IDC artery: analysis of six types of cables

The International Cat 6 copper cabling system standards mainly include ANSI/TIA/EIA568B.2-1 in North America, and the International Standard ISO/IEC11801: 2002 also specifies the definition of Class E cabling systems, the two standards have been promulgated for more than five years. We can see that in the current wiring selection of new buildings, Category 6/Class E wiring has become the preferred choice for medium and high-end domestic users. However, after more than a decade of development, the domestic cabling market has developed rapidly and the competition has become increasingly fierce. Faced with the six solutions of different brands and prices, users and integrators will inevitably be confused, from the perspective of common unshielded cat6 cable structures, this article briefly introduces some details that should be paid attention to during the selection. It is mainly explained in two aspects:

1. Internal Support Structure of category 6 Cables

This problem has previously led to a debate on the advantages and disadvantages, namely: Cross skeleton line. the field is separated offline, but in the cabling market, there are also six types of lines launched by a vendor that do not have any internal support structures, so there should be three methods of comparison.

Category 6 cables use a 4-wire pair isolation device, which is currently the choice of the vast majority of wiring manufacturers. This cable contains a spiral cross support structure, locking all twisted wires in four relatively fixed positions, it can effectively reduce mutual interference between the 0-250 MHz lines in the full frequency working range, and has stable balance characteristics. In actual construction environments, it can show good tensile and extrusion resistance characteristics, six class cable of the Cross skeleton, such as the 23AWG, has high electrical properties such as high crosstalk attenuation and impedance after installation.

The one-character isolation Band Structure Cable has a built-in separator line, which separates the two pairs of twisted pair wires from the other two pairs. The stability between the two pairs is worse than that of the cross structure. In actual construction, this structure is easy due to construction factors: such as bending, twisting, traction is too large, and the binding is too tight, resulting in line displacement problems, resulting in the actual test of the electric performance margin is low. In addition, the outer diameter of the six types of cables with a single separator is 6mm, and the outer diameter of the six types of cables with a cross skeleton is less than 3mm. For unshielded cables, this gap has little impact on the pipe slot and bending radius, the construction difficulty and cost will not increase. It is worth noting that this cable is gradually replaced by the cross skeleton cable of the same manufacturer, indicating its future is not optimistic.

There is no line-to-support structure. The so-called cat6 cables of the 24AWG specification can be used to sing in the market. Essentially, it can only be regarded as a super five-class cable with excellent performance, and the bandwidth performance can reach 250 MHz of the six categories in ideal conditions. It is an edge product, but it cannot be idealized at the actual construction site, therefore, during the test, it is easy to fail due to cable laying or terminal connection problems.

2. Wire Diameter

This is a relatively easy-to-ignore problem. In the same cat6 cross skeleton line on the cabling market, the copper core line diameter usually has two indicators: 24AWG (Standard 0.511mm) and 23AWG standard 0.573mm, if we compare the actual copper content of a box of wires, the ratio of the copper content of the 24AWG cat6 line to the copper content of the 23AWG cat6 line will reach 1: 1.25 due to the different wire diameter. In terms of the market price, there is a small gap between the two types of cables. Many users and integrators do not pay attention to this difference, but they just feel that the price of category 6 of a certain brand is cheap.

The cat6 standard defines a range for the thickness and specification of cat6 copper wires. For example, in the cat6 standard of TIA, the copper core diameter must be between 22AWG-24AWG, therefore, the 24AWG specification is the lowest standard for Cat 6 copper cores. According to the link and channel performance of these cables, the electrical indicators of cat6 of 23AWG are much higher than those of cat6 of 24AWG, with a wide bandwidth margin and wider application adaptability.

The selection of different copper cores represents the market strategy of the wiring manufacturer. In terms of performance and price trade-offs, there is a saying that as long as the six-class performance test can pass, the cost will be minimized. This also leads to the emergence of some low-performance products and solutions in the cabling market. For example, the six-category copper cores of some manufacturers have been quietly reduced from 23AWG to 24AWG, which is also due to this kind of interest.

We believe that reducing raw material investment to reduce production costs and improving price competitiveness at the cost of system performance is an impetuous short-term phenomenon, which is not conducive to the long-term healthy development of cabling enterprises. For customers, when determining their needs, they should also rationally plan and locate the truly cost-effective cabling system based on their long-term application development.

1. Summary of six types of Integrated Wiring System Construction Experience
2. Portal of category 6 Cabling