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Question regarding CAT5E shielding with a particular wall socket

A

Alex2014

Junior Member
Hey guys!
I'm working on wiring my house with CAT5E, and I need to purchase some wall sockets for it (shielded ones, as I'm gonna be using shielded cables).
I've came across this one: rj45-wall-angle.

As you can see on the pic, it has krone inputs for the inner wires of the cable, but I see none for the actual shielding of it (which is what I'm confused about!) it seems this socket has it's own shielding and no input for the CAT5E cable's own shielding, is this considered normal?
Isn't it the same as taking a shielded cable and connecting one end to a shielded plug and another to an unshielded one? or is there something I'm missing here? I thought the shielding is suppose to go end to end in order to be effective, and this doesn't seem to be possible with this one.
I hope someone will be able to clarify this for me.
 
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Are you sure you need Shielded cable? It's typically only used in Industrial/Manufacturing settings where there is machinery that's giving off a lot of EMI. Homes typically don't need it, and if you don't terminate it correctly the shielding can act like an antenna and increase the amount of noise on the wire.
 
@seepy83 I'm gonna run em along with other cables in the same duct (I don't have dedicated ones just for Ethernet use) so yes, shielded would be better in my case.

@JackMDS I am well aware of how an Ethernet connector looks like, that not at all what I was asking about! If you look at the pic of the socket, you'd see it provides a shielded Ethernet port, and this is my point, as there doesn't seem to be a place to attach the shielding of the Ethernet cable itself! that's what I was expecting to see, some kind of screw with a metal piece for me to attach it, just doesn't make sense otherwise (to have a shielded output without the ability to attach the shielding of the cable to it) and I already asked em btw, they were clueless!
 
Alex2014 said:
@seepy83 I'm gonna run em along with other cables in the same duct (I don't have dedicated ones just for Ethernet use) so yes, shielded would be better in my case.
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I hope this means you are not running it with power. If you are it is a) illegal (US, Canada, Most of europe) b) dangerous. If you mean "other cable" like cable TV and Satellite, then you don't need shielded cable. In a home you are going to have a really hard time justifying shielded cable. It is simply not needed.
 
Alex2014 said:
I already asked em btw, they were clueless!
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Hmm. There are Major vendors that sell and ship International. So why do want to buy from a Clueless Vendor.

BTW, Ethernet cables are twisted in order to provide noise protection (CAT6 does it even better than CAT5e).

I do not know the effect of 220VAC on Ethernet cables, but in the US (110VAC) there is No reason to shield unless the runs are in real Noisy heavy Industrial building.

In any case, Shielded CAT6 works like this - http://www.l-com.com/customer-service?ID=4803

From the pic in your post it looks like the connector is On wall type. I.e, it comes with it own box. If the box has a Ground screw it probably grounds the front plate through the two screws of the plate.


😎
 
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Thanks for the help guys!
I hear what you're saying and I've decided to use unshielded wall sockets/plugs.
I cannot however get my hands on unshielded cables (believe it or not, they only sell shielded ones where I'm from!) but I guess I could just cut off the shielding foil and avoid using it, no reason why that wouldn't work, right?
 
Update: after further research (and believe me when I say it took me ages to find it) I finally figured it out. That particular wall socket has 10 punch down inputs (which is 2 more than the essential for the pairs themselves) because the first two (up and down on the right, without the color coding) are used for punching down the shielding of the CAT5E cable itself! can't believe it was something so simple. Guess I'll be going all shielded then (would be a waste to use unshielded sockets/plugs if I don't have to, and again, UTP cables in bulk are impossible to find in my country, only FTP ones are available!) I've actually made shielded patch cables before, as well as passed wires over in-wall ducts, so I'm fairly experienced in that department I'd say. I Just wasn't sure on how to wire the shielding to the particular wall socket. I already got a punch down tool, and I know I should use a solid cable for sockets & stranded for patch cables, so things should hopefully go well!
 
