ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Cat 5 current carrying capacity

I installed a cat 5 cable as part of a proposed dimming system in my newly refubed kitchen. Problem is that I cant afford dimmer pack at the moment. Missus D is not making tea any more! I though I might stick a few relays in a box in the meantime and control them using the cat 5. Cant find any info on net on current carrying capacity probably because they were not designed to carry current per se.

isn't cat 5 22AWG?

24 AWG -- Certainly adequate for the sort of relay coil currents you'd need in this application (i.e. < 250mA). It will have to be low-voltage switching, as CAT5 isn't rated for 240V.

I have to ask: Why CAT5 for a proposed dimmer system? Did you just happen to have some spare?

Paul,
It is a Hamilton-Litestat dimmer pack and they stipulate the wiring system. I guess CAT 5 is very available and adequate for remote control.

Seems weird that they would specify Cat 5

A lot of the Clipsal C-Bus stuff here uses Cat-5e for it's wiring.

CAT5 is definitely overkill, but widely-available. I am sure that's the primary reason. Unless there's a very unusual need, all telephone/data wiring is 24 gauge. The exception is CAT6, which is 23 gauge.

22 gauge was the norm for surface wiring that was run around baseboards to make it more resilient to damage during installation.

Regardless, it's more than enough to handle the small control circuit loads as Paul mentioned.

Overkill without a doubt -- As Ed says, I guess they just figure it's widely available now and a lot of people will know what it is.