Running optical to attic

[politby]

Hello all,

I have been lurking around here for a while and just decided to join.

I am installing some security cameras around my house, PoE powered, they will be wall mounted under the eaves on both sides of the house. The Cat5e cables from the cameras will enter the house through holes hidden by the camera mounts so no visible cables on the outside.

Behind the walls where the cameras sit is an attic/crawl space, perfect for routing wiring. In the crawl space I am installing a 3Com 24 port PoE switch for connecting the cameras and a couple of outdoor access points.

Unfortunately my IT closet is in the basement two floors below and there really is no inside route available for wiring from the attic as all the conduits inside the walls are already fully occupied. So the connection from the basement switch to the one in the attic has to be routed on the outside of the house.

Both switches have SFP ports. I happen to have some optical stuff lying around so my thinking is to use mini transceivers and a 15 meter multimode LC to LC cable which will be routed through a hole in the basement wall to the outside and then straight up along the wall, entering the attic through another hole under the eave.

The optical cable should be as unobtrusive as possible. Ideally I would just run it along the wooden facade, held by clips, and then paint over it. That would make it essentially invisible, but leave it exposed to the elements. Or I could run it inside a 16 millimeter PVC conduit which is then painted over, but that is going to look a lot more kludgy.

How robust are these optical cables? My location (eastern Sweden) has a varied climate to say the least so it needs to survive temperatures from -25 to +40 Celsius, direct sunlight, wind snow and rain.

Recommendations?

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[kanewolf]

Typical "jumper" type cable will deteriorate when exposed to sunlight for a long time. I think you would need to get outdoor rated cable. Corning's website has a lot of info. There is also, outdoor (even direct burial) cat5 cable. That would be a much cheaper choice and not much more visible.

 

[politby]

Thanks. Well the cat 5 solution is not going to be cheaper because I have all the optical stuff already.
Also the 3Com switch is older and only 10/100 except for the SFP ports, and while the cameras and access points are fine with 100M I would like it to be connected to the house network via gigabit. So connecting it via cat 5 to the main network would require me to purchase some 1000 Base T mini-GBICs which seems unnecessary because I have the optical transceivers and cable already.

So I think I'm going to take a chance and run the optical cable. My neighbor who's an electrician suggested I use a metal cable protector, basically half of a pipe, supposedly very easy to paint, to protect it where it runs up the wall. He insists this should work out great.

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[fistv]

Thanks. Well the cat 5 solution is not going to be cheaper because I have all the optical stuff already.
Also the 3Com switch is older and only 10/100 except for the SFP ports, and while the cameras and access points are fine with 100M I would like it to be connected to the house network via gigabit. So connecting it via cat 5 to the main network would require me to purchase some 1000 Base T mini-GBICs which seems unnecessary because I have the optical transceivers and cable already.

So I think I'm going to take a chance and run the optical cable. My neighbor who's an electrician suggested I use a metal cable protector, basically half of a pipe, supposedly very easy to paint, to protect it where it runs up the wall. He insists this should work out great.

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I would go with 3/4 or 1" full conduit including the two 90 Degree turns at each end, it's paint able and you can seal the two 90's where they penetrate the house skin. I would also run them up close and personal to one of your downspouts, paint them before hand with Rustoleum just wipe them down with lacquer thinner or prep-sol first and then use their primer then paint. While you are at it pull a cat 6 in there as well, you may not need it but it sure might come in handy if you did a couple of years from now.

 

[azazel1024]

^

Pretty decent suggestions.

That said, if I had to buy the conduit, I'd just get 1/2" electrical PVC conduit and not metal. Fiber in there or not, I'd avoid metal conduit. I'd feel obligated to ground it otherwise (even if no electrical running through it) and you might have long term corrosion issues. The electrical PVC conduit is generally meant to run outside and underground and any kind of corosion issues aren't something you should have to worry about within a resonable life time (as in possibly not in your life time). Shouldn't need to paint it at all (unless to the color of your house/siding if you want) and doing the connections are easy, just a 90 degree connector and some PVC cleaner then vulcanizing glue.

