What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?

"dbljay7542" wrote in message
...
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?


Typical telephone wire is 24 gauge, we usually use Cat5

Doorbell and thermostats typically use 18 gauge bell wire

dbljay7542 wrote:
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?

telephone 2, but now - a - days they are pulling cat 5 for them

thermostats 8 conductor thermostat wire usually. Although some require
more.

doorbell is 18/2

"dbljay7542" wrote in message
...
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?


If you have to ask here, perhaps you should not be doing it. Thermostats
especially, Conductors vary depending on the heating/cooling system
installed.

You should be in the book store researching.

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:34:25 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


"dbljay7542" wrote in message
...
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?


If you have to ask here, perhaps you should not be doing it. Thermostats
especially, Conductors vary depending on the heating/cooling system
installed.

You should be in the book store researching.

He has a good point, because there is a lot to be learned besides the
number of wires. Are you building the whole house yourself, or just
putting in the wiring?

As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is
what my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The
phone company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.

"mm"
As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is
what my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The
phone company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.

"Cat 5" has 4 PAIRS of conductors. (That's 8 conductors)

It's used for networking. 4 pair telephone cable would do the same job.

The Cat 5 cable has the twisting of the pair optimized so that it can carry
the digital signals without excess crosstalk, etc.

I'm not "up" on the color code but once you get to a certain number of pairs
telco wiring uses a scheme where each pair has two colors: the base and the
"trace" color. In a particular pair, one conductor might be Red with a
blue trace and the other conductor will be Blue with a red trace.

At the 4 pair level (8 wires) I think they still just use solid colors.

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:54:03 -0500, mm wrote:

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:34:25 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:


"dbljay7542" wrote in message
news:ae0cfb09-859a-403f-a9f7-
...
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?


If you have to ask here, perhaps you should not be doing it.
Thermostats especially, Conductors vary depending on the
heating/cooling system installed.

You should be in the book store researching.

He has a good point, because there is a lot to be learned besides the
number of wires. Are you building the whole house yourself, or just
putting in the wiring?

As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is what
my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The phone
company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.


Cat 5 cable = Category 5, 4 twisted paired wires which are unshielded and
suitable for high speed digital connections. Most commonly sold as CAT
5e. Good for digital communications up to 100 Mega bits per second
(100BaseTX Ethernet protocol). Cat 5e specification by Manufactures
usually is good for 350 Mega bits per second.

The Category 5 comes from an industry standard ANSI/EIA 568 - A. That
specification deals with twist in each pair, twists between (amongst) the
pairs, and color coding.

Other common digital and communications cables are Cat-3 (seldom used)
and Cat 6 which is designed for 1000 Mega bit per second (Gigabit
Ethernet)

Normally, out of the 4 pairs, (Blue, Orange, Green, Brown) only the blue
conductors are used for telephones. Be it a 4 wire jack (RJ-11) or an 8
wire jack (RJ-45) the blue wires connect to the center two conductors on
the jack and plug. It is possible to have 4 phones on a single Cat 5
conductor.

For digital communications on an RJ-45:
Ethernet protocol (most commonly used) uses Blue and Orange pair (first
two conductors and center two conductors.)
Token Ring protocol (very uncommon anymore) uses Blue and Green pair
(center 4 conductors)

If you live in Canada, YMMV, due to an old color code specification for
wiring up wall outlets for computers and phones.

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:54:03 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:34:25 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


"dbljay7542" wrote in message
...
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?


If you have to ask here, perhaps you should not be doing it. Thermostats
especially, Conductors vary depending on the heating/cooling system
installed.

You should be in the book store researching.

He has a good point, because there is a lot to be learned besides the
number of wires. Are you building the whole house yourself, or just
putting in the wiring?

As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is
what my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The
phone company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.


Cat-5 cable has 4 twisted pairs.

On my cable the pairs use the colors of orange, green, blue, and
brown. Each pair has one solid color wire and one with a white stripe.
For computer networks, these are connected to 8-position connectors.
Phone plugs fit into these jacks and are centered.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"The government of the United States is not, in
any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:54:03 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:34:25 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:


"dbljay7542" wrote in message
...
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?


