Belden or Superior Essex Cat6 cable?

Xpred

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After doing some research for an UTP indoor + outdoor rated (CMR/CMX) Cat6 cable for simple CCTV runs, I
narrowed to two possible brands:

Belden: https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/2146A_techdata.pdf

Superior Essex: http://ce.superioressex.com/uploadedFiles/Docs/PDF/Catalogs/Communications/CAT6-Out-Sun-Res.pdf

They look nearly identical and are pretty similar priced. I don't have experience with either brand but I assume they are more than enough for my application. Which one would you guys recommend?
 

giomania

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Belden used to be made in the USA, if that matters to you. Not sure if it still is.


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NoloC

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Belden is still made in the USA and the most respected cable brand among professionals.

But that Shireen stuff looks OK, Maybe better, just never used it. Can vouch for Belden.
 

LostGuy

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Another vote for Belden. Pulled hundreds of miles of it over the years and never encountered a bad spool. Personally, I'd use conduit and stick with one of their bonded pair cables, but 2146A is a nice product.
 

Benak

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Another vote for Belden. I've pulled hundreds of thousands of feet it over my life.... I guess I wasn't the one paying for it either but I also know if you have the right catalog number for your application it will work well.
 

Xpred

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Thanks everyone for the replies. Just out of curiosity, if you guys had to choose between Cat5e vs Cat6, which one would you recommend? My application is 8 2K IP CCTV cameras that will be less than 100 feet runs on each with 10-20 feet exposed on the outside (hence the CMR/CMX rating). Cat5e and Cat6 price is negligible, and I thought Cat6 might have advantages such as "less crosstalk interference" but unsure if this claim is truly substantiated. The only disadvantage of Cat6 is the slightly larger cables, IMHO.
 

tigerwillow1

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I'll point out that this article is based on 100 cable bundles, with each cable running maximum poe+ (type 2) power. When I crunched the numbers for 24 awg wire at 600 mA, I got 1.56 watts dissipation for 100' of wire. For a few bundled wires, I consider this a nit. For 100 wires, at 156 watts per 100', that's a bunch of heat and I can how the lines trapped in the center of the bundle would get baked. Note too that while the maximum poe+ current is 600 mA, the graphs go up to 1000 mA. The differences look a lot worse there because the heat rise is triple of what it is at the real-world 600 mA point.
 

Prinler

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So check it out. So if you have 1 5MP camera, it pulls around 3.2Mbps! Cat5 is rated at 100Mbps right? So on a basic, cheap cat5 cable you can carry the equivalent of approx 30 cameras on 1 cat5 cable. So if we want to step up to cat6 cable that can handle 1000Mbps? 312 cameras over 1 cable? I realize that these numbers are just the marketed numbers but the fact that a cat5 cable, even if you under exaggerate it, is overkill for just 1 ip camera! Cat6 is just a waste of money unless you are making long, long, runs and need the larger awg for power loss... by then you usually move the poe somewhere in the middle anyway.
 

tigerwillow1

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So check it out. So if you have 1 5MP camera, it pulls around 3.2Mbps! Cat5 is rated at 100Mbps right? So on a basic, cheap cat5 cable you can carry the equivalent of approx 30 cameras on 1 cat5 cable. So if we want to step up to cat6 cable that can handle 1000Mbps? 312 cameras over 1 cable? I realize that these numbers are just the marketed numbers but the fact that a cat5 cable, even if you under exaggerate it, is overkill for just 1 ip camera! Cat6 is just a waste of money unless you are making long, long, runs and need the larger awg for power loss... by then you usually move the poe somewhere in the middle anyway.
I agree with all of this yet I ran cat6 and would do the same again. Maybe because of intuition or because I just feel better that way (which has some value). Instead of looking at it from the "waste of money" end, I said the cost isn't much more, and yes it's more difficult to pull, but with the work of pulling the cable being by far the largest factor, I chose to use what I see as the better cable. My opinion is there's no right or wrong choice from the technical end, and if I spent a hundred $ to feel better about it, that's ok, too.
 

Prinler

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I agree with all of this yet I ran cat6 and would do the same again. Maybe because of intuition or because I just feel better that way (which has some value). Instead of looking at it from the "waste of money" end, I said the cost isn't much more, and yes it's more difficult to pull, but with the work of pulling the cable being by far the largest factor, I chose to use what I see as the better cable. My opinion is there's no right or wrong choice from the technical end, and if I spent a hundred $ to feel better about it, that's ok, too.
Yes sir, the only good reason in my eyes. Peace of mind. Its way overkill. Like putting racing motor oil in your busted commuter car.
 
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