I would not leave the fiber bare. Non-outdoor rated fiber is really not likely to last a real long time exposed to UV and rain. In a well sealed conduit above ground, it'll probably be fine. See if you can look up the fiber in question still see what its environmental rating is. If you are exceeding it, I would NOT install it. You are possibly just wasting your time.

 

[politby]

Thanks guys. We decided to use PVC conduit along the wall, it needs to be painted over as it's white and the house is dark red.

I have no idea of the brand of the fiber, i'ts been lying around for quite some time, all I know is that it's new, orange and with LC connectors.

Running it along a downspout is a great idea but they are, obviously, at the corners of the house and the only possible exit for the cable from the basement is15 feet from the nearest corner. The siding isn't flat so running the cable horizontally along the siding would look awful. Straight up is the only way.
Thank you for the suggestion to run Cat6 as well, I am certainly going to do that because Murphy will ensure it will be needed at some point.

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[fistv]

Thanks guys. We decided to use PVC conduit along the wall, it needs to be painted over as it's white and the house is dark red.

I have no idea of the brand of the fiber, i'ts been lying around for quite some time, all I know is that it's new, orange and with LC connectors.

Running it along a downspout is a great idea but they are, obviously, at the corners of the house and the only possible exit for the cable from the basement is15 feet from the nearest corner. The siding isn't flat so running the cable horizontally along the siding would look awful. Straight up is the only way.
Thank you for the suggestion to run Cat6 as well, I am certainly going to do that because Murphy will ensure it will be needed at some point.

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PVC comes in white, black and gray. There is also a good chance you can find a pvc specific paint from rustoleum that will come close just make sure to do the prep work before you paint it or you will be doing it again in a couple of months

 

[azazel1024]

Rustoleum makes a spray paint for plastic (and other surfaces) that bonds really, really well to PVC. At least a couple of dozen different colors. I've used it on PVC deck furniture and on PVC conduit before.

Good luck! (also, yeah, the only fiber I have laying around is "mystery" orange fiber with LC ends, though I only have a 1m strand of it. Got it for $.80US to test out the mini GBIC fiber modules my brother handed down to me since he was going to toss them otherwise. Both of my switches have a pair of SFP ports, so yay! I am not actually using them, because power (switches draw about 2w extra when using the SFP ports compared to about .7w extra using the copper 1000base-t ports as uplinks). But it is still cool to plug them in and see the lasers shining out. I will be using them for outdoor buried fiber to an outbuilding at some future date, but its probably still 2-3 years out.

 

[politby]

I will have to use the same paint used to paint the house because it's a custom color. I have another PVC conduit on the other side of the house used for coax to a satellite dish. I painted over it a year ago and it's still pristine so no worries about that.

Unfortunately the second hand 3com switch that I got off eBay came locked with settings which have the SFP ports disabled - I wrote about that in another post - and I'm trying to get the switch reset to factory settings. If that doesn't work out I may have to use cat6 after all, or find another switch. In any case I will install the fiber cable.

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[TonyH]

Hi,
Is it possible to hide the conduit right beside a down spout at the corner of back of it and wall routing the exit from basement close to where it is and let it go into eaves.
Between roof rafters are open air passage baffled channels for attic vent. Use that opening and now you are in the attic. I'd do this way if I were in this situation.

 

[politby]

Certainly possible, but rather pointless because all that would do is add another 15 feet of conduit on the outside that needs to be hidden or painted over.
I have those open air passages too but they are covered by anti insect netting which I would rather not poke holes in. Drilling and sealing a hole in the siding is much better.
It will require pushing the cable through about a foot of insulation (between the upper floor ceiling and the attic) but that's pretty easy because because its the fluffy type that's pumped into place through a large hose, not the sheet type.

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[TonyH]

Hi,
Need to paint any thing hiddden? Maybe your eaves are different than my house.