59 vs 6

[dino_squirrel 0]

OK, so I'm looking at buying 6500ft worth of cable. I'm trying to decide if i should get rg95 or rg6. I read that rg6 is the better of the two, but I've been reading how a lot of people are buying 59, so i don't know what to do.

 

My longest run is 770ft, the shortest is 120ft. This will all be run underground in conduit, NEVER see daylight or water.

SOUNDY - found the liquid tite, knew that's what I was looking for when i saw it. Connectors were just cool to play with, i don't know why. But do those compression connectors screw into the housing? does the housing have 1/2 inch inlet, or even 3/4?

 

1) Should I go siamese?

 

2) I need to power (as im sure you know) the heater and fan in housing as well, so can i power the camera, heater, and fan off of one power line or should i separate the camera from the housing equipment power line?

 

3) Cheaper to go coax and use cat5 as power or is cat5 too thin?

 

I can buy rg6, solid copper core, good jacket, aluminum braid and aluminum foil, 500ft for $50 after tax. If i go same distance, same cable but siamese, I'm adding another $100, I don't see the value in that especially when i need 7-8 more rolls. I can get cat5 or even another type of cable and pull it all through for less than $100 per roll all inclusive. I have a large budget (6k) but I do need to stay withing those bounds and its getting tough.

 

thanks again guys, and girls...

[dino_squirrel 0]

i just read

"You could either use RG6 Coax (NOT CAT TV cable) Copper Solid Center and Copper Outer Braid"

 

RG6 Cable tv? is there another? i figured there would be rg6 copper braid, i just found it, and is it WORTH it to use copper braid of aluminum braid?

[dino_squirrel 0]

wiki picked up the tab - CATV rg6 is copper coated, yes? The wire I have is SOLID copper, and yes $45 for 500ft. I haven't tested the resistance yet, but i wanted to when the spool was still whole. If i missed something let me know. thank you.

[Birdman Adam 0]

You definitely want ALL copper, shielding, and center conductor. So if that is what you have, then great!

 

If you were to get with aluminum shielding, then you're more susceptible to interference. With copper covered steel, the signal won't travel as far.

[Soundy 1]

OK, so I'm looking at buying 6500ft worth of cable. I'm trying to decide if i should get rg95 or rg6. I read that rg6 is the better of the two, but I've been reading how a lot of people are buying 59, so i don't know what to do.

We use RG59 pretty much exclusively, never had a problem with it. When we did some FLIR cameras, the dealer recommended RG6 because it's lower impedance and we had runs of several hundred feed, and he said the cameras would give a clearer picture with the RG6... I don't know if how much that really mattered, but we went with the RG6 for that anyway.

 

Other than that though, the only other times we've used RG6 was when it was supplied to us for some sub jobs. Stuff was super-stiff and a PITA to work with. We also used it on the same jobs for satellite dish feeds.

 

My longest run is 770ft, the shortest is 120ft. This will all be run underground in conduit, NEVER see daylight or water.

Never say never - there's always the possibility of water getting into the conduit. Might be UNLIKELY, but the chance always exists.

 

SOUNDY - found the liquid tite, knew that's what I was looking for when i saw it. Connectors were just cool to play with, i don't know why. But do those compression connectors screw into the housing? does the housing have 1/2 inch inlet, or even 3/4?

Uhh... what housing? Some housings just have a hole there, but the fittings should all come with a locking ring for that. If the housings have threaded inlets, they'll probably be either 1/2" or 3/4"; if you're using 1/2" and the housing has a 3/4" inlet, you can just use a threaded reducer.

 

1) Should I go siamese?

I'm not a fan, personally. I find the wire a PITA to pull in a lot of cases - it doesn't bend evenly. When we use coax, it's usually RG59, and four-conductor "station-Z" wire for power (doubled-up). This ensures there's always a spare pair of conductors for those "just in case" occurrences down the road.

 

2) I need to power (as im sure you know) the heater and fan in housing as well, so can i power the camera, heater, and fan off of one power line or should i separate the camera from the housing equipment power line?

As long as both use the same voltage, there should be no problem powering both off a single run. What I'll often do, using the station wire, is split out one pair to the camera and one pair to the heater. The only thing to watch for is if the fuse feeding that run has a large enough rating that the heater/blower kicking in won't pop it.

 

3) Cheaper to go coax and use cat5 as power or is cat5 too thin?

ALL FOUR PAIRS for power is probably okay... according to this calculator you should see only 1.5V drop using 24V @ 1A over 500'. If your power supply does 28V, it should be fine.

 

That said, 24V @ 500mA would only see 1.5V drop over three pairs, so you could use the fourth for video, and forgo the coax altogether...

 

I can buy rg6, solid copper core, good jacket, aluminum braid and aluminum foil, 500ft for $50 after tax. If i go same distance, same cable but siamese, I'm adding another $100, I don't see the value in that especially when i need 7-8 more rolls. I can get cat5 or even another type of cable and pull it all through for less than $100 per roll all inclusive. I have a large budget (6k) but I do need to stay withing those bounds and its getting tough.

 

thanks again guys, and girls...

You want copper braid, ideally 95% coverage. Run, don't walk, away from aluminum.

[dino_squirrel 0]

haha run dont walk. love it. No i was tlaking about using the cat 5 for ONE pair supplying the power to the housing and the camera... so.. no... haha, i need to find cheap wire then, excuse me, inexpensive.

