Is Shielded Wiring Necessary for Cambium APs?

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Oubadah

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# 248532 29-Mar-2019 18:10

Ubiquiti's manual for the AP AC Pro demanded shielded cables, but I can't seem to find anything about that in Cambium's manuals. The AP in question is the indoor e600. Can I use un-shielded CAT6?

cyril7

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# 2207226 29-Mar-2019 18:27

I dont believe UBNT ever "demanded" shielded, more like recommended it. If its an indoor installation I would only ever expect any AP to operate with UTP unshielded unless there is some interference or protection beyond the norm you need to manage.

Cyril

Oubadah

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Ultimate Geek

# 2207253 29-Mar-2019 18:43

cyril7:

I dont believe UBNT ever "demanded" shielded, more like recommended it. If its an indoor installation I would only ever expect any AP to operate with UTP unshielded unless there is some interference or protection beyond the norm you need to manage.

Cyril

UBNT said shielded cable was a warranty condition, which = demanding it to me.

"Warranty Conditions
The foregoing warranty shall apply only if:
(IV) All Ethernet cabling runs use CAT5 (or above) shielded cabling."

https://dl.ubnt.com/guides/UniFi/UniFi_AP-Pro_UG.pdf

I remember some talk about ESD build-up or something.

sbiddle

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# 2207271 29-Mar-2019 19:19

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It's worth noting that as well that unless shielded cable is correctly installed and earthed it will not actually do anything - and if you don't have it correctly earthed it has the potential to actually create issues.

MadEngineer

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# 2207277 29-Mar-2019 19:39

Shielded and properly terminated if outdoors for sure.

cyril7

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# 2207282 29-Mar-2019 19:48

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Hi, so looking back on the UBNT conditions for even their old product, they state the same conditions, but I can tell you for an indoor mounted AP I have never used sheilded, just too much hassle and simply not required.

In a past job I oversaw the engineering of >9000 AP installations, all those to my knowledge were just using cat6 UTP never shielded, that was mainly HP, Ruckus, Aerohive and Aruba kit, none of those vendors required or demanded shielded.

As @sbiddle says, shielded requires correct installation to ensure earth loops do not occur, in the case of an AP its normally not an issue as its an galvanically isolated device, but in the case of the pro it has two NICs so you could on feed to another device that could create an earth loop. In my current job we uses shielded cabling for security reasons, and earth management can be troublesome, so even going 30-50m between locations we will use fibre to get around any issues.

Steve, how many UniFi APs have you guys installed, and how many were shielded, more importantly how many died due to ESD buildup................................. my guess is none.

Also if its ESD they are worrying about, the electronics on the POE side have bleed pullup resistors to activate the switch to deliver power, these will discharge any ESD issues.

As others have said, sheilded would be recommended if mounted outdoors in a prone location.

Cyril

webwat

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# 2207791 30-Mar-2019 19:28

Shielded wouldn't help much outdoors either, unless there's some problem power cables running parallel with it or perhaps a radio transmitter nearby. The important thing for outdoor installations is to use gel-filled cable.

Haven't put up many Ubiquiti APs but have replaced quite a few. None ever had shielded cable. I did once recommend customer to change to a shielded cable cable for a plasma cutting machine, due to its industrial nature being bundled with heavy power cables.

Qualified in business, certified in fibre, stuck in copper, have to keep going ^_^