sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Sparky...again

Just got a frantic call from a friend who does computers for customers. He's smart enough to do simple wiring, and also smart enough to realize that he should call me to do the wiring.

He arrives at a customer who has hired a "master" electrician (the same guy in my small town who figures prominently in many of my Sparky stories) to interconnect two residential buildings on a property. Sparky has run 6-pair, 22-gauge Cat-nuttin' buried service wire and has attempted to terminate Cat 5e jacks at each end, right on the icky-pic cable. No lightning or over-current protection, no transition to inside wire Cat5e, etc.

I am scheduled to go over and try to get some minimum connectivity over the BSW, but am not confident. I will bring with me a foot-long piece of buried Cat5e and show it to the customer. I will also explain to the customer the advantages of owning a time-machine, so that he can go back and hire the right guy (me). We'll see how that conversation goes...

Along the same lines as "Ground is Ground the World Around"

Hey, it's all copper wire with insulation...I don't know why he didn't just pull in four 14/2's probably already had it on the truck.

If you have to leave the 6-pair cable in place, a set of ethernet extenders would get data across...once the protectors are in place.

Ahh, I've missed Arthur's Sparky stories!

I'm embarrassed to say that you'd be surprised how much you can get through CAT zero cable. I wired my house with D station cable, which I believe was the equivalent of CAT 1 years ago. It was a Panasonic system, so I used two pairs for each phone. Later on, the kids demanded Internet access in their rooms, so I used the green and brown pairs to emulate a 10 base-T connection and it worked amazingly well, to the extent that I was able to get about 60 Mbps with minimal issues. This was after I sent them up on a 50 pair tie cable with all of the other stuff on it to the attic and then cross-connected. I guess it's really a matter of the length that's going to determine what, if anything, can be done.

There is a local mid-sized communications company here that ran the interconnect cable between two commercial buildings (underground). The data cable is a looonnnggg fiber zipcord patch cable. The voice is some sort of sprinkler (?) wire. There are two of them, and they are around 24 conductors each. They are not paired, and there are only 4 colors. That is a lot of fun to make work.

Daniel was it 18/4, Wh-Bk-Rd-Gr?

At least it was probably Listed and burial cable. I have only use 18/4 wire for Fire and Security. I never would have thought of using the wrong type of cable for voice/data...Guess I never would have made it as a Sparky.

Daniel, that sounds like traffic signal (IMSA) cable to me. Lots of companies think that if they can buy cable for an application, that they know what they're doing. Hey, I can buy fire hydrants through Noland, or high voltage power distribution cable through Graybar, but that doesn't mean that I know which ones to purchase and how to install them, right? I don't understand why people don't just suck it up and do it right by hiring subs that know what they are doing in these instances.

https://www.belden.com/products/industrial/cable/imsa-traffic-signal-cable

Ed you know that Daniel may be correct.

https://www.amazon.com/Southwire-Burial-18-4-Sprinkler-Wire/dp/B00KXYZT0O

I have ran into that doing hardscape with my wife's landscape company years ago and making minor repairs. Or you can be correct also.

the weird parts.
1. it was 22 (ish) gauge
2. This install was done by a company that install phone systems and low voltage cabling.
3. There were multiples of the colors in the same jacket (i.e. 4 yellow conductors, 4 blue conductors, 4 red conductors)