cat 5 for power injection

bernard

New elf
Joined
Sep 15, 2013
Messages
27
Just want to make sure I can take cat 5 cable for power injection. I think I saw that in the 101 tutorial. I'll look for it again but thought I would still ask for advice for cat 5 and other suggestions.
my need is for 5 V only maybe 10 - 15 ft away from power source. I assume I can tie 3 wires together for +5V and the others for ground. Thanks!
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
Generous elf
Joined
Jun 12, 2010
Messages
4,681
Location
Victoria Point (Brisbane)
For the most part, wire is wire so you could use CAT5 cable for power. Why 3 for +5V and the rest (5) for ground? You could use 2 pairs (4 wires) for each.
 

bernard

New elf
Joined
Sep 15, 2013
Messages
27
So much for me, the 101 does not seem to mention cat 5 but security cable instead which is a little heavier gauge.

Cat 5e I have is 24 gauge. Not sure what the rating is but I read somewhere that each wire can handle about 0.5 amps. If I pair up 4 for + and for 4 for -, that would be only 2 amps. for some reason, that does not seem right. Any thoughts?

(David, I meant combining 4 wires together, not 3, I guess a "fat finger" mistake)
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
Generous elf
Joined
Jun 12, 2010
Messages
4,681
Location
Victoria Point (Brisbane)
The official spec for CAT5 is something odd like 577mA per conductor.

At 24 AWG per wire, one pair of a CAT5 is in theory a similar overall cross section to a single 14/0.2 wire in a security cable.

I'm using CAT5 to power some 10W Ray Wu DMX RGB floods. That's one pair for the DMX data, one pair for 0V, another for +12V and the 4th not used.
 
Top