Ethernet cable

[dedalus]

Hello.
I’m planning to build a home network. I would like to use the existing corrugated pipe in my wall, once used for tv cable, which I don’t use anymore. The corrugated pipe has a diameter of 1.5 cm. The main problem is that I have to pass 2 cables in each pipe and I want to use cat 6 cables. My questions are:
1. which is the diameter of thinnest cat 6 ethernet cable available?
2. If I put two unshielded cable in the same pipe could they disturb each other?
Other relevant information are: that each cable will not be longer than 6/7 meters, near the corrugated pipe of the cable there is a corrugated pipe for the electric wires.
Any help is appreciated.
dedalus

[ajkula66]

You'll have a difficult time "snaking" 2 cables through such a narrow conduit. I presume that there is no "drag" left in there.

Thin cable is usually a bad idea. Make that a *very* bad idea.

You can get away with two cables in the same conduit, presuming you manage to get them through in the first place.

Good luck.

[dedalus]

You'll have a difficult time "snaking" 2 cables through such a narrow conduit. I presume that there is no "drag" left in there.

Thin cable is usually a bad idea. Make that a *very* bad idea.

You can get away with two cables in the same conduit, presuming you manage to get them through in the first place.

Good luck.

Actually I was able to sneak in two shielded cat 6 cable which were 0.7 cm of diameter for almost half of the length . Obviously I sneak them very slow and using soap. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go further than that (presumably there is a curve or the pipe gets narrow. So I decide to leave the idea of using shielded cable, but I would like to be sure of buying the thinnest cable available which also guarantees a reliable network (if this is possible).

[ajkula66]

Your best bet would be to use a thin plumber's "snake" to get a soaped-up drag to the other end, then use the drag to pull the cables through.

I'm still not keen on thin cabling, regardless of how short the distance may be.

Good luck.

[Cigarguy]

If you don't need/want the RG6 (cable TV cable) anymore then use electrical tape to tie the RG6 cable to a strong nylon string. Pull the RG6 cable out with the string attached. Then, after tying the other end of the string with electrical tape to the CAT 5 cables, pull the CAT 5 cables through. If you keep the string in place you can use it to pull a future cable through. Such as another RG6 cable if you want to keep the RG6 cable. This is better than trying to "fish" anything through as fishing will only work until the first bend.

[Temetka]

The idea of using un-shielded cable for this gives me the heebie jeebies even if it is a short run. You could still be inducing network signal cross over which could lead to network degradation, which of course, can slow everything down. But it's your network and your call.

[ajkula66]

The idea of using un-shielded cable for this gives me the heebie jeebies even if it is a short run.

That school of thought - which I proudly still belong to - is dead and buried, my friend.

We are the dinosaurs, and about to face the final climate change...

[Cigarguy]

CAT 5/6 cables by design is pretty well shielded. Commercial cable tray runs have hundreds of cables bundled together side by side. Even shielded by design, the general rule is not to run high power cable (120 V) side by side with low voltage cable (RG6, CAT 5/6, telephone, etc).

Shielding would be the last thing I'd worry about for residential runs so long as you stick to some simple common sense rules. Bending, breaking, proper termination and getting the darn thing from A to B would be more of a concern.

[dedalus]

Thank you everybody for the reply

The idea of using un-shielded cable for this gives me the heebie jeebies even if it is a short run.

That school of thought - which I proudly still belong to - is dead and buried, my friend.

We are the dinosaurs, and about to face the final climate change...

I would like to do as you are suggesting, but seems really impossible.. Today I thought that maybe I can use only 1 cable shielded cat 6 (which should protect it from cross signals) and 1 non shielded cat 6 cable which should be protected by the shield of the other cable (I hope you understand what I mean). Maybe in this way I can fit both cable.

CAT 5/6 cables by design is pretty well shielded. Commercial cable tray runs have hundreds of cables bundled together side by side. Even shielded by design, the general rule is not to run high power cable (120 V) side by side with low voltage cable (RG6, CAT 5/6, telephone, etc).


Shielding would be the last thing I'd worry about for residential runs so long as you stick to some simple common sense rules. Bending, breaking, proper termination and getting the darn thing from A to B would be more of a concern.

If I can't do the job with two different cables I will go with the two unshielded ones.

But still I don't know which could be the thinnest diameter for a cat 6 cable

[Cigarguy]

Unless you have a strong EMI source nearby, like an industrial generator or elevators kicking around the house, I would not worry about the shielding. If you decide to go with a shielded cable, make sure you get a proper terminal and connect the shielding properly.

1.5 cm is a little bigger than 1/2", with that you should be able to pull 2 Cat 6 cables and a nylon string easily. Assuming of course the run is not to long and there's not to many bends. 90s in particular are difficult. Any decent electrical wholesaler should have a nylon string and a lube to do this. I'd be more concern with a thin cable breaking from the stress of the pull. However, 2 Cat6 + RG6 is going to be a tight fit for a 1/2" pipe. It's doable if it's a short run and not to many bends.