[dino_squirrel 0]

station z? z being a variable or is that the name? any 18awg wire should do i suppose, but I'd like to get an assload, if that is a measurable term. 6500ft to be approximately exact.

[Soundy 1]

station z? z being a variable or is that the name?

http://www.google.ca/search?q=station+z+wire

 

any 18awg wire should do i suppose, but I'd like to get an assload, if that is a measurable term. 6500ft to be approximately exact.

Depends on the size of your ass

 

If you're running heater/blower enclosures at longer distances, I'd probably go with 16/2.

[dino_squirrel 0]

16/2? 16wag and 4 wires?

 

yeah i found the station-z. i google EVERYTHING. i try to move quick to not look like a total ass.

[Birdman Adam 0]

Yea, that's how many cables are labeled.

 

Wire Gauge / # of wires

 

So 16/2 is 16 gauge wire with 2 conductors (wires).

 

The smaller the wire gauge, the bigger the wire. That always used to confuse me... So 16g wire is bigger than 18g; its the next step up. Naturally, bigger wire can handle more current; as well as drop the voltage less.

 

If you were just running the cameras, then I'd say you could go with 18g; but since you've got more power-hungry blowers and heaters, it's better to run 16g.

[Soundy 1]

The smaller the wire gauge, the bigger the wire. That always used to confuse me... So 16g wire is bigger than 18g; its the next step up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge

Increasing gauge numbers give decreasing wire diameters, which is similar to many other non-metric gauging systems. This gauge system originated in the number of drawing operations used to produce a given gauge of wire. Very fine wire (for example, 30 gauge) requires more passes through the drawing dies than does 0 gauge wire.

 

Not unlike shotgun gauge, where a 20-gauge is smaller than a 12-gauge (although in that case, the number refers to the number of lead balls of the barrel's diameter that it takes to make 1lb... how obtuse is that?? )

[dino_squirrel 0]

well I'm looking for a gauge that can fell a man at 100 feet. What do you have in that order?

[Soundy 1]

I'd suggest a .30-06, in that case... shot spreads too quickly to be effective at that range, and slugs don't get much better distance either (although if you DO manage to hit your target, rather than the floor in front of his feet, they'll leave a hulluva mess).

[jeromephone 6]

We are a small shop and my techs sometimes don't see the big picture (or the small one either) We stock 16/2 we use it for speakers, door strickes, camera power, etc it is somethimes overkill but for the cost difference I don't want to have to go back and change out a run because someone used 18/2. as far as using cat5 for power it would work by doubling up conductors but It just seems sort of non-professional. If i am setting up a ptz i will run siamese and use the 18/2 for control and run in a 16/2 for the power.

[rory 0]

We are a small shop and my techs sometimes don't see the big picture (or the small one either) We stock 16/2 we use it for speakers, door strickes, camera power, etc it is somethimes overkill but for the cost difference I don't want to have to go back and change out a run because someone used 18/2. as far as using cat5 for power it would work by doubling up conductors but It just seems sort of non-professional. If i am setting up a ptz i will run siamese and use the 18/2 for control and run in a 16/2 for the power.

i tripled up cat5 before to power an Extreme CCTV EX80 and it didnt work at even just 50', at night it would die. Changed out the cable to 18/2 and it worked fine. Just an example, thats why I never power anything with thin cable like that.

[Soundy 1]

i tripled up cat5 before to power an Extreme CCTV EX80 and it didnt work at even just 50', at night it would die. Changed out the cable to 18/2 and it worked fine. Just an example, thats why I never power anything with thin cable like that.

I think you've got the wrong culprit there, rory - tripled-up 24ga. should give you better than the equivalent of 18ga.

[rory 0]

i tripled up cat5 before to power an Extreme CCTV EX80 and it didnt work at even just 50', at night it would die. Changed out the cable to 18/2 and it worked fine. Just an example, thats why I never power anything with thin cable like that.

I think you've got the wrong culprit there, rory - tripled-up 24ga. should give you better than the equivalent of 18ga.

Nope that was the problem, trippling it up doesnt make it good enough in this situation, switching the cable to 18awg fixed the problem - as i said, it worked fine in the day, but soon as the IRs kicked in, dead - BTW that camera draws around 1.5-2amps when the IRs kick in. In fact we even spoke to the Canadian Manufacturer, Extreme CCTV, and they verified this which made us change the cable and hence fixed the problem.

[dino_squirrel 0]

as I re-read all of this, i was thinking about something my sister was telling me, she's an electrician. There is an issue with having too much to energize and too weak of a supply to do it with. So if you had 18/6, three pairs of two wires for catX, you may have taxed the power supply - this is all allegation for me but something I thought about.

 

And Soundy, where does one find a supply that does more than 24vac? Can you crank the supply's nominal up or is there something for dealing with v-droop?

[Soundy 1]

Several manufacturers have CCTV power supplies that give you selectable 24 or 28VAC output, usually done with a multi-tap transformer. Most, like the bulk of Altronix' ALTV line, allow you to select one voltage or the other for ALL cameras, but a few provide separate taps for each camera - check out the Pelco MCS series, for example (the Pelcos are nice in that they also have a voltage/current/wire-gauge chart on the inside of the can door).