'll go ahead and install the regular CAT6 and see how it goes. Before closing up the walls, I'll do some quick testing just in case I do need to change it to shielded.
Cheers.

 

[Falcon67]

We have Cat 5, etc running everywhere in buildings, past 480V 3 phase air handlers, over dozens of flourscent lights, etc. None of it shielded either. No problems.

 

[dcg9381]

I'd expect no problem with shielded Cat5 or CAT6. I've seen induced voltage/interference problems with HDMI, but never had an issue with network wire.

 

[theoldwizard1]

If it is cat 5 or cat 6 cable, you will be fine. The pairs of wires carrying the signals are twisted together. This makes them pretty much immune from outside interference and at the same time don't cause interference on anything else nearby.

Few people know this, but Ethernet has built in self checking/correction. If the received packet can not be "corrected", a request is sent to send it again. Yes, this does slow thing down.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

We have Cat 5, etc running everywhere in buildings, past 480V 3 phase air handlers, over dozens of flourscent lights, etc. None of it shielded either. No problems.

No problems that you know of.

I bet they would fail a certification test.

 

[PassnThru]

Few people know this, but Ethernet has built in self checking/correction. If the received packet can not be "corrected", a request is sent to send it again. Yes, this does slow thing down.

Yep - it 'works'. Whether it works well or not is a different story.