10BASE-5 Ethernet Connection

The RG-8 coaxial cable has a yellow to orange cover made out of fluorinated ethylene propylene (used mostly for safety since it is fire resistant). Even more, the RG-8 coaxial cable is usually known as the yellow cable. The 10BASE-5 Ethernet topology was superseded, mainly because of the demand for high speed networking, and the increasing popularity of 802.11 wireless networks.

The 10BASE-5 name is derived from three characteristics of the physical medium. The BASE stand for baseband signaling (opposed to broadband), the 10 comes from the speed of the transmission, which is 10 MB per second, while the 5 in the 10BASE-5 refers to the characteristic of the topology, capable of carrying signals five times 100 meters, reaching a maximum value of 500 meters.

10BASE-5

The 10BASE-5 Thick Ethernet has several limitations. First the maximum transceiver cable length is limited at 50 meters, while the minimum distance between transceivers is limited to 2.5 meters. While the maximum number of trunk segments was limited to five, the maximum trunk segment length was 500 meters and the maximum network trunk cable could only reach 2500 meters. Each end of the trunk segment is terminated in 50 ohm. While the connectors’ splices are kept to minimum, one of the terminators is grounded.

10BASE-5

The 10BASE-5 cable is developed specifically to allow transceivers to be added while existing connection are ongoing. However, in order to achieve this, the vampire tap was used. The vampire tap is a device which clamps onto the cable, forcing a spike to pierce through the first layer in order to contact the inner conductor while other spikes bite into the outer conductor. However, the vampire tap device is usually embedded into the transceiver, while another multi-wire cable sustains the connection between the node and the transceiver.

10BASE-5 standard

The maximum number of stations on a trunk segment (equivalent with maximum number of nodes that can be connected on a 10BASE-5) is limited to 100. The transceivers connect the nodes via AUI (also known as Attachment Unit Interface). The Attachment Unit Interface uses a 15 way two row D-style connector. However, this D-style connector lacks the normal screws for cable restrains but includes clips.