# Cat5e UTP in same EMT with CCTV Siamese cable with 24VAC power?



## splatz (May 23, 2015)

No problem at all. It's done all the time. A lot of PoE is higher voltage on different pairs inside the UTP jacket. The insulation rating on regular Cat5e / cat6 cable is generally 300V.


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## gnuuser (Jan 13, 2013)

UncleMike said:


> I've got a customer with an existing Siamese CCTV cable in EMT (about 75 feet long), with the camera powered by a 24 VAC power supply. The EMT is exactly along a path I *could* take with a new Cat5e cable. After searching here, and online generally, it's not clear to me if running the Cat5e in this conduit would be allowed, or if allowed, if it's even a good idea.
> 
> Should this be avoided for code and/or performance reasons?
> Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk


you can run cat5 in conduit but if you run it in with any currect carrying conductors you may get some unwanted induced current.

while the cctv cabling is shielded the power conductors are generally are not.
in this case i would use shielded cat5/cat6


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## splatz (May 23, 2015)

gnuuser said:


> you can run cat5 in conduit but if you run it in with any currect carrying conductors you may get some unwanted induced current.
> 
> while the cctv cabling is shielded the power conductors are generally are not.
> in this case i would use shielded cat5/cat6


That's a good point shielded / STP would shield any noise from the camera power at 24VAC but I doubt it wouldn't bother with it personally. IME UTP is pretty good about rejecting noise, you'd need a lot more than that little camera to cause trouble. 

A single camera is probably drawing 3-10 watts most of the time, maybe up to 30 watts while operating PTZ. 

Many places you'll see heaps of camera cable in the same cable trays as heaps of UTP without any problems with network communications on the UTP.


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## Rora (Jan 31, 2017)

How much current could a single camera be drawing, assuming the power line is unshielded? Is this enough to power EMF noise that will disrupt twisted pairs to a point of affecting a digital signal? Doesn't seem likely.


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## MadSparky (Mar 2, 2018)

UncleMike said:


> I've got a customer with an existing Siamese CCTV cable in EMT (about 75 feet long), with the camera powered by a 24 VAC power supply. The EMT is exactly along a path I *could* take with a new Cat5e cable. After searching here, and online generally, it's not clear to me if running the Cat5e in this conduit would be allowed, or if allowed, if it's even a good idea.
> 
> Should this be avoided for code and/or performance reasons?
> 
> Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk


It's perfectly allowed. 24 volts ac is far less than the voltage limit of category 5 cable. In fact Category 5 cable is often used to power cameras. Google power over ethernet

Sent from my A574BL using Tapatalk


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## billyhunter (Mar 31, 2016)

NO problem at all!


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

CAT 5E twists pick up induced current first in one polarity then in the other so they cancel themselves out. Ethernet which is roughly 35 KHz bandwidth has roughly 30 dab SINR. That means signal to interference ratio is 1,000 to 1...much better than foil shields and the reason ScTP is not necessary 99% of the time. In fact I've never seen it actually ever fix a noise problem.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk


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