Max distance between PZW and power supply?

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1

Guys,
My door bell stopped working over the weekend, so I figured I’d build a new one rather than pop down to buntings for one!

My old bell had a push button at the door and a CAT 5 cable between it and my structured cabling, at the end of that was an 8V power supply.

I have plenty of space in the wall for a PZW plus camera but have no power so it will need to be sent via the CAT6 cable. The power supply could be about 6m away from the PZW. I’m thinking that I could use a standard Pi power supply, chop off the micro USB end and solder the wires to a pair of the CAT6 cable and then solder a new plug on the other end, about 6m away.

I’m somewhat concerned about voltage drop.

Any thoughts?

I guess I could use two pairs of the CAT6 rather than one if that would help.

Thx
Jon

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Hi Jon,
I’d image that would be fine, but if you want to be doubly sure, then solder the power supply to those cables, hookup your Pi Zero and check the input voltage when it is running and see what it looks like.

3

Thanks Sam,
Thats kinda what I thought, just didn’t want to find out after Id bought the stuff that I was onto a non-starter!

Thx
J

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Just to close this out…

I connected my 6m CAT5 cable to my Pi power supply at the weekend. I used 1 pair of twisted for +ve and 1 pair of twisted for -ve. In total I had approx 7m of cable between plug and Pi.

Voltage at Pi end of cable measured 5.2V.

R
Jon

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