Speaker wire, cat 5 control cable, & 110 volt power cable

[David Spangler]

Not sure which forum to put this under so here it is. My lay out this year, which is my first, I decided to put my cables and wires inside old garden hoses for the run across the ground to the different displays, for safety purposes. The 110 volt  wire works great cause you can add the plugs after the wire is in the hose. Saying that here is my question. For my cat 5 cables to the LOR controllers and the DMX part of display I was going to run the cables in a hose along with speaker wires for speakers in the yard. Should I use shielded cables for the cat 5 and or speaker wires, or should I not put them in the same hose, period? I'm not sure if in the same hose there would be some kind of interference being so close together. The 110 volt wires I am keeping separate.

Thank you.

Edited September 3, 2013 by David Spangler

[caniac]

Not sure which forum to put this under so here it is. My lay out this year, which is my first, I decided to put my cables and wires inside old garden hoses for the run across the ground to the different displays, for safety purposes. The 110 volt  wire works great cause you can add the plugs after the wire is in the hose. Saying that here is my question. For my cat 5 cables to the LOR controllers and the DMX part of display I was going to run the cables in a hose along with speaker wires for speakers in the yard. Should I use shielded cables for the cat 5 and or speaker wires, or should I not put them in the same hose, period? I'm not sure if in the same hose there would be some kind of interference being so close together. The 110 volt wires I am keeping separate.

Thank you.

if they are going to be in the same hose as the power I would say yes, electrical interference.

[plasmadrive]

Cat5 and speaker wire play nice together.. no need for any special shielding. 

[ShaggySS]

Or you can be really cheap like me and use the cat5 cable as speaker cable.  

 

Been working great for a few years now!

[Steven]

A few years ago at another display, it was attempted to drive an 8Ω speaker directly through one of the unused pairs in the Cat5 cable. This worked until the volume was increased, at which point it caused interference of the LOR network.

[Orville]

Been running my Cat5 and Speaker wire together for the last 3 years, have never had an issue with speaker wire and Cat5 together.  

 

But if the Cat5 were run along the AC power wires together, chances are you're going to have some issues, one that may crop up in that respect is lights staying on, or random lights may come on or go off throughout your display.   

 

And not realizing the Cat5 and AC power cables absolutely do not play well together can drive a person insane trying to figure out the problem/issues, again, especially if they were, or are unaware of what this issue could create/cause within their display.

[David Spangler]

First thank you all for the replies. So I understand it would be OK to run the cat 5 and the speaker wire together without a problem but not along side or in the same hose/conduit of the 110 volt power cables, (extension cords). Does that mean that the cat 5 would not be able to cross an extension cord anywhere in the layout? 

[plasmadrive]

Cross data and power cables at right angles if possible.  Never run parallel if you can help it, but honestly if you run 4-6" apart, even in parallel you won't have any issues.