Shielded CAT-5 that is more flexible

Are you using solid CAT5 wire or stranded? The stranded is obviously more flexible. Google shows lots of sources for CAT5e stranded STP (shielded twisted pair).

Also, you might want to try flat CAT5 cable, which is also available in shielded. I've never even seen the stuff, so I have no idea if it's any more flexible, but it might be more convenient if it can fold behind the drawer mechanism. Note that the flat CAT5 cable usually comes pre-terminated with RJ-45 plugs.

Thanks, Jeff. I didn't remember "STP". Dang, I think I am getting old here ...

And single braided over shield is more flexible than any foil shield version, maybe even 45 % coverage would pass and it is more flexible than 95 % varieties.

My studio installation guy says he know just the stuff you need, it's about as flexible as microphone cable.

He gets it fron Canford Audio in the UK, I haven't found the part number though (their search engine is rubbish). He has something like 10-20 m on hand if you only need to purchase a small length. You could pay him via Paypal or whatever (that's cheapest).

Contact him on snipped-for-privacy@westnospamwick-spamtrap-.com

Graham

Hi Jörg,

be careful, CAT5 cable doesn't like radius under two inches AFAIR. If a cable is too flexible it may tend to untwist itself and then you may get garbage...

Regards

Marte

Well, so far I have only seen Foil shield. Do you remember a brand with braided shield?

I did find dual-pair microphone cable which would work since LAN only needs two pairs. But it won't be so easy to get a standard RJ jack connected in production.

Thanks, Graham. However, we'd need quite a bit more than that, it'll be for production.

Meantime I did find some microphone cable that could work though. I was surprised that they had dual twisted pairs.

We won't go much under 2". Slight loss of twisting would be ok here since data rates are really low.

If that's 'starquad' it's unsuitable. Totally different impedance.

Graham

Ok, but it's only for a 30cm run each system, the rest would be CAT5 and we don't have to run 1Gb/sec. Thing is, we don't have any music stores around here where I could take a look. Well, you can buy a fiddle and a twang box of course, along with the proper Stetson, saddle and boots. But no fancy electric stuff. Since you are an audio guy: Is that Star Quad really flexible?

Not to my knowledge it isn't. Never used the stuff though. In fact it's very rarely used at all, just when required to 'ultra-eliminate' induced voltages into the mic signal cables. There are two pair twists one going clockwise, one anti-clockwise you see. You wire them in parallel and it should ALL cancel out.

This appears to be the Canford cable I mentioned.

Graham

rarely

mic

anti-clockwise

Hmm, that has the usual foil shield like the Belkin shielded CAT5. Belkin is one of the more popular brands out here.

Mainly Ethernet terminations aren't shielded, so there's no 'ground' connection in the RJ-45 plug. If you go to the shrounded connectors, the compatible shielded cable is stiff jacket/foil-shield over (?solid) wires.

Could you ground a braided tube at the chassis and on the drawer, and just route a stranded CAT5 cable through that?

Did you get my Canford link ?

That's the stuff you want.

They have an export dept. You can buy it cut by the metre or 500m reel.

Graham

They claim it's their own though, see the pdf file.

Part of the trick is a thinner than usual jacket of high flexibility. My install friend says it's the bee's kness.

Graham.

I have this joy/frustration with people that beat me at thinking outside of the box.

Thanks, I did get the link. Importing is a hassle though and meantime I found a domestic source for really flexible data cable. So in case someone else is in the same pickle some day:

Thanks to all for your suggestions.

That's what they have in the system now. It's a pain in the neck in production (very complex mechanics) and then there is the concern of chafing.