Outside Cat 5e cable - random questions

[GaryRW]

I'm looking to cable up my old terraced house. Some of the runs will be much easier outside.

Looking at some external cat 5e cable, I came across this:
http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_inf...oducts_id=4289 - £42 for 300m.

On the same site:
http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_inf...oducts_id=2179 - £78 for 300m.

As far as I can tell, the difference is that the cheaper one is copper clad aluminium, the more expensive is solid copper. The more expensive also says it's UV resistant.

I'd be using this on a gigabit network. One of the outside runs will be alongside an aerial wire.

As well as for the house, in a few months we're hopefully building a garage at the bottom of the garden (about 100ft I think) so I'd probably ask the builders to include a couple of cat 5e cables when routing a power cable for the garage (presumably in trunking a metre or so down?). I have no idea why I'd want the garage networked, but I'm sure I'll think of something

So:

1. is it worth near double the price for the solid copper stuff?
2. Do I need shielded cable either when running alongside mains cable to the garage, or alongside tv aerial cable?
3. Does anyone know of better quality/value external cat5e than the links above, or can anyone recommend a better supplier?

thanks all

[smargh]

When I did some outdoor cabling a year ago, I used UTP4M5SB-EXT from http://www.minitran.co.uk/pages/prod...html?ct=1&sc=1

I'd say to get proper copper cabling rather than involving any aluminium. It might last longer, but maybe not - I don't know. If you're in a high-crime area then maybe get the cheaper stuff under the expectation that it will get stolen sooner than it starts to degrade.

For lengthy ducts, I'd probably consider armoured cable instead. That gets more expensive. Ducting done poorly might just soon become a water-filed pipe

Alternatively, consider gel-filled (optionally armoured) fiber cable, with media converters at each end. Fiber is better if you want to eliminate the possibility of lightening hitting it.

I happen to have custom-made (unused ) 30m reel of 4-core multimode fiber with LC connectors on the ends. However, it's not armoured. I got it from http://www.techoptics.com/ if you want to email them for a quote based on your own requirements - as a base cost, my cable cost £106.29 including delivery on a rather heavy-duty wooden reel. I'd imagine that armour would add a fair amount to that.

You can also get media converters on ebay cheaply - I got a box of four decent D-Link 10/100/1000 for cheaper than just one, but maybe I was lucky.

[GoNz0]

trunkings cheap

or if you have the money use metal trunking.

[peterb]

The main difference between indoor and outdoor cable is the outer sheath - outdoor is tougher, resists abrasion, and more importantly, UV resistant.

Copper clad aluminium is OK electrically, provided the copper cladding is thick enough but mechanically it may be weaker, and there are longer term problems with corrosion. If water gets into the cable, you have two dissimilar metals - problems.

As gonzo says, you can use trunking, but it is more obtrusive than a cable run.

Good quality cat5 shoul;dn't generate significant interference to aerial cables, and should not be susceptible to mains interference in a domestic environment, but a lot depends on the length of the parallel run, the current the mains cable is carrying, and the nature of the load.

I have a similar problem running cables, but I intend to run black exterior grade cable and tie wrap it for part of the way to a satellite ccable run (which I'm not using at the moment) just to keep it tidy.

[wasabi]

Nitpicking Sparky hat on. 'Technically' you shouldn't run standard cat5 outside as you can pass electric surge between buildings or during lightning, which is a no-no. Most people will ignore this of course as cat5 is handy and cheap, but you really should use fibre in theory and at least be aware of the risk.

[peterb]

Nitpicking Sparky hat on. 'Technically' you shouldn't run standard cat5 outside as you can pass electric surge between buildings or during lightning, which is a no-no. Most people will ignore this of course as cat5 is handy and cheap, but you really should use fibre in theory and at least be aware of the risk.

True, but then the same is true for any conductor, including aerial, power and telephone cables. (Most telephone cable feeds/drop cables are UTP cables anyway) It is one of the reasons why metal conduit is used in industrial/commercial premises (apart from mechanical protection)

That said, if there is sufficient field strength generated by a close lightening strike to generate surge in a cable clipped to the outside of a building, 9 inches of brickwork is going to make little difference (if it is on the inside of the building). And if the cable run sustains a direct hit, then surge is likely to be the least of the problems, whether it is in conduit or not.