Romex vs aluminum-armored power cable

[miamicanes]

I'm finally rewiring the living room. I'm going to be removing the lower 3 inches of drywall behind the old baseboards, installing Wiretracks at the top of the cavity, and running power cables at the bottom, before mounting the new 5-1/2" baseboard to the wiretracks. It's the closest I can get to "in-wall", because the drywall is mounted to furring strips nailed into concrete, and the area that would otherwise be ~3/4" of empty space is filled with foam insulation.

I know running power and data lines in parallel close proximity is a Bad Thing... but would the use of grounded, aluminum-armored power flex-cable instead of unshielded Romex make any real difference? Or is there anything I can do at installation time (loop the cat5 bundle through big ferrite rings every few feet?) to mitigate the problem?

 

[Photon]

In this village of cubicles where I work they run the data cables and power up through the same hole inthe concrete floor and then into channels in the furniture with little or no separation down a length of cubes many dozens of feet long. The data, voice, and power all seem to coexist OK. The installers don’t go out of their way to observe details such as minimum bend radius, either. In my years supporting the network and client PCs, the only problems I’ve had is with poor terminations. I’ve had to reinstall numerous data jacks after the installers depart, and everything works just fine until the next change.

 

[upstatemike]

I am not sure what Wiretracks are but several companies make 2 channel track specifically for running high and low voltage next to each other. The track is metal and is grounded so the barrier between the high and low voltage acts as a shield so you don't have issues with close proximity.

 

[drozwood90]

Cat5 cable is inherently immune to noise as the wires inside are twisted (each pair at a different rate).

I would imagine that there will be SOME signal goofs and losses, but it'll be so small, your crimps on the ends are probably going to cause more dB loss then the AC will (as most...myself included...can not crimp by "spec.).

--Dan

 

[Photon]

Dan said: "your crimps on the ends are probably going to cause more dB loss then the AC will "

Fifteen years ago our network "experts" determined the most reliable distribution was through a single chunk of cat 3 from the hub in the equipment room all the way to the desktop. Every cable had a pair of male plugs field-crimped. Somewhere along the line they decided the industry-standard method of simply punching down Cat5e into female jacks at the PC end and then using patch cables for the final six feet to the PC was better. Of course the other end is now punched onto the back of a patch panel on a rack, and a short patch cable goes to the switch.

I think life is much easier with no need for crimper; just a punch-down tool. I just wish we still required our LVDS contractor to certify every run. Seems I always have some quality under-desk time after each big job.

 

[tmbrown97]

long ago I had an instance where power lines caused interference... We had our electrician running wires and I did the termination. My tester only tested wire breaks, not ability to carry a signal without interference. Wires tested out but didn't work when hooked to a PC. Re-ran the wires with plenum - same exact result. Finally asked the electrician some questions and realized he ran the wires through the same j-box as the electrical. He pulled them out and ran through a different point, and all problems resolved.

Now I have all wires certified. If I have trouble, first test is a Fluke CableIQ that can certify through gigabit - I even certified my house with it ;-)

now I've seen plenty of cases where the wires were parallel within an inch of each other no problem (most cubicle cable runs)... I think in this particular case, they were literally touching - but I never saw for myself.