[Ash]

I fished way more than that in same and in thinner pipes. no problems as long as the pipes are not broken or restricted in any way

Dont push the cables in, pull them. Use the TV cable for that, or electrician's fishtape - you can get it in the hardware shop, it is hard but elastic plastic wire with a loop in the end - you push that relatively easy through the pipe, tie the wires to it in the other end and pull it back. It helps a lot when somebody is pushing them in on te other end though

Soap is very bad idea when dealing with electrical wiring as it can cause arc tracking. It won't do any of that with ethernet cables (the difference in voltages...) but i call it bad practice anyway. If cables refuse to go on the dry then you have a problem and soap is not the solution to it

[Temetka]

Soap is very bad idea

Bite the pillow.

I'm going in dry.

[ajkula66]

Soap is very bad idea

Bite the pillow.

I'm going in dry.

[jronald]

When I dropped the Cat5e cable from upstairs to under my house, I used 1 (one) cable for 2 (two) Ethernet circuits. Im not running a gigabit system, but full 100mbs is not an issue at all. That said, its a 4 inch conduit, that also has phone, cable and 5 120 volt circuits inside it with no separation as they all spin down from the upstairs.

Back to what I was trying to point out. You can run 2 computers off of a single cable, with a little work!

Ron

[dedalus]

Are busy day these days, but finally an update. My last try was with one unshielded cat6 cable and one unshielded cat5e cable. This time I went without soap. Probably the pipe inside the wall is restricted somewhere.

When I dropped the Cat5e cable from upstairs to under my house, I used 1 (one) cable for 2 (two) Ethernet circuits. Im not running a gigabit system, but full 100mbs is not an issue at all. That said, its a 4 inch conduit, that also has phone, cable and 5 120 volt circuits inside it with no separation as they all spin down from the upstairs.

Back to what I was trying to point out. You can run 2 computers off of a single cable, with a little work!

Ron

Jronald, you made this using a switch (I’m not that expert in LAN)? My problem is that one cable should bring the signal that arrive in the house to the router (this should be the cat6 shield or unshield) and the other, brings it back to one of my PC. Now the router is where the signal arrives in the house, which is at one corner of it and I don’t have wifi signal all over the house. Moving the router to the centre of the house will solve the problem, but still I want to have cable connection for some two of my pc.

Any suggestion?

[RealBlackStuff]

I can't understand your problems, there's plenty room for 2 CAT6 cables in a 1.5cm tube!
Are you trying to feed the connectors through the tube as well?
That would not be a clever idea...
Cut them off and put an ethernet wall socket on each end of the pipe.

[dedalus]

I can't understand your problems, there's plenty room for 2 CAT6 cables in a 1.5cm tube!
Are you trying to feed the connectors through the tube as well?
That would not be a clever idea...
Cut them off and put an ethernet wall socket on each end of the pipe.

Obviously I cut the connector. In my last try I was using a cat 0.7 cm and one of 0.5 cm.
It should pass easily, but actually don't.

[jdrou]

Jronald, you made this using a switch (I’m not that expert in LAN)? My problem is that one cable should bring the signal that arrive in the house to the router (this should be the cat6 shield or unshield) and the other, brings it back to one of my PC. Now the router is where the signal arrives in the house, which is at one corner of it and I don’t have wifi signal all over the house. Moving the router to the centre of the house will solve the problem, but still I want to have cable connection for some two of my pc.

Any suggestion?

So the plan was to run the cable from the input through the pipe to the router and another back from the router to a PC near where the input is?
Maybe use two routers, one acting just as router+switch (w/wifi disabled) near the input and one acting mainly as a wifi hotspot so you connect a PC direct to the first router and you only need to run one cable through the pipe to the 2nd router.
Can you maybe draw a diagram of the situation?

[Ash]

How are you trying to pull them in ? w/ fishtape ? If yes does the tape itself go in well ?

How you form the connection between the tape and cables - does it have a pointy end on one side ? If yes try to press it thinner and smooth with scotch or electric tape

[jronald]

A Cat5e cable contains 8 single wires in it, wrapped up as 4 twisted pairs.
You need 2 twisted pairs, per "ethernet" run, or 2 pairs for 1 computer.

Cant find a good picture, but if you were to plug MALE end to MALE end, this would do it!
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to- ... litter%22/
The MALE ends would be in the conduit.


Ron

[jronald]

Read this, this is the article I used 10 years or so ago, to accomplish the feat!
http://www.duxcw.com/dcforum/DCForumID2/1049.html

Ron

[dedalus]

How are you trying to pull them in ? w/ fishtape ? If yes does the tape itself go in well ?

How you form the connection between the tape and cables - does it have a pointy end on one side ? If yes try to press it thinner and smooth with scotch or electric tape

finally I succeed. I was using the fish-tape and yes it was going well by itself. This time I add a lot of liquid soap and asked help to a friend. The two cable went smooth inside (I decided for the cat6 and cat5 cables). I had only a bit of a problem at the ending, the last curve.

Read this, this is the article I used 10 years or so ago, to accomplish the feat!
http://www.duxcw.com/dcforum/DCForumID2/1049.html

Ron

I didn’t know this was actually possible. Thanks’ for the information, I will treasure them for the next time

[jronald]

Like I said, I have never run Gigabit over the lines, but 100mbs is not a problem at all.

At the time I did this, I had 20,000 feet of Cat5e cable and was dirt poor.
So, with the switch upstairs I used a barrier strip to combine 2 outputs on the switch to one cable running downstairs.
Under the house I used another barrier strip to split it back out, and ran 2 separate cables to 2 different computers.

Ron