I was wondering what you guys use for actuator cable. Mfg? Product # ? I have an 80 foot run to the positioner control unit.
cheers
fred
cheers
fred
Actuator Cable
- Thread starter SignalHill
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 17
- Views 3K
- Status
One dish has a 4-14 stranded in wall speaker cable from MonoPrice. Another dish has 4 wire flat trailer light wiring I had on hand. 
One of the most popular choice is sprinkler system control wire. I have a buddy retired from the phone company and uses 25 pair phone cable. He doubles up on the motor power circuit. Leaves him lots of extra conductors for ??? future ideas
I use this...
http://www.lowes.com/pd_194660-2042...l=1¤tURL=?Ntt=sprinkler+wire&facetInfo=
Posted Via The SatelliteGuys Reader App!
http://www.lowes.com/pd_194660-2042...l=1¤tURL=?Ntt=sprinkler+wire&facetInfo=
Posted Via The SatelliteGuys Reader App!
I got a good deal on 14/2 direct burial garden cable. In the end i used it for the motor as well. It comes in 100 foot lengths and is used for low voltage garden lights, thermostats and doorbells. Amazon carries it.
[h=1][/h]
[h=1][/h]
I use this too for the motor. 14 gauge is what the actuator manual recommends. The 18 ga. in the sprinkler cable is too light and your motor will run slower due to voltage loss. Anything can be used for the sensor circuits. Phone wire or cat 5 is fine. No need for shielding. Home depot etc. has the 14-2 low voltage garden light wire at a nice price and is designed for outdoors. Extension cord wire costs more per 100 ft. and is not outdoor rated, but would work ok.
Last edited:
Two 18 gauge wires twisted together will have a slightly higher resistance than a single 14 gauge wire--at 100 ft the results are approx .32 ohm for 18g versus approx .25 ohm for 14g (according to the AWG tables for solid copper wire in Wikipedia). The voltage drop will depend upon the amount of electric current (not voltage) being passed through the wire. For example: for a 5-amp load, the voltage drop on the doubled 18g wire would be 1.6 volts while on the single 14g wire it would be 1.25 volts. If one of the 18g wires breaks, then double those figures for 18g.
Those are just the raw numbers...in practical use, I expect you would see very little difference between a single 14g wire and two 18g wires.
Those are just the raw numbers...in practical use, I expect you would see very little difference between a single 14g wire and two 18g wires.
Thanks Balock, thats what I was looking to confirm. The bottom line is there is not a lot of difference. I usually use whatever I have on hand if I dont need to go out and buy the products.
Between several self completed projects and a very bad habit of buying more than I need when I need something, I seem to have a adequate supply of speaker wire, and alarm wire and video security wire and CAT5e wire...
I'll load up my 100ft of conduit with extra coax and cable for future dishes out further from the house. As I had to make a compromise agreement when I brought the ten ft. Perfect 10 dish home. I vaguely remember stating something about taking "some" of the ten dishes down I'm not really using right now, when I get this installed....
Posted Via The SatelliteGuys Reader App!
I know Roger had boat loads of actuator cable last time I dropped by, this was a few months ago, I do see it listed but it seems to be from September. http://www.rpssat.com/
Remember: Satellite actuators very rarely run more than a couple minutes at a time. Current draw isn't sustained long enough to heat up the wires and cause a fault. So two 18ga wires twisted together should work fine at least up to 125ft, if not a bit further.
Now, if it's a 36 inch actuator, and a very heavy dish, I'd be a little bit more concerned with making sure I had a heavier gauge of wire.
Now, if it's a 36 inch actuator, and a very heavy dish, I'd be a little bit more concerned with making sure I had a heavier gauge of wire.
At one time everyone did. I still do (nice to have all that shielding to cut back on rf noise).
- Status
