Topic: Cat5e cable wiring standards for long cables

Cat5e cable wiring standards for long cables

This topic contains 4 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by sound 14 years, 6 months ago.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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2009/10/19 at 3:35 pm #22176

sound
Participant

From your Support Center Knowledgebase:

A: The wiring standard you need to use is EIA/TIA 568-A, wired the same way at both ends. If you use the EIA/TIA 568-B wiring standard, your cabling will likely not work at longer distances, but be fine for shorter lengths.

I searched all the ES documentation but couldn’t find anything that would indicate a performance difference between the A/B standards.

Can you please confirm your above statement.

Thanks and greetings,
Walter

2009/10/19 at 8:28 pm #24806

Allen & Heath Product Support
Moderator

Walter,

Your post looks to be directed at Allen & Heath Technical Support. The Forum is primarily for peer to peer communication.

For direct Technical Support response, please raise a ticket for your enquiry here:
https://allen-heath.helpserve.com/

We are aware of the EtherSound documentation, but there have been at least two users recently who have issues with long cables (70m plus) from approved manufacturers wired to EIA/TIA 568-B standard. The same cable wiring at shorter lengths of 10m have been OK. The cables were tested with Cat5 test boxes, so were not made poorly. Changing nothing other than the wiring standard, the cable-length issues were resolved.

Thus the statement made in the Knowledgebase is based on experience, rather than theory, and we believe it to be correct.

support@allen-heath.com

2009/10/19 at 9:05 pm #24807

Mr-B
Participant

Hi folks I had a cause to use 4 lengths of Ruggedised CAT 5 to connect 2 iLive surfaces to 2 racks earlier in the year on a live gig. I think they were Beldon or TMB but I know these were at least 100m long.
These performed just fine. I do not normally use Etherflex cables in excess of 80m
My cables are wired to 568B sorry if this adds to the confusion

2009/10/20 at 10:50 am #24810

Allen & Heath Product Support
Moderator

Walter, Mr B,

Many thanks for your input.

Our previous response on this was, as we said, based on user experience rather than scientific theory, but we have gone into this topic in more depth with our R&D guys, and we would now agree, based on the input received from them that there would be no difference between the two wiring standards.

We will remove the offending Knowledgebase article to avoid further confusion. It could well be that the two customer issues we referred to previously were not conclusively down to the wiring standard, and could have been due to poor crimp connections.

support@allen-heath.com

2009/10/20 at 7:11 pm #24812

sound
Participant

TYVM for the clarification.

Greetings,
Walter
Author

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