Can a 22 gauge 10 conductor multi-core wire be used in a home Ethernet implementation? What will be the data rate/range on this setup?
Solution 1:
That will work very badly, if at all.
I actually tried this many years ago by using 4-wire non-shielded and non-twisted cable (also 22 AWG) instead of a regular CAT5.
In theory, you only need 4 wires for 10/100 Mb/s so I had a chance it would work.
Well, it did, sort of, but not good enough to be usable.
I was able to get signal across over about 10 meters maximum, but the network cards wouldn't auto-negotiate AT ALL.
I had to manually set the interfaces on both ends to 10 Mb/s and half-duplex. Even then I lost more than 60% of the network packets to transmission errors.
With a lot of luck and prayer, I was able to get a very unreliable 3 to 4 Mb/s over the cable.
Don't even bother trying. I can promise you a lot of wasted effort and frustration if you do.
Solution 2:
There are two electrical things that you must consider.
- magnetically coupled
- differential signals
I break the ethernet standard all of the time due to the nature of my work. I often use capacitive coupling instead of magnetics due to magnetic sensors.
The ability for a different wire to work will be a function of distance. I need copper (due to resistance and something called "skin effect") for long distances, as the ethernet specs are written around these. The copper clad aluminum wires are fine for short distances, and cheap, which is why they are used.
Regarding the "twisted" nature of the wires, this is the most important as the differential signal cancels noise from the environment. The ethernet signal is an analog signal (digital is a special case of analog), which is why the differential signal is important.
I believe that you could get several meters with a non-twisted wires. I use straight leads across the PCB all of the time, but I've designed for this.
You would be better off to purchase a cable with 2 twisted pairs, but I'm confident that you could just use 22awg wire as long as the other conductors are DC.
Solution 3:
This will not work well. Ethernet cable has twisted pairs to reduce the effect of capacitance and electromagnetic fields between the wires. This serves to increase speed in the cable. The twist also provides for (fairly) constant impedance along the cable. Without the twist, impedance would be an issue and so the signals would not terminate correctly.
Standard cable, non-twisted pairs may work but will be slower.
You should use the cable prescribed for Ethernet and not a substitute.
Here is a useful article to help you.
https://www.truecable.com/blogs/cable-academy/why-are-wires-twisted-inside-an-ethernet-cable#:~:text=Ethernet%20cable%20is%20very%20low,in%20their%20individual%20electromagnetic%20fields.