Any physical mounting hardware to help re-run wiring?

[IVB]

Panduit it is, then.

My wiring sucks. It sucks bad.

I so want to see current photos. It might make some of us feel better about ourselves

You sir, are a freak. Avert your eyes now, here you go. Don't say I didn't warn you, and this is the pretty side of the wall, and I didn't even take pics of everything.

Now you see why I think i'm going to rerun the last 25' (not just the other side of this wall, the 10-15' runup to that location.)

This is just embarassing. In my defense, I'd like to say that this room was never invisioned as the server room, i just slowly added this stuff. I'm just now realizing how cool this would be as a hide-it-away room; I just thought that I would need more ready access to the wiring, no idea why I thought that.

I was wrong, there's 8 different holes in the wall where wires come in. And I just realized 2 weeks ago that I could put conduit straight from the attic into this room as there was a void in the walls instead of this bizarre routing through my crawl space, but I'd have to put multiple 1" conduits in as I have bizarre horizontal studs mucking with life. Had I ever done wiring before, I would have known to look into that. I could have put in perhaps 8 different 1" conduits, each of a different type of wire (ie, one for motions, one for CCTV, one for wired magnetic sensors,....) I'm not going to rerun all my damn wiring now, but redoing the last 25' won't take longer than pehaps 4-5 days for a dimwit like me.

 

[brotsten]

IVB, you may need to start with a match.

 

[FrankMc]

Hi IVB

I would suggest getting all you kit onto one wall ...Pick a wall which has the easiest access to the roof area.....Instead of using cans i might suggest mounting on mdf ...Have a look at Dans setup and notice hes used some open slotted ducting .....Also i would suggest that you purchase some of the elk power modules these have multiple 12v outputs which are protected by electronic fuses ..Connect only one device per output therefore if you have a detector fault then only that output is affected and it will be easier to locate the faulted detector/sensor.....Would also suggest id all your cables and cable cores......

http://www.homeautomationindex.com/mysystem.html

HTH
Frank

 

[AnthonyZ]

Well, I'll own up to the freak statement. My wife tells me the same thing but, I've gotta tell ya, that gives me a warm fuzzy. I was right, your pic's do make me feel better about my gear. Thanks, IVB.

(By the way, IVB, thanks for steering us to Vlad studio! Beautiful stuff! I'd also recommend deviantart.com.)

 

[IVB]

yeah, deviantart is great too.

So, would I need the SWP or any other mounting plates if I go the MDF route? Can't I just mount the boards right onto the MDF with screws or some such thing?

I'm thinking that effectively custom-building a "box" with MDF on the back, perhaps some 2x4's with a hinged cover of MDF or plywood would be decent. Would give me craploads of space, too. That whole 6' high/6'deep wall can be dedicated to various bits, or perhaps just a 4' x 4' area to make the "doors" easier to mount.

 

[bfisher]

Hi IVB - I feel for you - working in your current wiring would drive me nuts!

I'm an amatuer as well, but here is a pic of my wiring board to give you an idea. My AV components are on the opposite wall. This pic is outdated because I've added more equipment (3rd HVAC zone, telephone caller ID, etc.) and improved my power (surge protectors, etc.) but it might give you an idea of mounting on MDF on the wall.

Also, I love using the 3/4" conduit rings (buy them in bulk at Lowes or HD) for cleaning up wires. They screw in the wall easily, they hold everything nice, are very cheap, and I can drag new wires through them very easy. (ignore the other items in the picture...)

 

[brotsten]

This pic is outdated because I've added more equipment (3rd HVAC zone, telephone caller ID, etc.) and improved my power (surge protectors, etc.) but it might give you an idea of mounting on MDF on the wall.

That's plywood, not MDF you have on the wall. In my opinion, the plywood is much better suited for this task. The screws will hold much better, and you can remove them and reinstall them, not so true with MDF.

Brian

 

[IVB]

It has begun. In 4 days, I will be either a hero or a pig.

Not only did I decide to pull out *all* the wiring in the basement (Elk, telco, network, direcTV, irrigation, HVAC), I also painted the room and stained the plywood. I got the bare miniumum telco and network back up so i'm not total doghouse material, but check it out.

And don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks. It's much much worse. I am *sooooooo*, well, confident that this'll be just fine. My god it's just wiring for chrissakes!

