Had a chat with an old sparky at a supply house job site in Denver yesterday

He told me he's been running cat6 and alarm wires parallel in the same conduit for 20 years with zero interference, and now I'm wondering if I've been overthinking my separation specs this whole time, anyone else ever get told something that flies in the face of what you learned?

3 comments

3 Comments

robin5911mo ago

HVAC guy I worked with back in the day swore low voltage always runs clean in the same pipe if you use twisted pair right. Read a study a while back that said the real issue is distance from high voltage and not mixed data types, so that old spark might be onto something. Sounds like modern gear is just more forgiving than the book says.

the_mary1mo ago

Is that old spark still kicking around? Because I've seen twisted pair get killed by a long parallel run right next to a main feed, no matter how clean the pair was. Modern gear might be more forgiving, but I still wouldn't trust anything that cuts corners on separation.

seth_shah1mo ago

Ran a PLC network through the same conduit as some 480V motor leads once and it worked fine for YEARS with good twisted pair. @robin591 is right that modern gear handles it way better, but I still give it a foot of space whenever I can to be safe.