The Essential Technical Information On CAT 6 Plenum WireYou may have observed that CAT 6 plenum wire is made from solid copper conductor. This is because the solid conductor is free from appreciable data loss whereas braided copper wire used in CAT 6 non-plenum cable is not that free from data loss. CAT 6 plenum wire, as made by manufacturers, generally has a diameter that corresponds to AWG (American Wire Gauge) 23. The electrical rating of the wire is defined in the NEC (National Electrical Code) standard and is its maximum current carrying capacity in amperes (amp in short) without it being heated beyond a safe limit This limit also depends on the ambient temperature. The wire is used as the major component in CAT 6 plenum cables for carrying data and in a coaxial cable for CATV (Community Antenna Television or Cable TV in short) or CCTV (closed circuit television) application. When used for either of the TV applications, it is rated as per the Radio Guide (RG) standard. Generally wire conforming to RG59 or RG6 is used in TV applications. After the CAT 6 plenum wire, as used in networking applications in the form of plenum cable, is inserted into the wiring end of an RJ-45 plug the contact is sealed using a crimper. Besides the above two different applications, CAT 6 plenum wire can also be used in custom cables to carry both data and audio/video at the same time in multimedia applications. This can be achieved by using HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) ports to connect the CAT 6 plenum cable to an HDTV (high definition television) monitor. Such high definition products are increasingly being used in commercial enterprises and in military surveillance networks. You will find that the solid copper conductor CAT 6 plenum wire cannot be bent as easily as a braided non-plenum CAT 6 cable wire. This is because the solid conductor poses more resistance to bending than does the braided wire. As the solid copper CAT 6 plenum wire is routed in the form of a cable through air conditioning ducts in buildings, you need to be careful while bending the cable. In case you inadvertently bend it beyond its critical bending radius, it is curtains for sure. You can do nothing else except simply replace the entire cable, which is quite expensive. A CAT 6 plenum cable used for networking is composed from 8 individually insulated wires. The stripped cable ends you will notice are composed of 4 pairs of wires, with each pair consisting of 2 individually sheathed wires twisted together. Each such CAT 6 plenum wire has a different color code. The codes corresponding to the 8 different wires are white/orange, orange, white/green, blue, white/blue, green, white/brown, and brown respectively. |