LED Undercabinet Lighting wired with Cat5 Cable (opinions please)?

[suemarkp]

I would hope cat5 is rated for more than 5V. POE can be up to 48V. I thought most cat5 was rated at 300V by jacket labeling.

 

[fastline]

New photos just came in from the HO. I do know about PoE (my home camera system is Lorex PoE), but not a super expert. Clearly that PS is NOT class 2. Seeing the wiring, could I change this to one or more CL2 power supplies and be Code legal? It's pretty obvious there are other violations such as the Primary and Secondary of that driver in the same 1900 box.

Thanks again.

Mark

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Mark

As far as "code", someone else here would have to sort the beans on that. I generally first approach with a prudent and safe approach. I can't read that PS well but is says "class ?" on it, and it is UL listed. However, uses a front end triac for dimming. Noisy. If they use dimming, that would be good to know.

Also good to know what failed. If you look up the spec for that PSU, it shows rated ripple. You want to know if it's clean or not. Also, being only 12V, it will push 16.7A, which is risky on CAT5 cable, even with paralleled conductors. The secret to POE is parallel plus the voltage. I've never heard of only 5V rated CAT cable. It would be VERY good to get the actual specs on it because some is POE rated and actually #23 instead of #24. If the CAT5 cable needs to stay, you need to know what it is so you can make a safe build. POE will push up to maybe 50W on a cable. Running a higher voltage and lower current is what you need to keep things safe with that cable.

The other possible solution if you use the 12V supply is series buss fuses so the wire can be properly protected.

But again, you need to know what failed, I guess unless this is a "just replace everything" sort of deal. My guess is the actual strip lights are toast. China is good at making chips fail quickly. Part of it is their very poor circuit designs that ensure very little diode protection.

 

[hbiss]

I would hope cat5 is rated for more than 5V.

Cat5e is a CL2 cable which is 300V.

-Hal