Type of cable for 120 foot burial in conduit

WackyDan

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Jan 26, 2004
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Running power and ethernet to the shed. Secondary NAS is going there.

Trenching for power and network. Both are going to be in the same trench in separate conduit and power will be a bit over 12" deep (code when in conduit and on a GFCI circuit 20 amps or less.) Ethernet conduit will be a few inches above.

Obviously buying CAT6. - probably Cat6A due to being close to the power line. I assume I want solid copper versus stranded for the longer run.

Should I bother with getting the shielded cable as well?
 

DainBrammage

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May 16, 2000
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Yes you want solid copper; you only use stranded for patch cords and nothing else. I would not worry about shielded cable just make sure they are in separate conduit and to be safe make sure the conduits are separated by earth. You should be fine with using Cat6 as you are within the limit for cat6 to do 10Gb when and if the situation arises.
 

drebo

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Feb 24, 2006
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If you're in a lightning-prone area, shielded might not be a terrible idea...though it is likely to fry all your gear anyway.

Even though it's in conduit, I'd still recommend gel-filled direct burial cable. I've yet to meet a conduit that doesn't leak, so having cable that's made to get wet isn't a bad idea and the extra cost per foot isn't really that much.
 

WackyDan

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Jan 26, 2004
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Ordered some cat 6a patch cords... Actually measured out to be only 75 feet so I ordered 100 footers.

This is going into sched 40 PVC conduit... so it will actually be sealed up fairly good... and probably good enough for my needs. We'll be moving in 5 to ten years... and I can always pull a new line if needed.
 

imagoon

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Feb 19, 2003
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Ordered some cat 6a patch cords... Actually measured out to be only 75 feet so I ordered 100 footers.

This is going into sched 40 PVC conduit... so it will actually be sealed up fairly good... and probably good enough for my needs. We'll be moving in 5 to ten years... and I can always pull a new line if needed.

Good luck with stranded at 100 feet. It isn't rated to work at that distance. What you should have bought was flooded solid core and fished that through the pipe and terminated to a patch panel or a keystone socket. You should also have an atestor on the inbound side at the house also, since you know burning your house down sucks and all that. Unprotected line can also get a claim denied since it is a fire hazard at that point.
 

aigomorla

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if ur gonna bury just buy the highest grade cable u can and forget it.

Also id put in not 1, but 2 incase u ever needed it.
Also if ur going from switch to switch, id couple a crosswire patch.
 
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brshoemak

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Feb 11, 2005
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Good luck with stranded at 100 feet. It isn't rated to work at that distance. What you should have bought was flooded solid core and fished that through the pipe and terminated to a patch panel or a keystone socket. You should also have an atestor on the inbound side at the house also, since you know burning your house down sucks and all that. Unprotected line can also get a claim denied since it is a fire hazard at that point.

Completely agree. There is a reason both stranded vs solid core UTP cables exist. Direct Bury (same thing as flooded solid core) was really the way to go in this case. Not sure why you would say 'I could always pull a new line if needed' as opposed to doing it right the first time. Regardless, it will work but if you have issues it will be hard to troubleshoot properly and more expensive to replace the entire run.
 

WackyDan

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Jan 26, 2004
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Good luck with stranded at 100 feet. It isn't rated to work at that distance. What you should have bought was flooded solid core and fished that through the pipe and terminated to a patch panel or a keystone socket. You should also have an atestor on the inbound side at the house also, since you know burning your house down sucks and all that. Unprotected line can also get a claim denied since it is a fire hazard at that point.

Did some more research after reading what you wrote.

Ordered a Cat6 burial shielded with separate ground wire. Also ordered lightning arrestors for each end... and will be pounding in dedicated earth grounds.

Happy now? Thanks for the input.. It is what I was looking for.
 

imagoon

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Feb 19, 2003
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Did some more research after reading what you wrote.

Ordered a Cat6 burial shielded with separate ground wire. Also ordered lightning arrestors for each end... and will be pounding in dedicated earth grounds.

Happy now? Thanks for the input.. It is what I was looking for.

Not sure it has anything to do with me being happy... I don't want you living on the street after a fire though...
 

WackyDan

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Jan 26, 2004
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Not sure it has anything to do with me being happy... I don't want you living on the street after a fire though...

Well.. I like to do things right the first time...

TO be honest, I am now considering fiber. Seems the safest bet and won't cost all that much more other than the media converters which aren't all that bad price wise.
 

drebo

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Feb 24, 2006
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Did some more research after reading what you wrote.

Ordered a Cat6 burial shielded with separate ground wire. Also ordered lightning arrestors for each end... and will be pounding in dedicated earth grounds.

Happy now? Thanks for the input.. It is what I was looking for.

You actually really only want to ground one end, unless they share a common ground.

Otherwise, you can get some weird induction.
 

cmetz

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Nov 13, 2001
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Well.. I like to do things right the first time...

TO be honest, I am now considering fiber. Seems the safest bet and won't cost all that much more other than the media converters which aren't all that bad price wise.

Fiber is by far the safest option. I always recommend fiber between structures. Rarely does anyone on this forum listen to that advice...

If you want to go crazy future-proof, bury OM4 laser-grade (10G-grade) fiber. I think you can use this with normal 1000Base-SX transcievers now (someone double-check me?). You want a LC-LC duplex pre-terminated cable. If you can find it, consider having an armored outdoor direct-burial cable made, then you can skip the conduit altogether. (budgetary numbers for the cable: about $250 + about $1.50/foot)

You can pick up generic SFP modules cheap off eBay that should work fine (e.g., search for "finisar sx sfp" - up popped a lot of 3 for $25 with free shipping). TP-Link makes a cheap media converter MC220L that takes a SFP, somebody's selling them on eBay for $30 + shipping. You should be able to do media conversion on both ends for about $100. This is cheap in the context of a construction project.

If you want to spend a little bit more money, Netgear makes some quite inexpensive switches that still have SFP transciever ports. If you can still find a GS110T, that switch was about $125 and gives you 8 10/100/1000 ports + 2xSFP and has a web UI - might well be perfect for the far end of your link.
 

WackyDan

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Jan 26, 2004
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Thanks for all the input.

I still went with conduit... I can pull a new cable if I need it.

The four strand SC to SC terminated fiber was $220 shipped. Armored would have been right at $260- $270... but they suggested another grade of cable as I was putting in conduit that is still made/protected for wet environments and specifically for use when in conduit and buried.

To compare... I was going to have two flooded burial Cat 6 cables in there at a cost of $67 each. So $134 versus $220... I'd say the Fiber was worth it and not that much more for peace of mind.

I went with TrippLite 10/100/1000 media converters at $125 each. I found plenty of dedicated media converters for $50 to $75, but they were strictly 100 or just 1000. Either would have been fine, but I figured I might want all three modes for compatibility.

As a comparison, quality lightning arrestors for the Cat 6 were between $30 and $60 buck each.

I had to move from 3/4 conduit for the CAT 6 to 1 and 1/4 inch conduit for the fiber as the SC connectors were not staggered in the pull sleeve. No biggy and it made pulling easy.

So I spent probably $250 more to do it right and have peace of mind. I still need to test everything, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.