How big is your...

[noone289]

wiring closet

I'm trying to decide where to put my structured wiring and distributed a/v components and thought a poll might start me in the right direction. If you like, mark what you have but comment on what you would want. Location (i.e. basement, living floors, attic) and equipment (i.e. security, htpc, a/v equipment, lighting, etc.) might be helpful, too if you feel like it. Either way, thanks for playing.

This is cross posted on CocoonTech and AVS Forums so if you belong to one of those, sorry. I just wanted everyone to have a chance to give their input/bragging rights.

[Dean Roddey]

My apartment is so small that there's only one closet, and it has to be used for actual closet stuff so I don't have a wiring closet, unless you count the roll of zipcord that I have in there.

[noone289]

I think that qualifies as 'where it fits'. Man yours is tiny

[ellisr63]

I use a walkin closet.... but it sure is cramped with clothing and a rack.

[klindy]

My main wiring connections all take place on a large panel in the attic space near the center of the house. From there LOTS of wires drop nearly straight down into a built-in cabinet (like a large china cabinet with lower cabinets and upper glass door cabinets). The wiring terminates in the lower section and the connects to all the components spread throughout the cabinet.

From the attic panel, everything feeds into the individual rooms. It gives me the flexibility to make changes pretty easily and still keep a pretty clean install.

[jpants]

Mine is is a small storage room in my basement. It even has a utility sink and a fridge down there so when I am hooking up all those wires and what not I can rinse up and grab a cold one. My wife hates if because she never sees me. If I walk out of the equipment room I enter the Bar area refill my beer and with a short walk to my theater room, sit in one of the six berkline recliners and fire up the 9' screen. Ahhhhh. I spent so much money for someone to hook it all up and it didn't do half of what it does now but then again I didn't know 1/10 th of what I know now.

John

[jscheller]

I wish I'd planned more space. Equipment racks are the killer... I wasn't thinking about needing to get BEHIND the 19" equipment racks. Audio and HT gear isn't very deep, but I've got one rack with a server in it that's 30" deep, and even then it's jammed in there... I should have put a 36" deep rack in, but it'd have blocked a door. Once you've got everything together with wires coming out of your walls, it's just about impossible to move anything... 24" to wiggle behind everything would have made my life easy.

More space is definitely better... You won't regret it especially if you wind up with a lot of gear down there...

[LesAuber]

Someone makes a rack that pulls out and I think rotates so you can work behind it. Might be the ticket if your space limited.

[MBrew]

I voted where it fits, but the exact number is about 5 square feet with another 4-5 sf required to open it. It's a Middle Atlantic SR 40-28 that has been customized. This gives me 44 RU of rack space on the front (4U is in the base), then I put rear rack rails in the cabinet and some specialized rails in the back pan for lots of versatility. Most of the patching is done in the back pan. I also have excellent access to everything.

This was a very thoroughly planned installation to maximize the use of space but it was not necessarily the most economical way to do it.

I've been meaning to post some pictures, I'll try to gt to it soon.

Mike

Edit: here's some pics but they're not very good. The cabinet that you see in the first pic swings to the left to open. The servers are on rails and when pulled out I could totaly rebuild the computers right there. The CAT 5 patch panels punch from the front and are very easy to use. I was originally trying to leave room on the back pan for whatever security I might want to add, but I think I'll install a big can in the wall on the right. I have a board with come additional coax patching in the attic. The rack opens into the area in front of the breaker box. Since that space needed to be accessible anyway it wasn't really wasted space. I've been real happy with this installation so far.

The computers are networked with Firewire which gives a real fast connection between them. They also have Ethernet so that I can work them via RDP from my main workstation.

[Ripper]

Nice Rack Mbrew..I like the wiring on the back door, I presume everything vents through roof fans on the rack?

I have an open cage rack that is massive.., I had considered adding the sides for it but with all the servers I worried about heat so I'll wait and see. I haven't moved into our new home yet but will be putting it intoa utilty room and left enough cable so I can roll it out from where it sits to work on things.




I plan to take the LCD monitor out of the rack and mount all mu audio equipment up top, later I might add the side panels and install the fans in the top.