If you have to ask here, perhaps you should not be doing it. Thermostats
especially, Conductors vary depending on the heating/cooling system
installed.

You should be in the book store researching.

He has a good point, because there is a lot to be learned besides the
number of wires. Are you building the whole house yourself, or just
putting in the wiring?

As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is
what my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The
phone company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.

Cat 5 is 4 twisted pairs, just like cat 3 ( but different twist) I'd
pull cat 5 or cat 6 for phone and data, and special 'stat cable.

John Gilmer wrote:
"mm"
As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is
what my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The
phone company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.

"Cat 5" has 4 PAIRS of conductors. (That's 8 conductors)

It's used for networking. 4 pair telephone cable would do the same job.

The Cat 5 cable has the twisting of the pair optimized so that it can carry
the digital signals without excess crosstalk, etc.

I'm not "up" on the color code but once you get to a certain number of pairs
telco wiring uses a scheme where each pair has two colors: the base and the
"trace" color. In a particular pair, one conductor might be Red with a
blue trace and the other conductor will be Blue with a red trace.

At the 4 pair level (8 wires) I think they still just use solid colors.



typical install is to use the oranges for the primary, and the blues for
a second line when using cat 5 for phones. The "4 pair telephone cable"
you mention would typically be cat 3 or 4 and has mostly been replaced
by cat 5 so not as many spools need to be carried by installers.

s

wrote:
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:03:59 -0600, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

these are connected to 8-position connectors.
Phone plugs fit into these jacks and are centered.


Don't do it. A 6 position connector is not properly supported in an 8
position jack and it will be a shaky connection. A sideways pull might
even break the lock tab off.

it actually works just fine. A sideways pull *may* break the wire also
in an rj-11 jack. There's all kinds of risks in life. Best way is just
to not have a sideways pull at all.

s

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:45:13 -0600, Phil Again
wrote:



Cat 5 cable = Category 5,

Well, it sounds reasonable, but I think they did this, just to confuse
me. They're very sneaky.

Thanks for all the replies.

4 twisted paired wires which are unshielded and
suitable for high speed digital connections. Most commonly sold as CAT
5e. Good for digital communications up to 100 Mega bits per second
(100BaseTX Ethernet protocol). Cat 5e specification by Manufactures
usually is good for 350 Mega bits per second.

On Feb 14, 1:44*pm, wrote:
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:09:58 -0600, Steve Barker

wrote:
Don't do it. A 6 position connector is not properly supported in an 8
position jack and it will be a shaky connection. A sideways pull might
even break the lock tab off.

it actually works just fine. *A sideways pull *may* break the wire also
in an rj-11 jack. *There's all kinds of risks in life. *Best way is just
to not have a sideways pull at all.

As long as you can tolerate a noisy connection, go for it

Once you get above a small number of conductors such as the two
conductor used for say a bell door push or certain types of low
voltage thermostat wiring, or the typical four wires in telco, wiring
(Red, green, black, yellow) the use of which vary slightly through out
North America but where red and green are 'usually' the telephone
pair;

A standard communication colour coding was/is based on something along
the lines below.

Pair # 1
Main wire colour = Blue
Mate' wire colour = White; or if the first wire is solid blue, maybe a
white wire with blue marking to identify it as 'other' wire of the
"Blue pair".

Pair # 2

Main = Orange
Mate = White or similar to above.

Pair # 3

Main = Green
Mate = White or similar .............

Pair # 4

Main = Brown
Mate = White etc.

Pair # 5

Main = Slate (A sort of greyish blue).
Mate = White etc.

From these five basic wiring colours, for which the Blue, Orange,
Green, Brown, Slate, is engraved on the memory of anyone who ever did
any detail work in traditional telecommunications; by varying the
'mate' colours (Using, black, red,white, yellow etc. and by the
bundles in which the groups are wrapped, huge cables of hundreds and
thousands of combinations of pairs can be assembled.

Communication cables were/are arranged in pairs within different
twists (called lays) each pair of wires having a different rate of
turns so as to minimize coupling (called crosstalk) between the
separate circuits. Cross talk can lead to overhearing (voice) and
transmission errors (computer) so it's best to get it right before
choosing installing or closing an any wiring. Usually not a problem
when wiring domestically.

