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cat5e and electrical wire question

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Desperate for yall expertise.

 

Need to relocate a Mobotix camera and Raytec Raymax 50 Fusion 30.

 

The Mobotix and Raytec will be 500 feet from Switch.

 

The wires will have to go through 30 feet of ½” conduit with electrical power wire from that electrician ran from gate vapor mercury lamp.

 

The gate vapor mercury lamp is 180 feet from camera.

 

OPTION 1:

1) Use the electrician-ran powered wire to power to Raytec and Mobotix camera at the pole.

2) Since maximum cat5 is 328 feet, I can place a switch at 300 feet and feed that back to main switch.

QUESTIONS:

1) OK to share 30 feet with electrical power?

I2) f I am unable to place a switch at 300 feet, which of the lan extender should I use? Is this a good idea? Since this facility is about 400 miles away, I don’t want to return.

 

OPTION 2:

Have the electrician convert electrical power to 12volts at the mercury vapor light so the 30 feet of electrical wire is now 12 volts. The 12 volts run length is about 180 feet.

QUESTIONS:

1) 180 feet of 12volt a good idea?

2) Still need to either place a switch within 300 feet or use Lan extender.

 

OPTION 3:

Use Mx2wire to POE the camera.

QUESTIONS:

Do I still have to convert the electrical wire to low voltage in the counduit?

 

Thanks so much

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Running low-voltage and high-voltage in the same conduit is against electrical code in most developed countries. DON'T do it. Option 1 is out.

 

Option 2: if the camera supports it, I'd use 24VAC rather than 12VDC - you'll get lower voltage loss. If the illuminator needs 12VDC, add a regulator AT the illuminator to step down the 24V. 12/24 in the same conduit with signal is fine.

 

Option 3: there are a variety of ethernet extenders that will carry PoE over a long run as well. I'm looking right now at an offering from NVT that does ethernet and PoE over coax up to 2500': http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=product&key=ec1701&cid=root. Others have offerings that will do it over UTP.

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I agree on the "dont do it" thought for NOT mixing high & low voltage -- IF you were to do that, besides being against code, I believe you'd inject ton's of bit-errors on the ethernet line from the proximity to the constantly changing AC sine-wave.. Avoid it like the plague.. Also, IF you have to cross an AC line, make sure you do it at a 90 degree angle as best as you can to have minimal noise issues -- I believe that is written into the NEC code here in the US.

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Don't tie your low voltage wire to a line voltage conduit. I got one site I visited where the whole length of a long hallway has the low voltage camera wiring ziptied to the conduit. Popping up some ceiling tiles wires are sitting directly ontop of the florescent light fixtures and they called us to see if we can go fix some video noise issues.

 

After spending a few hours we told them we would have to re-run cables because the whole job was not done correctly and the noise could be coming in from anywhere along the way.

 

Stay away from line voltage as much as possible like folks are saying here and if you have to cross then cross perpendicular to the cable and/or conduit. Try to stay at least 12" from any line voltage.

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