# 12 trigger cable



## sga2 (Nov 14, 2009)

I need to run two 12V triggers from my projector (PT-AE4000) to the AV center, in wall, about 25ft. I have some spare in-wall rated Cat 6 cable laying around. Can I use this?


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

Sure. Just mark/label it well. If you can get the mA spec of the trigger, you can figure out how many of the "pairs" you need to fully conduct the signal with no loss (it is usually very small).

Cat6 is much easier to use than Cat5 for this as the gauge is thicker. Cat6 even supports power over ethernet (PoE), which is 48V and draws significant power to power phones, repeaters, etc.

The simplest way is to tie all the colors together to be the hot (+) and the white/stripe together (-).

Good luck.


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## sga2 (Nov 14, 2009)

Thanks, Anthony. 

How can I determine the current carrying capacity of Cat6? Is there an applicable standard? The projector actually has 2 triggers, so I'd like to keep wome of the pairs for spare/future use. 

If I didn't happen to have a spool of Cat6 laying around, what would be the preferred cable for a "standard" 12v trigger?

Thanks, 
sga2


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

If you are going to twist up the ends of the Cat6, that will be way more than enough current capacity. There are charts online, wikipedia, Pocket Ref book, etc that have current capacity (ampacity) for different gauges.

If you were only going to use one pair (i.e. the other 3 pairs were used for another trigger, IR system, phone, etc) then it would be good to check. But if the whole Cat6 was dedicated to one trigger, you will be fine. Even if you split them into groups of two, you will be fine.

Cat6 is 23 gauge per conductor. That's about .7A per conductor. Even with derating, length, and safety concerns, you could put 1A through both of them (2 solids+ 2 stripes-) no problem. Your triggers are probably 100mA max and not even that much

If you did not use Cat6, you would want to get cheap speaker wire (whole house audio, usually used for those in-wall speaker PA systems for background music) or alarm wire. These are 16-2 or 18-2 (I've even seen 20 gauge used), in-wall rated, and can handle much higher currents than a trigger can put out (older triggers sometimes fed relays and needed more juice -- now everything is solid-state, so it probably doesn't matter as much).

Hopefully this was more help than confusing 

Good luck.


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## sga2 (Nov 14, 2009)

Thanks. I wanted to double check what I did find on Wikipedia. 

Since there is at least some concern over amps - and we're still talking about a fire hazard here - I may instead use some some leftover 16-ga in-wall speaker wire I bought ~10 years ago. I've recently purchased a 500ft spool of Belden 5000UP 12-ga cable, so I won't be needing the 16-ga stuff for speaker wiring any more but I might as well put the money I spent on it to good use somewhere. I'll save the Cat6 for a later day...

Thanks for all the help!


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

Our phones and one of our network switches at work are powered over ethernet, so I know the Cat6 will work (and probably not be a fire hazard, again, no idea what your trigger circuits draw). But it's also expensive compared to the 16-2 inwall, so that's probably a better route to go.

Good luck.


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