My wiring "closet"..

[camera-newbie 0]

Ok.. So I promised on another thread that I would post pics of my always work-in-progress wiring closet which is not really a closet per-se but a bunch of space in the garage that serves as an end-point for all of the low-voltage wiring in our house. This closet holds / services wiring for the following stuff :

 

• Ethernet drops
  
• Phone drops - no daisy chaining her mam!
  
• Video drops
  
• and now Cameras

 

I've had to increase the surface area of the patch-board located between the two 36" Open-House enclosures you can see in the photo below. Please pardon the mess nearby -- I've got a pile of container boxes that are stacked up in the bottom right corner -- holding all of my low voltage supplies I use..

 

So, in the photo above, I've got two OpenHouse 36" enclosures -- the left serves all phone/ethernet cabling to the entire house care of the large grey conduit on the top of that box. In the top-left corner of the photo is my Cisco 18xx series router mounted on the wall with one wireless AP barely visible just below it and almost out of cameras view -- although you can see the remote mounted antenna for it that obviously hasn't been mounted yet (sitting on top of the enclosure)!

 

The 2nd enclosure on the right handles all incoming video connections (RG6) from various rooms in the house -- 98% of them are spares.

In the 2nd photo above, we take a closer look at the wiring board placed between the two enclosures.. The items on the board are as follows (top-to bottom, left to right) : Fronius Solar inverter data acquisition box - monitors our two IG3000 inverters, a used but working Ultrak 24VAC Power Supply for CNB dome cameras, next row : OOMA VOIP phone box, terminal block for CNB cameras - one side is CAT5 from individual cameras, the other goes to the power supply & Avigilon encoder.. next is an 8 way lossless video splitter (don't recall the brand) -- takes OTA antenna signal and splits it without degrading signal quality. 3rd row has the newly installed Inovonics EN4214MR receiver receiving movement notices from an Optex HX40 PIR/Microwave sensor which in turn is connected to the Avigilon encoder as an input. Next to the Inovonics receiver is one of my 3 HDHomeRun dual-tuners for my SageTV setup -- each of these tuner boxes has twin network based tuners -- input an RG6 antenna signal and it will output a stream of digital bytes via the Ethernet port. The next row has the Avigilon 4-port Analog encoder with 2 ports active currently to my CNB VCM-24VF cameras. The last row on the far left has my cable modem -- partially visible along with a power-brick velcro'd to the board.

 

The next picture is a close-up of the Inovonics receiver mentioned above along with my passive PoE injector and the bottom of the picture is part of the Avigilon encoder box. More pics in the next post..

Edited May 7, 2012 by Guest

[camera-newbie 0]

 

The next photo shows a closer internal view on the left 36" Openhouse cabinet seen closed in earlier photos. This is where all of the Ethernet & phone wiring comes in from various places within the house. The white cables are from the various ethernet drops. The blue cables in the bottom two patch boards are for the phone connections, the top-two for ethernet. The rest of the blue wires are short ethernet cables -- I would have used white but ran out and couldn't justify buying another box just because the color matched..

I've got a 16 port Netgear unmanaged gigabit switch in the top-right corner -- it's been reliable but the power supply hasn't -- it flaked out on me before 2 years was done -- I just bought an aftermarket one and my problem was solved.

 

Here's another view:

 

Here's a close-up of the Avigilon encoder, cable modem and a white-washed Inovonics receiver..

 

 

I've tried to make sure this stuff is as clean as possible -- using Velcro to attach boxes that aren't setup for wall mounting, making custom ethernet cables (pain in the rear), mounting tabs to hold extra long cables in small bundles,etc..

 

Anyway, hopefully you can get an idea of my work ethic from looking at my DIY job here.. I'll post some pics in this thread later showing the cameras I've mounted,etc..

[nDAlk90 0]

For a diy job... not bad.

 

In the structured wiring cabinet I would put the phone connection blocks closer together.

Then I would put the internet connection blocks closer together. (Too much unused space)

 

Whats that white POE thing you have? Is it a POE injector? Can you explain... Where did you buy?

 

Thanks.

Good Job!

[camera-newbie 0]

Thanks! I've updated the first message in the thread showing the PoE injector -- it's now got a link to the place I got it from.. I particularly liked the price ($20US).. As long as your devices are 48V PoE capable it'll work for you -- this will NOT provide lower voltages,etc.. It's fixed at 48VDC.. I should note that mine has no case protecting it -- when I bought it, they were still getting the cases fabbed up and I wasn't able to wait for several weeks to get the packaged version so I just bought this one -- it works great and has screw holes to mount it.. Just don't screw it down too hard or the board may bend..

