Moggaman Posted June 28 Share Posted June 28 Hi. My internet cable(fibre) comes from the road to a manhole at my back door, it then continues from the manholes into my mains box through a 50mm duct. now I am think about solar and I need to connect the solar on the roof to the mains with a CAT5 cable and a 6 sq SWA cable. I cannot get those cables to the mains box through the house and I don’t want them to drill into the house because of Airtightness, so I was going to run the CAT 5 and SWA out the gable of the house from the attic and down into a duct , which will bring them to the aforementioned manhole at the back door. Was then going to send the SWA and Cat5 up the same duct as the existing fiber to the mains box. The run from the manhole to the mains is about 10feet. Is there any risk that one cable interferes with the workings of the other cable? Thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Post and beam Posted June 28 Share Posted June 28 Do you mean the 2 copper cables? Or between the fibre and either of the copper cables? The fibre will be unaffected by either copper. Are you sure its CAT5, very old tech now. But twisted pair ethernet cable regardless whether its CAT5/6/7/8. The important question remains the same, is it Shielded twisted pair? Shielded is exactly what it says on the tin, its shielded from interference. Use shielded. The way to tell.... Marked on the cable it will say STP or UTP. STP= Shielded UTP= Unshielded Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moggaman Posted June 28 Author Share Posted June 28 Thanks for reply. Currently on cable goes into the duct to do my internet and as far as I’m aware I have fibre. It’s a black cable. There is some left over so if I check the cable and it’s says STP, it’s shielded and I’m good to put the Cat 5 and. SWA cable into the same duct ?. To be clear, I rang a solar company and asked them what cables would I need to have in the ground ahead of any solar install… they came back and said with the reply attached . I don’t want to bother with the ducting if there will be interference beteeen cables Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atlantication Posted June 28 Share Posted June 28 (edited) There shouldn't be any concerns about interference, if the equipment on either end is designed for it, and the solar installers wire it correctly. The rule against running mains with low voltage cables is mostly an issue with a slight buzz on analgoue signals (like old telephones) and a little bit H&S concerns if somebody working on the phone system confused a mains cable for a LV one. It's only 3m they're running together anyway, hardly a long distance! Fibre internet is a glass fiber not a copper cable (CAT5). Sounds like your fiber isn't actually coming into the house. STP cable is fine (UTP would be fine as well) but you do have to be careful with the earthing arrangements for STP or FTP cables. Make sure it's not wired up to cause an earth loop (i.e. make sure that the shield is only connected to earth on one end). You don't want any earth fault currents going through the shielding on the cable as it's not designed to carry current and could be dangerous. Edited June 28 by atlantication Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moggaman Posted June 28 Author Share Posted June 28 1 hour ago, atlantication said: There shouldn't be any concerns about interference, if the equipment on either end is designed for it, and the solar installers wire it correctly. The rule against running mains with low voltage cables is mostly an issue with a slight buzz on analgoue signals (like old telephones) and a little bit H&S concerns if somebody working on the phone system confused a mains cable for a LV one. It's only 3m they're running together anyway, hardly a long distance! Fibre internet is a glass fiber not a copper cable (CAT5). Sounds like your fiber isn't actually coming into the house. STP cable is fine (UTP would be fine as well) but you do have to be careful with the earthing arrangements for STP or FTP cables. Make sure it's not wired up to cause an earth loop (i.e. make sure that the shield is only connected to earth on one end). You don't want any earth fault currents going through the shielding on the cable as it's not designed to carry current and could be dangerous. Thanks. When you talk of earthing … I will be getting solar contractors to do the work whenever I can afford it so I presume all the earthing that you talk of will be taken care of by them. my mains is on a different duct altogether . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atlantication Posted June 28 Share Posted June 28 Yes the earthing will be done by the solar installers if it's for a current transformer to the mains. If it's actually to plug the inverter into the network so you can access it on the web then you probably don't need to worry - just make sure that at least one end of your cat5 cable has a clear plastic plug on it not a metal plug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PNAmble Posted June 28 Share Posted June 28 If you are putting Ethernet through the same duct as power (bad design by who ever designed your electrics and network) then use cat 6a which is shielded otherwise you will get problems. Probably too late but a good airtight strategy has one power duct, one data duct and MVHR ducts and ASHP in/out ducts. You don’t need anything else, use an external box to run an external DB and Network Switch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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