But just to give a very simple example; even though each cable pair
has very high isolation from adjacent wires and pairs carrying similar
signals, one would not put a loudspeaker circuit carrying up to say 50
to 100 watts on music peaks (quintuple that for 'young' music
aficionados?) into the same cable being used for a low level
microphone or telephone circuit where the level is one or two mill-
iwatts (thousandths of a watt) or less. The 10,000 to one ratio of 100
watts to 1x10 to minus 3 watts could be a problem!

wrote:
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:07:47 -0600, Steve Barker
wrote:

John Gilmer wrote:
"mm"
As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is
what my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The
phone company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.
"Cat 5" has 4 PAIRS of conductors. (That's 8 conductors)

It's used for networking. 4 pair telephone cable would do the same job.

The Cat 5 cable has the twisting of the pair optimized so that it can carry
the digital signals without excess crosstalk, etc.

I'm not "up" on the color code but once you get to a certain number of pairs
telco wiring uses a scheme where each pair has two colors: the base and the
"trace" color. In a particular pair, one conductor might be Red with a
blue trace and the other conductor will be Blue with a red trace.

At the 4 pair level (8 wires) I think they still just use solid colors.



typical install is to use the oranges for the primary, and the blues for
a second line when using cat 5 for phones. The "4 pair telephone cable"
you mention would typically be cat 3 or 4 and has mostly been replaced
by cat 5 so not as many spools need to be carried by installers.

s


Bell System practice is blue white is line 1, orange white is line 2.

Ya, i got it backwards. ( and so is my install on my house G )
orange, blue, who cares. ? two wires is two wires. LMAO!


s

Phil Again wrote:
On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:54:03 -0500, mm wrote:

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:34:25 -0500, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:


"dbljay7542" wrote in message
news:ae0cfb09-859a-403f-a9f7-
...
What size wire and how many conductors do I need to wire up
telephones, thermostats, & doorbells in the house that I am building?

If you have to ask here, perhaps you should not be doing it.
Thermostats especially, Conductors vary depending on the
heating/cooling system installed.

You should be in the book store researching.
He has a good point, because there is a lot to be learned besides the
number of wires. Are you building the whole house yourself, or just
putting in the wiring?

As to phone conductors, Does Cat-5 mean 5 conductors. I think 10 is what
my house was built with and it seems like a good idea to me. The phone
company put in 4 decades before anyone used 4.

Cat 5 cable = Category 5, 4 twisted paired wires which are unshielded and
suitable for high speed digital connections. Most commonly sold as CAT
5e. Good for digital communications up to 100 Mega bits per second
(100BaseTX Ethernet protocol). Cat 5e specification by Manufactures
usually is good for 350 Mega bits per second.

The Category 5 comes from an industry standard ANSI/EIA 568 - A. That
specification deals with twist in each pair, twists between (amongst) the
pairs, and color coding.

Other common digital and communications cables are Cat-3 (seldom used)
and Cat 6 which is designed for 1000 Mega bit per second (Gigabit
Ethernet)

Normally, out of the 4 pairs, (Blue, Orange, Green, Brown) only the blue
conductors are used for telephones. Be it a 4 wire jack (RJ-11) or an 8
wire jack (RJ-45) the blue wires connect to the center two conductors on
the jack and plug. It is possible to have 4 phones on a single Cat 5
conductor.

For digital communications on an RJ-45:
Ethernet protocol (most commonly used) uses Blue and Orange pair (first
two conductors and center two conductors.)
Token Ring protocol (very uncommon anymore) uses Blue and Green pair
(center 4 conductors)

If you live in Canada, YMMV, due to an old color code specification for
wiring up wall outlets for computers and phones.


That's interesting, all the Cat5 I've ever installed uses
the orange and green pairs for data and the blue and brown
pairs for a second data channel or for PoE "Power over Ethernet".
One good reason to run Cat5 or better is that a lot of phone
technology is turning to VoIP. Future home phones will probably
all plug into a common network with everything else. I install
a lot of phone systems and I like to use the Northern Telecom
systems because they work off a single pair. In the good old days
the business phone systems I installed required a 25 or 50 pair
cable per phone, GEEZ the labor!

TDD