Home electrical help needed

"TheHondaBro" (wwaveform) 09/18/2015 at 14:34 • Filed to: None

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My dad and I are planning on running some HDMI and Ethernet wires through the wall, and we’re worried that the power cables will interfere with the HDMI and Ethernet.

Two questions:

1) Should we be worried?

2) How would we ensure the wires are separated in the wall?

Disco Volante for your time.

Mattbob > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 14:39

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I wouldn’t worry about it too much. HDMI cables should be shielded, and CAT5 ethernet wire is pretty immune to interference. How long of a run is the HDMI cable?

lone_liberal > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 14:39

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As long as they are not run parallel for any length you should be ok. If you are coming up from the basement or down from the ceiling you will be fine since they will be at a 90 degree angle with the power wires which are run horizontally.

TheHondaBro > Mattbob 09/18/2015 at 14:43

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We’re getting 12ft HDMI cables, but not all of it is going in the wall.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 14:43

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The electrical engineers I work with always want 6-inches of separation. (but my breath isn’t that bad is it?) I have never seen issues with power messing up com, unless it is 4-20 mA signal.

Mattbob > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 14:47

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yeah, you will be fine. Just don’t staple the wires to anything and smash the twisted pairs inside and you will be fine.

Party-vi > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 14:49

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Put a chase in your wall - get some 2” PVC pipe and run that into your wall, or some flexible 2” hose. Then you should be able to fish your lines through the tubing/pipe without worrying about where they will end up or running along the power lines. FWIW, you should not experience any interference. Also, home improvement stores sell wall plates just for that reason.

Mattbob > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 09/18/2015 at 14:49

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yeah, instrumentation is a totally different beast than digital twisted pairs.

Mattbob > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 09/18/2015 at 14:53

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some separation is good practice, but unless the AC lines are running some serious current, there probably wont be nearly enough interference to disrupt a decently shielded HDMI cable or ethernet.

NaturallyAspirated > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 14:55

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Everyone else is correct: it’s not normally a problem, and the only way it could be a problem is if the cables are run parallel to the power and in very close proximity.

Are you planning on putting jack plates onto the wall? I just ran coax and Ethernet in my apartment (the landlord is a cool guy who was OK with me doing this) and used low voltage old-work boxes for the jacks, and a small patch panel in the closet with the cable modem and router. So in my case, ports 6 and 7 are the master bedroom, ports 11 and 12 are the second bedroom, and ports 1 and 2 are the living room. I did that because it’s really easy to run extra cables while everything is apart, so might as well put in several.

If you haven’t bought cable yet, Cat6 is only a few cents more than Cat5e and it gives you a lot more leeway for poor punchdowns while still working at 1Gb.

Because Racecar > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 15:00

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Everything is shielded so you won’t get interference, fishing might be a bitch at times but most of all get faceplates. Your HDMI cord will go to the back and the faceplate acts as an extension of it. Faceplates make the job look good, faceplates make your home more flexible. Faceplates faceplates FACEPLATES!

HammerheadFistpunch > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 15:14

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What he said, HDMI is shielded (by virtue of the standard) and Cat5 is no biggie. If you are worried don’t run it parallel to power.

TheHondaBro > Because Racecar 09/18/2015 at 15:17

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Oh, we’re getting faceplates.

TractorPillow > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 15:20

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Check with your home insurance company to make sure an electrician doesn't have to do it; heard of problems with insurance in the past with that kind of thing. I didn't believe it at first, but it's true in some parts of country.

JGrabowMSt > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 15:21

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It will not interfere. My job does this on the regular.

We do home automation and wire things from end to end of the house. If powerlines were an issue, my company would be out of business.

TahoeSTi > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 15:30

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Make sure you test the HDMI chain, meaning plug it all in before you put it in the wall, I’ve had some face plates for HDMI cause connection issues. Also run cat6 if you can it’s better sheilded. (not that it will matter much) And if you want you can do HDMI over Cat6 for longer runs with something like this http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=8…

I use HDMI over Cat6 to run every tv in my house from the same closet, which allows any tv to pick any source in the closet. So the Xbox one and PS3, Cable, and computer in there can be used by any room.

