It won't conform to the IEE wiring regulations though, they require either 50mm separation or 'physical' separation which seems to mean in practice a divider in the conduit/trunking.
I agree that it will almost certainly work perfectly well.
Phil has brought this to us :
Quite possibly, that is why the regulations do not permit the mix of the two. It doesn't actually require metal to metal contact, all it needs is a nick in the 240v insulation, nick in the Cat5 insulation add a little rain water in the conduit and you have enough conductivity for someone to be killed. Would think to isolate the supply to a garage before disconnecting a Cat5 cable from a router located in the house? I wouldn't, hence the need for proper segregation.
The same applies to telephone cables and for exactly the same reasons. A bit of leakage between a mains cable and the house phone - some poor sod up a telephone pole perhaps in the wet, gets 240v across him earthing onto the wet pole.
The insulation can fail and be in a faulty state for years before the person actually touches the live bits and gets killed. It doesn't have to fail at the same time.
Why do you think you have routine inspections of equipment. Its to limit the chances of a fault not being found before its too late.
Mains on cat5 will not cause any fault in the equipment as the cat5 is isolated from the electronics by the pulse transformers at each end so any such fault will remain hidden unless you look for it.
I know this to be true having worked in numerous University retro-fitted buildings. However, it's known to be unsafe and I know that it'd be picked up when/if we sell - just my luck that is.
For those who are suggesting wireless - I have experience with it and I know that it will present more hassles than it's worth. There are the security issues too. No point in physically securing an outbuilding then blasting your data to everyone within 100m.
Fibre looks best but I'm a bit iffy about some of the radii between here and there. I'll go and check the specs.
Chips.
That's just not going to happen.
Especially since the IEE doesn't exist any more! :-)
You *might* have trouble if/when you sell the house, it would need a thorough survey to spot it though. I agree totally that it almost certainly wouldn't be an issue though.
And does this 'devider' also have to conform?
I mean you could thread yer Cat5 into some hosepipe but does that provide electrical insulation to the correct standard? Whabout the blue waterpipe, would that 'comply' even though it has much thicker walls that a bit of 25mm plastic oval that probably would comply?
Or howabout some armoured Cat5 .. isn't that then Cat5 in an extra sheath, providing the "physical' separation". Or maybe the rules only work if you buy the 'armour' loose and thread the cable through after ...?
As if any 250V is going to 'escape' from (say) some SWA, through 3 layers of insulation and a bundle of steel (earthed) wires then melt through another two layers of insulation to get to the Cat5 copper wires (that are optically isolated anyway) ... .
Who actually has the stats re deaths through such failings and how much greater is the risk to anyone else (other than the installer in most cases) than say driving / smoking / overeating / stabbing or boredom from reading through bucket loads of well meaning but OTT (for most of us sensible people) regs ..?
All the best ..
T i m
Hear hear!
Possibly (my luck as well) ;-(
Hmm, I know Wireless can have it's issues but set up properly can also be fine (most folk don't actually need Terabit networking as they are only browsing the web over it at ~2Mb/s) ?
True, but can be locked down pretty tight with some simple proceedures .. and unless you have any secrets ... ;-)
Indeed, so use a pair of directional aerials facing each other then you will only be blasting data at a much narrower selection ;-)
Armoured Cat5, tack it to the fence, drape it out the way as a temp measure .. It'll be easier to pull out the way when you move in 15 years time .. ;-)
T i m
The bloke in the factory next door used the stuff to make playground equipment, so it had the advantage of being free.
Colin Bignell
The message from "nightjar" contains these words:
Don't suppose you've got any more? I've used a fair bit to make the climbing frame, but the kids keep pestering me to get the welder out and add more.
Cat 5 is not optically isolated. Ethernet uses pulse transformers. I hope the rest of what you said is correct.
It's known to be unsafe - for very small values of 'unsafe'.
Yes, if the rats chew the cables, or the mains cables insulation melts through, the network cabling can become live. How likely is that in practice though. If it was me - and in fact it is - as I'm doing a similar thing.
Buy two small network hubs. Fit these inside the boxes where the conduit terminates.
Connect the shield of the cat5 cable to the earth of the RCD, in such a manner that if any current flows in the shield, it'll trip off the RCD.
Connect the outside world to the cable through the conduit via the hubs. Cat5 hubs are electrically isolated, with typical isolation ratings of a kilovolt or so on the isolation transformers.
Stick a label in there saying "In the event of multiple faults, this network cable may be live".
Phil pretended :
So you would be happy to let your kids handle such a cable - deliberately installed so as to ignore the regulations intended for their protection?
In article , Dave H.
The pukka outdoor grade stuff will stand all thats sort of misuse. Bin there buried it.. in rather damp ducts!...
Actually, having been the poor sod up a telephone pole, yes, it can and does happen - and the pole top has a pretty good earth (for lightning protection) to touch along with the (live) 'phone cable. The 'phone exchange, however, has fuses in line, so the line stays up at 240Vac all the way there - hence BT and others getting very shirty (sp?) about unapproved 'phones that connect to the mains, etc. I used to delight in removing and rendering safe (yanking out the cables, if possible with PCB damage) unapproved 'phone equipment, same for non-compliant cabling [1], at least for a couple or more months after I landed with certain tender parts of my anatomy on a pole step after getting a 240V belt up my arm...
Dave H. (The engineer formerly known as Homeless)
[1] Including one where they'd used the spare pair in a mains SWA cable, all the cores terminated in a choc-block connector, to run a 'phone line to the garage... and called BT becauses there was a "terrible hum on the line", similar where the 'phone wiring had been stapled-gunned down - with the staple passing through both the 'phone cable and the live conductor of a tacked-down mains flex...
He retired a couple of years back, so I don't have access to the stuff anymore.
Colin Bignell
Ok, 'isolated' .. (the line drivers i used to repair were 'optically isolated', typically run over what used to be called an EPS8 ccts I think?) but the spirit of what I was saying remains.
Pass? ;-)
All the best ..
T i m
that) certain events to occur to turn off the supply, this event being asynchronous with anyone touching anything.
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