Van Damme TourCat Flexible CAT5e Cable — 268450000
The Van Damme TourCat 268450000 is a flexible screened CAT5e cable engineered for professional AV and touring environments where standard solid-conductor install cable simply will not hold up. Built around stranded 7 × 0.16 mm bare oxygen-free copper conductors and a fully screened F/UTP construction, this cable delivers verified Category 5E performance with the handling characteristics of a quality microphone cable — flexible, robust, and built to survive repeated deployment and retrieval without conductor fatigue or jacket failure.
This is not a wall-installation cable repurposed for stage use. Van Damme designed the TourCat range from the ground up for dynamic, high-use environments — live sound touring, broadcast outside broadcast setups, fixed installations in performance venues, and any project where the cable infrastructure takes daily mechanical stress. The TourCat addresses the CAT5e tier of that range with a construction specification that exceeds what most generic network cable products bring to a professional AV project.
Why Stranded Conductors Matter in CAT5e Applications
Standard CAT5e cable uses solid conductors — a single copper strand per core — which is perfectly adequate when the cable is pulled through conduit once and never moved again. The moment that cable gets coiled, uncoiled, bent around corners on a stage, or handled repeatedly by a touring crew, the solid conductors begin to work-harden and eventually fracture. Signal degradation follows, and in a Dante or Gigabit Ethernet network, intermittent failures are far harder to diagnose than a clean open circuit.
The TourCat eliminates that failure mode entirely. Each conductor uses a 7-strand configuration — seven individual 0.16 mm copper filaments twisted together — which distributes mechanical stress across multiple strands rather than concentrating it in a single wire. The result is a cable that flexes thousands of times without structural damage, making it the correct choice for patch cords, stage runs, touring rack interconnects, and any application where the cable moves regularly.
Screening and Signal Integrity for Live AV Environments
The F/UTP construction wraps all four twisted pairs in an aluminium and polyester foil screen with greater than 100% coverage, backed by a tinned oxygen-free copper drain wire. In a live AV environment — where stage lighting dimmers, wireless systems, power distribution, and high-powered amplifiers all share the same physical space — unscreened network cable is a liability. The foil screen provides meaningful noise rejection and keeps Ethernet-based signals clean in exactly the environments where interference is most problematic.
This matters most in Dante audio-over-IP networks, where latency-sensitive audio packets move across cable infrastructure that may run adjacent to dimmer racks and motor controllers. The screened construction makes this a reliable backbone cable for Dante network segments, particularly in temporary or touring installations where cable routing cannot always follow ideal separation distances from noise sources.
Verified Performance and Compliance for 268450000
The 268450000 meets the requirements of TIA/EIA-568-C-2 and has been independently tested with a Fluke DTX cable analyser, confirming Gigabit channel link performance to a maximum recommended distance of 53 metres. 100 Mbit transmission is supported beyond this distance, though Gigabit performance at longer runs is not guaranteed. For the vast majority of AV patch and link cable applications, 53 metres is well within operational requirements.
This cable supports the full range of Ethernet-based AV protocols in current professional use: Dante, AES67, AVB, NDI video networking, AV control systems running over IP, and standard IT network infrastructure within AV systems. It is fully compatible with Neutrik EtherCon connectors — the industry-standard locking RJ45 format used across professional AV touring and installation.
Construction and Physical Specification
The jet black flexible PVC composite jacket is rated RAL 9005 with an overall diameter of 6.00 mm, keeping the cable manageable in densely terminated rack panels and stage boxes without sacrificing jacket toughness. The bend radius is specified at 10 times the overall cable diameter, and the maximum reel length is 500 metres — making it equally suited to bulk supply for large venue installations and shorter patch cord fabrication for touring systems.
Colour pair coding follows the standard TIA arrangement: Pair 1 White/Blue–Blue, Pair 2 White/Orange–Orange, Pair 3 White/Green–Green, Pair 4 White/Brown–Brown — consistent with the T568B wiring convention used across professional AV infrastructure.
Sourcing the Van Damme TourCat CAT5e from Surgesound
Surgesound supplies the Van Damme TourCat range to AV integrators, systems contractors, consultants, and project managers across Southern Africa. As an authorised Van Damme distributor, Surgesound stocks this cable for direct supply to trade accounts — available per metre for custom assembly lengths or on 100 m reels for bulk project requirements up to the 500 m maximum reel length.
For projects requiring termination hardware, Surgesound also supplies compatible Van Damme screened RJ45 connectors and crimp tooling, ensuring your team has everything needed to fabricate and test complete assemblies to specification.
Contact Surgesound to discuss pricing, stock availability, and project quantities for the Van Damme TourCat CAT5e range.
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Precision Engineering since 1987
The Van Damme range has been designed, engineered and refined for over three decades as a result of technological advances and customer driven requirements.
This comprehensive and intelligent yet practical range of specialist audio and video cables has achieved premier status simply by being the finest cable range of its type on the open market.
Listening closely to customers and keeping our finger ‘on the pulse’ has afforded us the enviable position of offering our clients what they truly need without compromise.
The highly evolved products in this site are a result of years of keeping ‘in tune’ with our customers coupled with our own refinements and exhaustive research and development into cabling technology.
We have incorporated into the Van Damme range many new and innovative ideas never seen before. These are designed to cater for anything from eco-friendly to user friendly, this largely depending on whether it is an architectural specification or the rigours of touring.
What we believe we have created are truly elegant cabling solutions for a vast array of applications.
This is why Van Damme is employed so confidently on the stages, studios and screens across the world.
We feel our client list says it all.
