Mystery Cable: Better used as rope, or sold to tech firm?

May 15, 2007 6:55 AM

TeleComTechFilter: I have recently come into the possession of a number of lengths of think coax-looking wire/cable. Are they worth much anything?

Basically a hand-me-down that I have no idea what to do with, I am now in possession of three largish heavy wooden spools of cable/wire that have these weird letters on the side, and I was hoping the hive mind might be able to tell me (a) what they are (b) what they're for and (c) are they worth selling someplace like eBay..?

The little numbers/letters along the sides are thus:

"BELDEN-M 1057A E-34972 8PR20 1C22 SHIELDED (UL) CL3 105C PLTC 300V SUN RES 1112"

"SUPERIOR ESSEX W 1999 25 PR 24 UTP (ETL) CMR c(ETL) CMR ETL VERIFIED CATEGORY 3"

"FEMCO W12912 E73202 (UL) TYPE TC - TFFN OR THHN OR THWN 600 VOLTS SUN RES ART 340"

They're coated in plastic skin (two of them black, one of them [the essex] is beige), and when stripped, have all manner of little copper strand layers, various other wires enmeshed inside, etc.

The place I got them from installs alarm systems, audio/video, cameras and other electronics.. if that helps any. I would estimate the two blacks at appx 100+ft, while the beige (essex) is likely more like 300ft.

I can take pictures of a stripped end of each, if needed.

posted by Quarter Pincher to technology (4 comments total)

Sounds like network cable, like CAT5.

Craigslist?
posted by caddis at 8:08 AM on May 15, 2007

The Essex sounds like CAT-3 twisted pair, which was used for 10BaseT ethernet a while back. Now probably good for phone lines and other lower-speed applications.

The other 2 are [Power Limited] Tray Cables ([PL]TC). I don't know how many wires are in the FEMCO, but it looks like the Belden has 8 twisted pairs. These would be good for a variety of electronics projects and look like they could do all kinds of things.

I think eBay would be good- no idea of price, but the market lets you know. If I saw any of these, I'd pay a couple of bucks and figure out what to do with them later. Or do you know someone who experiments in electronics?

The big wooden spools I have seen used as furniture (in the rustic bachelor style). They make a nice table if big enough.
posted by MtDewd at 8:14 AM on May 15, 2007

The SUPERIOR ESSEX cable is Category 3 UTP cable, which was once the 10Mbit network cabling of choice in the early '90s, but is now only useful for two line telephone systems.

The BELDEN-M cable is a spool of tray cable which was most likely used with commercial burglar alarms.

The FEMCO cable is heat, oil, and gasoline resistant 600V sun resistant industrial cable. I'm not sure what the company you got it from was doing with it, because I thought it was mostly used in machine control situations.
posted by cmonkey at 8:14 AM on May 15, 2007

cmonkey domonkey
posted by MtDewd at 8:50 AM on May 15, 2007