Stranded vs. Solid

[reicherb]

What is the difference and where would be a good place to buy bulk cable?

Is there any advantage to going with cat5e over cat5?

 

[Xanathar]

Cat5e is wrapped to a higher standard, and in higher frequencies, carries signals better without degredation, so definetly use it.


For Stranded vs Solid, It all varies.

Solid is best used between two punch down static devices, it can move however it has a chance of breaking when continously bent. Solid cable is best used inside of walls, or other static posisitions with a punch down on both ends.

Stranded by nature bends much easier, it is best used when the cable needs to be continuusly moved, unpluged, repluged, etc. Patch cords are made of stranded material, and in high speed and transfer applications should be kept short due to the inperfections of the cables diameter can cause crosstalk.

Simplified: Hub to wall or computer = stranded, Inside of walls or long runs = solid.

 

[CTR]

Well said Xanathar. I remember this same discusssion about 2 months ago.

 

[celeritas]

Ditto. Actually, I prefer solid over stranded in most cases -- as the cable is rarely moved around enough to make a difference, and because I've found solid cables much easier to crimp than stranded ones.

 

[CTR]

Yes! I would rather jump out of a moving car than crimp stranded cable! I'd rather pay the money for something manufactured.

 

[celeritas]

Have you seen Berktek LanMark-1000 CAT6 cable? That's cool stuff. The solid variety is so stiff (partly due to the wire pair separator) that you can hold out several feet of it without any sagging. I love crimping it, because you can shove it in the end as hard as you want without any of the wires bunching up. I've noticed maybe 1MB/sec increase in throughput over CAT5/e. I want to get a couple gigabit copper NICs and see how many megabytes per second I can squeeze off.

 

[celeritas]

forum hiccup

 

[Castellan]

I prefer stranded to solid, except in the few specific cases mentioned above. Some genius at my company decided to use solid for everything. What a fiasco. You can image solid lying under a desk

 

[nexus9]

Yup,solid cat 5e is the way to go. 5e will support gigabit ethernet (which will be coming down to a reasonable price one of these days).

-Nexus9