Alex2014 said:
Update: after further research (and believe me when I say it took me ages to find it) I finally figured it out. That particular wall socket has 10 punch down inputs (which is 2 more than the essential for the pairs themselves) because the first two (up and down on the right, without the color coding) are used for punching down the shielding of the CAT5E cable itself! can't believe it was something so simple. Guess I'll be going all shielded then (would be a waste to use unshielded sockets/plugs if I don't have to, and again, UTP cables in bulk are impossible to find in my country, only FTP ones are available!) I've actually made shielded patch cables before, as well as passed wires over in-wall ducts, so I'm fairly experienced in that department I'd say. I Just wasn't sure on how to wire the shielding to the particular wall socket. I already got a punch down tool, and I know I should use a solid cable for sockets & stranded for patch cables, so things should hopefully go well!
Click to expand...


You do realize you cannot just hook the shield up to a plastic outlet cover and be bonded to the ground system of the building right?

I don't think you would bond the shield at the outlets personally, I believe it would be more likely to be done at the distribution point, which I am guessing is a smart panel, and if professionally installed shoudl have a valid bond point in it, and be electrically grounded. If it is a DIY, I have no idea then. This woudl be the only place I suspect you have a valid point to bond the shield to the house ground system.

Similar to how you bond coax to ground, basically.
 
Cabletek said:
You do realize you cannot just hook the shield up to a plastic outlet cover and be bonded to the ground system of the building right?

I don't think you would bond the shield at the outlets personally, I believe it would be more likely to be done at the distribution point, which I am guessing is a smart panel, and if professionally installed shoudl have a valid bond point in it, and be electrically grounded. If it is a DIY, I have no idea then. This woudl be the only place I suspect you have a valid point to bond the shield to the house ground system.

Similar to how you bond coax to ground, basically.
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Yes. The shields all have to be grounded where the switch is generally and then tied to building ground. The shields must never be grounded at the outlet side or very large currents can be induced which will fry equipment.
 
Cabletek said:
You do realize you cannot just hook the shield up to a plastic outlet cover and be bonded to the ground system of the building right?

I don't think you would bond the shield at the outlets personally, I believe it would be more likely to be done at the distribution point, which I am guessing is a smart panel, and if professionally installed shoudl have a valid bond point in it, and be electrically grounded. If it is a DIY, I have no idea then. This woudl be the only place I suspect you have a valid point to bond the shield to the house ground system.

Similar to how you bond coax to ground, basically.
Click to expand...

Yes, you bond at the switch, not at the outlet. A lot of switches have grounding straps for them. Check out the switch manufacturer's product manual. Mine has how to do it and its on a (normally) $130 16 port switch.

Generally no, you don't need shielding unless it is going to be a VERY noisy EMI environment. The only kind of "special" wiring you need running through duct is plenum rated wiring. It isn't grounded, it has special insulation on it that is more flame resistant/less smoking. It is generally required by most building codes for running wiring in duct to use plenum rated wiring.

Its also sometimes required when running the wire between floors, but that seems to be more of a local code issue, not national/international code specification.

I can't say I've run wire in duct before, but I have some of my longer runs that have to run with Coax and along/by/over 120V electrical wiring for between 10-20ft of the total 60+ft run of wiring and I see no degradation of speed.

It might be an issue down the road when I upgrade to 10GbE from 1GbE, but right now I get full wire speed with no noticable difference between those runs and plugging straight in to my switch with a 3ft patch cable (which sits on the shelf above my server).

Even then, 10GbE might just work fine on the longer runs. Cat 5e is supposedly good to something like 42-45m on 10GbE, Cat 6 is good to I think 55m and Cat6a to the "full" 100m that is typically the spec for what you use cables for (IE Cat 5 is spec'd to 100m 10/100, Cat 5 is spec'd to 100m 10/100/1000, Cat 6a is spec'd to 100m 10/100/1000/10,000. Cat 5e and 6 aren't really "spec'd" for 10GbE as they can't carry it for 100m, but they can carry it for lesser lengths. No run in my house is longer than 30m and that is the run from my FIOS ONT box to my router. All the rest are in the 7-20m range, so in theory should support 10GbE.
 
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