From past experience I have found that even when using a permanent marker the ink still gets rubbed off or becomes illegible due to handling or dirt getting on the cable sheath. An added advantage of using coloured tape is that the cables can be identified from across the room.
The scheme chosen for this installation uses 4 bands of tape using 4 colours. This gives 4x4x4x4 = 256 possible combinations to mark the cables. To increase the capacity of the system either add an extra colour or another band of tape.
4 bands of 4 colours gives 256 combinations
4 bands of 5 colours gives 625 combinations
5 bands of 4 colours gives 1024 combinations
5 bands of 5 colours gives 3125 combinations
If your wiring scheme needs more than that, I would love to see it. Colour Sequence is reading towards the cut end of the cable e.g. RRRY is RED RED RED YELLOW with the Yellow band nearest the end of the cable.
| Listing of Cable Colour Codes | |
|---|---|
| Codes starting with RED are Category 5 cables feeding UPSTAIRS DATA OUTLETS from the patch panel. |
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| Codes starting with YELLOW are Category 5 cables feeding UPSTAIRS CONTROL CABLES for connection to OTTO. |
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| Codes starting with GREEN are Category 5 cables feeding DOWNSTAIRS DATA OUTLETS from the patch panel. |
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| Codes starting with BLUE are Category 5 cables feeding DOWNSTAIRS CONTROL CABLES for connection to OTTO. |
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| Additionally there are 2.5mm2 Speaker Cables (79/0.2 Figure 8 Twin) to a WHOLE HOUSE AUDIO Amplifier located in Node 0 |
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The problem with this is that after 10 years the tape adhesive is shot. Better to use rings of colored heat shrink tube, or similar.
Funny you mention that – just a few weeks ago I had to go hunting in the loft for some CAT5s I’d run up there in case we ever moved to C-Bus.
Here’s a photo of the cables I found – https://automatedhome.com/images/temp/10years.jpg
Tape code was applied around May 1999 – that photo taken January 2010 (over 10 years), and they are still perfect.
Maybe you’re using poor quality tape?
M.