 

I may take you up on the suggestion to relocate the phone/ethernet blocks -- at some point I may need to move from that 16 port switch to a 24 port switch -- I think I'm down to the last port.. Doh! Shows you how much planning gets you!

 

By the way, this does not include another mini enclosure in our bedroom closet that collects all the ethernet traffic from the rear of the house and sends it to the garage on one of those ports -- hence only needing 16 ports here.. I've got another 8 port switch in the rear of the house..

 

P.S. I'm not going to take any photos of my attic -- I've attached all of the cables using 3M cable stackers like in the image below :

It could be cleaner but at least the cables aren't draped all over the floor like I've seen in some attics I've been in over the years.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Guest

[nDAlk90 0]

How many computer do you have?

Funny question... Why pre-wire for so many phone jacks when you end up using a cordless phone system? Or do you have a makeshift office complex at home. Cubicles?

 

Just kidding.

 

Thanks! I've updated the first message in the thread showing the PoE injector -- it's now got a link to the place I got it from.. I particularly liked the price ($20US).. As long as your devices are 48V PoE capable it'll work for you -- this will NOT provide lower voltages,etc.. It's fixed at 48VDC..

 

I may take you up on the suggestion to relocate the phone/ethernet blocks -- at some point I may need to move from that 16 port switch to a 24 port switch -- I think I'm down to the last port.. Doh! Shows you how much planning gets you!

 

By the way, this does not include another mini enclosure in our bedroom closet that collects all the ethernet traffic from the rear of the house and sends it to the garage on one of those ports -- hence only needing 16 ports here.. I've got another 8 port switch in the rear of the house..

[camera-newbie 0]

How many computer do you have?

Funny question... Why pre-wire for so many phone jacks when you end up using a cordless phone system? Or do you have a makeshift office complex at home. Cubicles?

 

Just kidding.

 

No problem! I've got two computers on 24x7 (one Mac, one PC - the PC hosting my TV server s/w & Avigilon), but we've got a few laptops, printers, and the typical wireless devices (iphones, ipad, nooks,etc)..

 

Why pre-wire for so many? I've been in houses in the past that had no wiring in some rooms and didn't want my house that way.. It was super cheap to do at the time since ALL walls were completely open (and the ceilings too).. In practice, we've got ONE phone jack, in use, in the entire house! " title="Applause" />

[SEANHAWG 1]

nice!

[groovyman 0]

You really put a lot of time, effort and thought into what you were doing. Very nice job.

[thewireguys 3]

Nice work that reminds me of my old home automation/ structured wiring days

[pal251 0]

Looks good.

 

How hot does your garage get in the summer and do you ever have problems with the heat if it does get hot?

 

I am thinking the same thing but my garage gets really hot in the summer time and I can blow air over it but it will just be warm / hot air.

 

Was wanting to do it inside but I cannot find a good place I'm comfortable about knocking holes in the wall at.

[nDAlk90 0]

Was wanting to do it inside but I cannot find a good place I'm comfortable about knocking holes in the wall at.

 

So many people are afraid of making holes in walls. If its not plaster, it i usually just Sheetrock which is easily repairable. Installing in climate control area is desirable. Basement, Laundry room, etc.

[pal251 0]

I don't have a laundry room that would have the room or basement. The only thing I can do is pay to have someone install an outlet or two in a closet and then run the wires into that.

[jasauders 0]

Was wanting to do it inside but I cannot find a good place I'm comfortable about knocking holes in the wall at.

 

So many people are afraid of making holes in walls. If its not plaster, it i usually just Sheetrock which is easily repairable. Installing in climate control area is desirable. Basement, Laundry room, etc.

 

I hate making holes in plaster walls, however I always look at it as a reason to upgrade the plaster to something that, well, doesn't suck. Once I realized that's what was in the bathroom, I stripped the walls in a hot minute without even thinking about it.

 

Solid idea on the wiring job. I currently have everything being routed downstairs to the basement, which is where my office area is. As I add more devices I find myself running out of desk space which I should have plenty of (80x32 main desk + 24x96 side desk), so I plan to start attaching things to a panel board sort of like what you did. " title="Applause" />