Cat 6 ethernet cable

[robh]

I have been looking for some sheilded cat 6 ethernet cable and am having a hard time finiding it. I have been all over the Beldin site and I can't find sheilded cable. Any help would be great.

[BobLfoot]

Did you check out BELDEN 1872A non Plenum Cat6 and Belden 1874A Plenum Cat6? They are unshielded I know. ANd 1624P & 1624R are onyl cat5 and will not work either correct? Google listed several source for Cat6 and Cat7 Shielded cables. One Source.

[adamriffe]

I just bought a whole bunch from Here

[Nathan]

There are lots of online web sites that will sell you really affordable cable including ebay. LMK if you need help finding specific ones. A quick Google or Froogle search should hit them.

[robh]

adamriffe What kind of quality does that cable have? I noticed that it is way way cheaper than the Belden unshielded? My vendor found the 7927A cable, only problem is that he did not pay attention to the part about me wanting shielded cable. This brings me to my next question. Does this need to be shielded? Everything I have heard is that to assure the highest level of integrity of your industrial Ethernet network, you should use shielded cable. These cables are going to be ran in RMC and will be the only thing in that conduit.

[adamriffe]

I know, I've used it several times. The strands seem to bend easier, so sometimes it's harder to get it terminated. Other than that, no problems. As far as needing sheilded, I've got everything networked in our plant and I haven't had an issue with non-shielded. It runs in it's own conduit and in it's own cable tray overhead. I'm using the shielded for our confined processing area. Cables go eveywhere and I've had issues with the 480 being too close. I also use shielded for our KVM extenders, otherwise you'll get a 'reddened' screen from distortion.

[paulengr]

AB has some documentation on their site about this. Basically, if you go the shielded route, you gain an extra 1 dB of interference rejection, ON AVERAGE. Shielding changes the nature of the interference. Unshielded cable is susceptible to E-fields. Shielded cable is susceptible to M-fields. So using shielded cable may boost your interference rejection, or actually make it worse. If you happen to know that you are going to be seeing a lot of E-fields, then shielded is the way to go. Most plants however have the opposite problem. In addition, the receivers on Ethernet cables are isolation transformers with some ferromagnetic protection. Essentially anything in the D.C. range or even in the low frequency range (<100 Hz) is totally knocked out by the input filters. I wouldn't recommend running major power conductors in the same conduit but I highly doubt that even those could manage to cause any errors (based on AB's results). That being said, we have extensive Ethernet all over the plant I work at now. I have never found an actual EMI interference problem yet. I haven't had any issues with someone running 110VAC or 24VDC conductors through the same conduit (although we make it a practice to keep them isolated most of the time). Almost every single problem comes down to either damage to the cable itself or the terminations. Buy a good crimper/stripper and know how to use it. Get a cheap (<$200) wire checker to verify that your termination is at least wired correctly. If you do those two things, Ethernet should be trouble free.

[robh]

So running unsheilded cable in its own conduit should be acceptable. What about multiple enet cables in one conduit?

[robh]

http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?showtopi...amp;gopid=46466& In this link paulengr gives a good discription of enet cable and sheilding. I think that unsheilded cable in RMC should be ok for what I am looking to do.

[adamriffe]

Not a problem

[paulengr]

The nature of twisted pair cabling is to attempt to keep the signals within the twisted pair. Given that you've got the potential for 2 simultaneous transmissions within the exact same piece of CAT 5E cable (with full duplex mode...one packet travelling in each direction simultaneously), I don't think I'd worry about it. I've seen enough runs in office buildings and elsewhere with conduits stuffed well past the 40% rule to worry about it. Which brings up another issue. In general, I've always treated signal-only conductors as effectively non-current carrying or minimal current-carrying and ignored the 40% fill rule as long as I don't have power conductors running in the same conduit. Anyone feel differently? My personal justification is the same reason that it is generally considered acceptable to treat grounds as non-current carrying. Hence a 4 wire 3-phase circuit with a separate ground counts as 3 current carrying conductors in a conduit and not 4 so it doesn't qualify for another downgrade on the ampacity.

[panic mode]

sounds like you are after gigabit network speeds... i'm not sure i've seen gigabit rated products for industrial floor yet but it's just matter of time i guess. if you are ok with 100Mbps and just need shielded ethernet cables for industrial environment, you can go with Siemens (6XV1870-2B for example) and their RJ45 metal connectors (something like 6GK1-901-1BB10-2AB0 which is 10-pack or 6GK1-901-1BB10-2AE0 which is 50-pack).