Cat6 S/FTP Shielded Patch Cord, Foiled + Braid

Overview

A cat6 shielded patch cord earns its keep in one situation: the run passes through electrical noise. Foil on each of the four pairs keeps the pairs from talking to each other, and the overall tinned copper braid keeps outside fields from getting in. Two shields, two different jobs, and neither one does much unless the channel is grounded end to end. We build the cord to the length, jacket, wiring and boot style on your drawing.

Key Specifications

Cable type	Cat6 S/FTP, 4-pair, 100 ohm class
Individual screen	Aluminum/polyester foil per pair
Overall screen	Tinned copper braid
Conductor	Stranded bare copper, 26 AWG typical
Connector	RJ45 8P8C, 50 micro-inch gold plating
Boot	Snagless, over-molded strain relief
Wiring	T568A or T568B, straight through, per order
Jacket	PVC standard; LSZH or PUR on request
Length	OEM build, stated per order
Category reference	ISO/IEC 11801 Class E, industry-general definition

What the S/FTP code actually means

Shielding is described with a two-part code in the ISO/IEC 11801 series: the part before the slash is the screen over all four pairs, the part after is what wraps each pair on its own. Reading the code tells you what the construction can do before you look at a single electrical figure.

Code	Overall screen	Per-pair screen	Where it is used
U/UTP	None	None	Office LAN, PoE devices, clean short patch runs
F/UTP	Foil	None	Runs parallel to power where cost matters
S/UTP	Braid	None	Industrial noise; braid is easier to drain
SF/UTP	Foil + braid	None	Heavier noise, still no pair isolation
F/FTP	Foil	Foil	Pair-to-pair crosstalk in tight bundles
S/FTP	Braid	Foil	This build — dense bundles near drives and lighting
SF/FTP	Foil + braid	Foil	Worst-case EMI; largest diameter, stiffest

The category itself comes from the channel limits in ANSI/TIA-568 and the ISO/IEC 11801 series: the Category 6 cable channel is defined to 250 MHz as an industry-general figure. Whatever your assembly is built and verified to is stated per order, on your drawing — we do not publish numbers we did not measure on your build.

Where a shielded cord is genuinely required

Variable-frequency drives, servo racks and welding cells
Cable tray shared with 230/400 V power over long parallel runs
Dense bundles where alien crosstalk between adjacent cords is the limiting factor
Broadcast, AVoIP and medical imaging racks full of mixed RF equipment
Cabinet runs that sit next to switching power supplies

Shielded or unshielded: the grounding caveat

A shield is a conductor, and a conductor that goes nowhere behaves like an antenna. The braid has to be drained through a shielded RJ45 plug into a shielded jack, into a grounded patch panel and a grounded switch. If even one end of the channel is unshielded, the cord buys you very little and can make the noise situation worse. Budget for the physical side too: shielded cords are stiffer, heavier and need a larger bend radius, which matters once a patch panel is full.

Conductor: stranded or solid

Patch cords are stranded for a reason — they get bent, coiled and pulled every time a port moves. Solid conductor belongs in the wall.

	Stranded	Solid
Typical use	Patch cords, equipment leads	Permanent link, riser and wall runs
Flex life	High, survives daily handling	Low, work-hardens and cracks
Attenuation	Slightly higher per meter	Lower over long permanent runs
Termination	Crimped RJ45 plug	Insulation-displacement jack or panel

Typical applications for this cat6 shielded patch cord

Industrial Ethernet drops from a shielded panel to a machine
Machine vision and GigE camera links near drives — see our Cat6A RJ45 screw-lock GigE Vision cable
Broadcast and AVoIP racks with mixed RF and video gear
Cabinet feedthrough into sealed enclosures — pair it with an IP67 RJ45 panel coupler
Data center cabinets at high port density

How to specify your build

Length and whether the cord is static or handled daily.
Jacket — PVC, LSZH or PUR, and what it will be exposed to.
Wiring — T568A or T568B, straight through on both ends.
Boot — snagless, slim, or no boot at all.
Shield termination — whether your panel and jacks are shielded and grounded.
Quantity, and whether this is a prototype or a production order.

Workmanship and testing

Assembly and inspection follow IPC/WHMA-A-620 Class 3 workmanship criteria under our ISO 9001 quality management system, and every unit is 100% continuity and pinout tested before it is packed. Conductor range is 32 to 12 AWG. Shield coverage and drain-wire construction are checked on the first article. Where a standard sets a limit for the category, the connector interface or the jacket, that is the industry-general definition of the rating. The values your assembly is built and verified to are the ones stated on your drawing, per order.

Every production run can ship with RoHS and REACH declarations and the electrical report agreed at quotation; see certifications and material declarations. UL styles and other named approvals are built to drawing: we source to the style you specify and document it, rather than asserting a listing we do not hold. Termination, molding and verification happen in-house see the assembly lines behind this build so the process that made your sample is the process that runs the order. Related reading: our industrial automation work. Tooling is quoted separately, cut in-house rather than brokered out, and owned by you.

Custom builds and ordering

Send a drawing, a photo of the existing cord, or just the port count and length. Prototype builds start from 1 to 50 pcs and ship in 3 working days; production orders start at MOQ 500 pcs and ship 14 working days after approval. New tooling adds about 10 working days, and we hold 100 sets of mold tooling in house. OEM and ODM builds ship under your part number and labeling, with material certificates and first-article reports on request. Factory audits and video line tours of our Longgang, Shenzhen plant can be arranged through Alan Kang.

Related shielded Ethernet assemblies

Full range: Ethernet patch cord range.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a shielded patch cord replace a shielded permanent link?

No. The shield has to be continuous from plug to plug. If the horizontal cable or the jack is unshielded, the shielded patch cord is the weakest link rather than the fix.

Can I use this for PoE?

Yes, and bare copper conductors are the right starting point for PoE because of heating in bundles. The current rating and temperature rise are stated per order, from your build.