Terminating SWA Cat5e?

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I've just laid some SWA Cat5e from the cupboard at the front of my house to the detached garage at the rear for a PoE IP CCTV camera. I'm now looking for options on how to terminate it. I'm thinking the last leg, either end, should be via a patch lead.

I was wondering what my options would be? What should I do with the armour - can I cut it off and forget about it, exposing the inner Cat5e and simply place a keystone jack or inline IDC coupler?

Or should I first go through a surface mounted junction box (metal?) where the armour is terminated (earthed?), then go to a coupler, jack, or module?
 
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It would be sensible to earth the armour (via a gland) at, at least, one end.

As for how you terminate the ends, that's up to you!! If you can put the RJ45 directly on the end for the camera, I'd do it. The other end could be wired directly to the PoE injector or switch or you could wire it into your patch panel and then use a patch lead.

Fewer connections = more reliability.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I know the ultimate termination type is personal preference; my primary query was over how to handle the armour - whether it needed earthing and how to terminate it and how that may, or may not, effect what I use to connect it to CCTV/switch. For example, an inline IDC coupler would not take SWA cable directly. I've never used SWA before and was looking for advice from those with experience in working with it.

I guess some people get so frustrated when asked for advice which to them is simple, over and over, that they can't help saying so rather than simply ignoring the post. :rolleyes:
 
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Is there a reason to earth the armour on data cables? armoured telecoms cables are never earthed, the armour strands just bent over and taped.
 
Earthing the armoured may cause complications with the electrical installation. There's nothing to be gained at all by earthing it.
 
The norm in the oldern days with data cables was to earth the screen at one end only. This is to reduce interference (and not have current flowing in the screen).
I doubt cat 5 will suffer this so there isn't much to gain by earthing it.
 
I would cut the armour off once the cable is inside and fairly safe from damage. If it's anything like the SWA Cat5e I;ve worked with, you'll now have a still fairly thick and stiff cable which you run to where you want it - keep the tough intermediate jacket on for mechanical protection as far as reasonable. The strip that off and you'll find you have something very similar to "standard" internal network cable which you run to the termination point.

On that job, I just fitted plugs to the cable end (cheapskate customer) - one end went into a switch in the entrance kiosk, the other end went into a wireless access point in the kitchen to serve the customer's boss's house.
In that case, the armoured cable went into the garage, then the unarmoured (but tough) cable went up and round the garage door into the kitchen, and then I stripped it back to leave a yard or two of plain cable.

Before you start, check the construction of your cable !

However, what I would normally recommend is to terminate the cable at a socket - at the house end, a bunch of sockets or a patch panel with the other network connections around the house. At the garage, I'd at least leave enough length (a loop or two) so that if you want more than just the camera, you can cut the cable and put it into a double socket (one from the house, one to the camera) and insert a switch in between to split out the network as required.
If the camera isn't too power hungry, there are switches that are PoE powered AND provide PoE downstream - really useful :)
 

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