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Run Ethernet in conduit with electrical cable? (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by biimerge@alien.top to c/homenetworking@selfhosted.forum

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Hello,

I’m hoping to get some advice. I am finishing a room above my detached garage as a hangout space but, due to the distance from my house and obstructions (trees) I have a poor Wi-Fi signal. I use a Nest mesh network and have a Wi-Fi point at the corner of my house closest to the garage and in the garage at the point closest to the house. I was hoping this would give me sufficient reliability and bandwidth but I’m coming to find that it doesn’t.

I initially had an idea to run a power receptacle off of the circuit that serves the sub panel in the garage but it seems to be too much of a pain to find and properly install an outlet that would work and be safe on a 30 amp breaker.

My next thought was to run a Cat6 cable from the house to the garage using the oversized conduit that is already in the ground for the electrical service to the garage. My concern with this approach is that I could get a large amount of interference on the Cat6 cable due to its proximity to the electrical cable in a confined, underground space.

Digging a new trench would be a huge project given the landscape and I would prefer to use the existing conduit if possible. Is this possible? Or is my concern about interference founded? Any other options I’m not thinking of?

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[–] zcd@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah don’t run ethernet cable alongside powered conductors for any significant length or you will get some induction interference. Depending on how big your pipe is maybe you could pull some type of flexible conduit in there with your ethernet cable inside it to provide some shielding?

[–] Brkdncr@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

Nope. Typically against code. Try powerline Ethernet adapters.

[–] pdt9876@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

You're not suuuuuuuuuuuppposssed to. Its not best practice. Blah blah blah. Use a shielded cable, ground it, it'll be fine. Cat 6 is tightly twisted and 120-220 volts does not produce the kind of interference that high voltage transmission lines do.

[–] ramsacha@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

Fiber with media converters.

[–] ClintE1956@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

Not much more expensive to pull fiber; don't think there should be any interference as there would be with copper. FS.com has many standard pre-made lengths or I think they also make custom.

Cheers!