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bemis
join:2008-07-18
Reading, MA Reviews:
 ·Comcast
 ·Verizon FiOS
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| advice on setup I'm looking for some advice on setting up a backer board, trying to head of those "of course!" moments of hind sight that always pop-up when done 
So basically I'm soliciting ideas on re-arranging what's there, etc, to keep it clean and easy to work with. I don't expect to be expanding or adding much.
It's a 2'x4' board, I circled some of the less obvious items and highlighted what they are. Some points & questions:
- In the lower left corner there is a 4" metal handibox, that will have a 20A circuit it in shortly, right now the power is coming from the panel plug which is off to the left immediately out of frame
- ONT and Actiontec (Rev F) are in the middle as the VZ guy left them
- The UPS is precariously balanced and waiting to fall on someone ... I was thinking of building a shallow shelf at the top-right side of the board--the board is mounted to (3) 2x6's which are laid flat against the block wall and secured to it, so I could put a couple of shelf brackets flush w/ the top of the board then put a ~6" deep by ~10" long piece of MDF up there to act as the shelf. I used to have a 350VA UPS that could be wall mounted, but rather then buy something new, I'd rather to continue to use this 1000VA one which is only ~4 months old.
- My ATA and phone are just sort of resting up there... I think probably I'll add a surface mount telephone wall plate to the board and mount the phone cradle to that (if I can find the cradle's wall adapter). Otherwise I suppose a small shelf for the UPS could be longer to accommodate these pieces. On a side note, I'd love to eliminate the ATA and just use VZ service, but to get phone service w/ VM, caller-id, etc is a minimum of $25/mo to add... my VoIP provider bills me $2.95/mo for 60 minutes outgoing and unlimited incoming... we almost never use the home phone as is, so I can't justify the money for the FIOS phone.
- The "patch" is just a surface mount 6 port keystone box, I plan to run 5-6 pieces of cat5e around the house to a few points, 10 years ago it'd be the first thing I wanted, but as you can see I have nothing hardwired and frankly we've been living wireless like this for nearly 4 months and it hasn't been an issue. The cables would arrive from above all within a flexible plastic conduit, so I could route them any way that made sense. the patch box is mounted w/ the jacks facing "right" at the moment, but obviously that can change
- the switch is a 5-port gigabit d-link--this means I'll need to have 1-2 of my patch ports connected directly to the VZ router, which I believe is only 100Mb, but for a location like our living room which just feeds an xbox360, that's no problem, I've got a couple other of these d-links kicking around, so I could daisy chain another which would net an additional 3 ports, it's also facing "right" at the moment
- We have only one TV, so I'm planning to leave the coax as it was setup by the VZ guy.
- That little white box under the UPS is a "radon" detector... our levels are just under 4pC/L, we don't have a mitigation system, so I'm just watching it to see if it starts to get higher as we do improvements to the house like insulation, windows, doors, etc | |
| Have you ever considered a wall-mount equipment cabinet?
Assuming that the board is well anchored to the wall, I would mount a wire steel shelf to put the UPS on. If the UPS took a power surge, or one of it's batteries had a bad day, I would want it on a metal shelf, not wood. Also, a wire metal shelf would provide better cooling.
My preference would be to add a couple of additional wire shelves and put the router/switch on those. You will be able to see the link/status lights on the devices easier, and devices are easier to swap out when they break.
I look at these things from two angles, safety to the home and maximum uptime/reliability. You need to consider what could go wrong, and what is in place to prevent it.
In general, while the old-school thought is to use a wood backer-board, this is a highly flammable item. So if there is a power surge or near lightning strike, the power strip internals would vaporize and start that board on fire. Also, if there are water lines or drain pipes above all this, it's all going to get wet.
My first suggestion is that the electrical handi-box is too close to the VZ stuff in the middle. I would want to run a metal flex conduit to that, and keep it further away from everything else. You really need two quad boxes, as I really do not trust those plastic-cased power strips very much.
I would add something like a #6 copper wire tied to the main home ground rod, add a lightning arrestor to the cable line input, and ground the arrestor to the copper wire.
Anyway, that's my $.02 worth.
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bemis
join:2008-07-18
Reading, MA Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon FiOS
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by Robo_Geek_2 :Have you ever considered a wall-mount equipment cabinet?
Assuming that the board is well anchored to the wall, I would mount a wire steel shelf to put the UPS on. Good ideas, the 2x6's are anchored to the block wall using between four and six "tapcon" concrete screws per 2x6. In hindsight it probably would have been better to use a toggle-bolt setup. I'm about 205lbs and can hang from the plywood without it budging, so I figure it should be good for a wire shelf to hold a ~10lb UPS and some equipment.
An equipment cabinet isn't a bad idea either, but I'm guessing they get expensive... when I consider what a rinky dink setup I've got here it starts to get difficult to explain expenditures to the boss
said by Robo_Geek_2 :I look at these things from two angles, safety to the home and maximum uptime/reliability. You need to consider what could go wrong, and what is in place to prevent it.
In general, while the old-school thought is to use a wood backer-board, this is a highly flammable item. So if there is a power surge or near lightning strike, the power strip internals would vaporize and start that board on fire. Also, if there are water lines or drain pipes above all this, it's all going to get wet. There is a heating system pipe about 1' out from the wall, but otherwise no water is within ~8' or so.
The concern over flammability of wood is valid, but most of what is up there in mounted by plastic, so hopefully if any meaningful flames erupted the device would simply melt it's mount point and fall onto the floor.
The power strips are all connected to the UPS, which in turn is plugged into AC. Perhaps a "whole house" surge or lightning arrestor would make more sense?--Rather then try to protect against the damage from a metal power strip, just keep the strip from melting in the first place...
said by Robo_Geek_2 :My first suggestion is that the electrical handi-box is too close to the VZ stuff in the middle. I would want to run a metal flex conduit to that, and keep it further away from everything else. You really need two quad boxes, as I really do not trust those plastic-cased power strips very much. The house's circuit panel is immediately to the left, so my plan was to have either metallic conduit or armored cable used to supply power to a duplex outlet in the handibox.
The power strips are connected to the battery power output of the UPS, so additional power outlets wouldn't help me too much as I really just need the UPS plugged in.
Personally I've never had any issues with a power strip, but I could substitute one of those metal power bars that has outlets every 4~6" like you'd find on a lab bench for the power strips.
said by Robo_Geek_2 :I would add something like a #6 copper wire tied to the main home ground rod, add a lightning arrestor to the cable line input, and ground the arrestor to the copper wire.
The Verizon tech grounded the ONT using a #10 copper conductor to the frame of my circuit panel which in turn is bonded w/ a heavy copper braid to the water meter and also to a grounding rod installed outside.
The only input from outside the house is power and the fiber optic cable, I don't have POTS or coax coming in from outside the house at all.
Thanks for all your input! | |
netboy34
join:2001-08-29
Kennesaw, GA
kudos:1 | reply to bemis
As for the flamibility question, There is flame retardent paint that you can throw on there... Usually it is gray in color...
For the UPS, I know you would want to use the one you already own, but if you have a couple bucks hanging around, this one from APC is wall mountable and is designed for your type of setup...
»www.apc.com/products/resource/in···atts=200
I will say that 6 port jack box will get old fast if you need to swap cables around from time to time... I would go ahead with a smaller actual patch panel like this one
»www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-N050-0···00067SC6 | |
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