JGrabowMSt > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 15:31

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Get Keystone faceplates and keystone inserts. Costs more, 100% flexible. You ran HDMI but want to change to a Cat7 for HDBaseT in the future? Pop out the keystone jack, snake the new wire and you’re done.

Amazon has keystone stuff for super cheap. Keystone isn’t the brand, keystone is the style product.

I also recommend buying larger plates than you need and filling unused ports with a blank cover. The expansion options for the future are a huge selling point.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > NaturallyAspirated 09/18/2015 at 15:38

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Well put, and if you’re buying new cables, there’s no reason not to get Cat6. I just wired up my whole house with Cat6 this past spring.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > TractorPillow 09/18/2015 at 15:39

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An Electrician to run a display cable and a network cable?

That’s insanity.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > TahoeSTi 09/18/2015 at 15:40

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That’s a pretty slick set up.

I may look into something like that in the future. I’ve got my whole house wired Cat6.

Gonemad > TheHondaBro 09/18/2015 at 15:58

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We used to have one design for power over ethernet to feed a wireless router in our outdoorsy project.

TL DR:

We pumped the 802.11b router signal over a 2 miles distance. The bandwitdh dropped due the distance, exactly as our telecoms engineer said it would, not the presence of power over the wire all the way to the roof. We still got 1Mbps, give or take. We could boost the gain, but we would eventually black out the entire WiFi neighborhood for THIRTY miles, with a complimentary visit by our local FCC, just using a “pringles can” type of antenna, on one side, and a grill one on the other, with a resulting gain of 12dB. A pen-sized internal antenna has a gain of 2dB, for comparison. The real trick was to find an WiFi router that would pick a WiFi signal and feed the LAN clients, thus reversing what your regular WiFi router does. Our results weren’t better due... the ocean. Salty water just reflects or absorbs the signal.

/ TL DR.

Ethernet cables, being made of copper, handle power with no ill effects. HDMI can be converted straight into ethernet, despite using two cables for the raw throughput, so I doubt you will have any problem such as interference with 50/60Hz power, since they can literally be merged in one single cable type.

You are better off converting the HDMI signal into ethernet and enjoying the extra 100ft of range available on the Ethernet-shaped cable. Ethernet cabling runs for cents per meter. The longer the distance, the more cost-effective is Ethernet.

As long you don’t overload the cable piping, you will be fine, even using HDMI and Ethernet mixed with power wiring. A thumb rule is to keep 50% of the area of the piping free.

The photo below is not mine, but look how tidy and organized it is, with HDMI and Ethernet plates and stuff, right along with the power plugs :

And this:

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

And the converter to Ethernet. It is not always the best answer, only if you have issues about the range. I never used one of those, but I surely would try, since ethernet cables are dirt-cheap.

To summon it up: You don’t need to worry about interference. At all.

TractorPillow > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 09/18/2015 at 16:30

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Yep. Doesn't hurt to ask. Agreed. Insane.

TahoeSTi > MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner 09/18/2015 at 16:35

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They even have a box that allows adds a 10/100 Ethernet port next to the HDMI port so you don’t lose any hardwired networked devices....assuming you don’t need 1Gbs.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > TractorPillow 09/18/2015 at 16:39

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I guess that’s just another thing I shouldn’t tell my insurance then.

Like when they asked if the Montego was modified.

Not my fault they haven’t asked if anything’s changed in 4 years...

I ran Cat6 ethernet all over my house this year

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > TahoeSTi 09/18/2015 at 16:48

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Those are pretty sweet.

I have everything on my internal network setup for 1Gbs. None of my devices crack 100 at this point. Router, NAS and 8 port switch are all 10/100/1000, it’s also why I did Cat6 instead of Cat5e.

I just didn’t want to re-do everything in another year or so just to save a couple bucks now. It wasn’t that much more expensive.

TheHondaBro > JGrabowMSt 09/18/2015 at 17:34

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Yep, we’re getting keystones.