I know a while ago a few of you were asking about armoured Cat 5e cable but couldn't find a cheap source only places that sold 300m drums for huge amounts.
Well a recent problem with my Cat 5e cable on the pc made me seek out some armoured external grade cable and in doing so I found this company:
http://networkvideosystems.co.uk/Cat...red-data-cable
Sold by the meter @ £1.59 + vat at the moment (P&P £9.95).
This stuff is used for external CCTV applications over Ethernet and is stated as suitable for a whole host of external applications including Oil rigs, ship builders, drilling companies etc!!
I bought around 20m and kind of got the feeling talking to the sales person that was probably the minimum length. However, I'm guessing most people on here would want at least that anyway.
Anyway this was how it arrived, tape up on a drum!
I have to say this is one seriously tough cable albeit at the expense of some flexibility. That said it will coil onto a drum so expect for laser use it would be ok as it can be wound and it can also be bent at right angles although not too sharply and will stay there held by the reinforcement wires:
The outer coating is of a very tough hard plastic that's difficult to cut even with a Stanley knife.
Internally the armour consists of 19 (I think) wires of around 1mm round diameter. Think of reasonably thick fence wire and you're not far off. This is spiral wrapped around a central light plastic inner that contains the Cat 5 wires:
The overall diameter is probably similar to TV coax - considerably thicker than normal Cat 5 although that's to be expected.