Shielded/Screened Cat 5E 4

[mikeydidit]

I have another project coming up that I would like to ask for your help on. The vendor on this project has made it mandatory for us to install Cat5E shielded cables to their equipment. I personally think this is crazy on this project, but it doesn't appear that I have a choice. I did a search on this subject and found a lot of information, but did not find any resolve on exactly how to terminate these. It seems that most people just ground one end and use regular jacks?? Do I need a special jack for these and ground both ends? I haven't had any dealings with this so any help would be appreciated.

Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[franklin97355]

I would do it the way the manufacturer specifies using the components they specify. That should get you the best you can do. If it costs more bill more.

 

[toolman18]

Check out

http://wwwtigerdirect.com,

use their search and enter C184-03863. Only 16 port patch panel but sheilded, might be too small for your job. Contact them, maybe there is a larger one. As far as the jack end look at Allen Tel cat-5 shielded jacks. hope this helps.

 

[wybnormal]

For shielding to be effective, EVERYTHING has to be shielded. THis includes the cable, the connectors, the device that the cable plugs into and the patch panels. The specs for pulling and following the bend radius have to be followed or the shielding can fracture (tear).

An interesting note is that the gentleman who designed the CAT5 specs does not recommend shielded cable as it defeats some of the reasoning behind the CAT spec. In particuler, CAT5 uses differential pairs with a twist. That twist allows a certain amount of RF to escape where the shield would keep that RF in the cable and possibly contribute to excessive noise on the line. A solid CAT system can go much faster then 100Mbps.. Lucent had their CAT5 system tested in Germany and it clocked in at 650Mhz so shielding does not buy you speed. A good and clean installation can overcome alot. A shoddy installation will be problematic no matter what is used.

While I agree that you should do what the customer wants, sometimes your job is also to educate the customer and make sure what they are asking for is really what they want or need.

MikeS

Find me at

http://www.packetattack.com

"Take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots."
Sun Tzu

 

[mikeydidit]

Please let me begin by thanking all of you that has taken the time out of your busy day to try to post something useful for me. Mike gives you all a star.

To go one step deeper with this, we are having a new system installed in our labor & delivery rooms. This system will be sending live video back to a server for storage. I have been trying to contact this vendor for several days to find out the particular reason that Cat 5E SCTP is what they recommended this system be installed with. Today I did reach their technical support guy and this is what I found out.

The main reason is that most people that they have installed systems for do not pull their cable in standard compliant methods and they cannot guarantee the installation. He went on to tell me about some installations in the past that the cables were run (not over or around) through florescent lights. They had chatter in the video go figure. At this time we are going ahead with our normal Cat5E cabling and feel confident that it will work fine. I would have never thought that so much that is done out there would be that bad. If their has never (and their have been several) time that doing things by the book has ever paid off, this one has paid for every standards book I have ever bought.

Thanks again for your replies.


Mike Jones
LSUHSC

 

[wybnormal]

Mike - just as a point of reference, my experience with shielded twisted pair came at the expense of Siemens and a brand new Cathlab going in at one of my four hospitals (past life). Two million dollar project and the vendor decides we needed shielded cable at the last second. The short version is I had a conversation with their engineers over the phone about this and it was decided that a good clean install of CAT5 was good enough after I presented my data.

MikeS


Find me at

http://www.packetattack.com

"Take advantage of the enemy's unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots."
Sun Tzu

 

[cwc3]

ck out

http://www.icc.com

use s/sctp jacks on both ends and ground your rack!