I'll start pretty and save the best for last. Well, it didn't really look that bad beforehand, I just shoved all the wiring back through the holes, so they're all just dangling something fierce.

And here we go...

Technically that's not all the wire, just the stuff on the one side that I thought i'd show. HVAC, telco, direcTV are on the right side, but you get the point. Lots o'work...

 

[AnthonyZ]

It has begun. In 4 days, I will be either a hero or a pig.


Lots o'work...

Lots o' work is right. Your crawlspace reminds me of mine. I suppose in all fairness I should post photos of my crawl space mess and what it looks like on the other side of the wall. Next day or two...

I do this for a living so I suppose that when it comes to running wires in my own home I'm burnt out and complacent.

 

[AnthonyZ]

It has begun. In 4 days, I will be either a hero or a pig.


Lots o'work...

Lots o' work is right. Your crawlspace reminds me of mine. I suppose in all fairness I should post photos of my crawl space mess and what it looks like on the other side of the wall. Next day or two...

I do this for a living so I suppose that when it comes to running wires in my own home I'm burnt out and complacent.

As promised...

 

[IVB]

Atta boy...

Well, my rewiring job has turned into a full server room rebuild. I decided that the physical space wasn't really conducive to organized setups, so i've now spent 2.5 days redoing it. Not full days, but the wife has let me spend 4-5 hours per day so far on it.

Here's what I've got so far. I built a table and mounted the plywood, made all the more difficult by the fact that the room doesn't have square walls or level floors or ceiling. I mounted almost all my stuff. There's only 1 PC there now, the wife is watching SageTV as we speak so I couldn't move the other one. I've also got some very temporary network wiring on the right side, as this is an in-situ rebuild, so i can't take the whole system down for a week without wrath of wife/kids. I just bought a smallish onwall hinged rackmount, 23" high, 12" deep, so I gotta figure out where to put that. The patch panel, switch, and AP800 will go in there. Only two choices are left wall or build a right wall. I'll be building a right wall anyhow as I will have to put a dehumidifer in this room in the winter, and i'd just as soon wall off a 7'x7' area and only dehumidify that rather than the whole room.

i took 2 pics - one with everything mounted and the cans closed, one with the cans open (and a piece of plastic holding up the Elk door). I had a Bosch enclosure, so I put the CCTV power and Rain8Net in there, and I put my DSL modem in the Leviton SMC can.

 

[FrankMc]

Hi Guys

Vivek i would lower the bottom can and then that would allow you to run a horizontal open slotted duct between the top cans and the bottom one to run your cables in ....Then on the LHS you could have a vertical open slotted duct.....Dont forget for future addons so allow for another wooden panel.......as you know by now it magically grows ... ;-)

HTH
Frank

 

[IVB]

Thanks for the tip, I thought about ducts, lemme know what you guy think of this solution. I created a variety of holes, leading directly into the target can. That way I can get the wire to leave the "backbone" and go directly into the target pipe.

There's currently 11 holes in the back, 6 for the Elk, 1 network, 1 telephone, 1 for CCTV&DirecTV signal, 1 irrigation and CCTVpower, 1 HVAC. I put a 1.5" PVC pipe network in the back to clean it up from both sides, but didn't actually cement any of it so I can disconnect easily to run wires (note the leftmost pipe as an example). My issue is just as much the backside as the server room. I've only run a few wires so far, as it took me a few hours to undo all the current wiring plus build out the PVC stuff. I'm going to mark which wires go into which pipe, so it's easy to route from the back.

BTW, check out my 2x4 setup - that dang 26Ah Elk battery was so heavy, i needed to reinforce it in order to get it to stay firmly mounted!

 

[IVB]

the PVC network was a bust, I ripped that out. But, the endless velcro and the jrings were just the ticket. I used a crapload of the endless velcro to tie it up, looks much better than I thought. I put some MDF on the back so I could write down what does where for easy reference, plus make it look somewhat less than the 97 year old basement that it is.

I just re-ran the wiring today, plus I decided to run 6 new runs of cat5e as long as I was at it. I'll terminate it on the board tomorrow, so if there's any other suggestions let me know.

Thanks all, check it out:

 

[IVB]

Well the rebuild is going well- certainly looks better than the pic at the top of page2. You can see the studs I put on the ceiling to mark off where the interior walls will go. By the time those walls go up, my wallmount rack will be here, at which point i'll put up the patch panel and switch on the right side of the desk.

I guess that's one way to spend a week off work...