| My Structured Wiring Enclosure Thought i would put this in its own thread for those interested. Project came about in that we had some water in the basement so i pulled out the old wood panels and was going to put in drywall. I thought i would add a few LV jacks downstairs, then that somehow turned into rewiring the entire house. 2 of the 3 bedrooms had to coax in them, and most of the other cables where fed from outside and looks crappy (split foyer so no easy way).
Ended up putting the panel in a closet downstairs (only good spot out of the way and near power) and ran 3 3/4 smurf pipe up to the attic and dropped everything down in the walls. I probably spent around 8-9 hours total up there, around 7 in the past 5 days. Really happy with how its looking so far, just need to get power in there, get my switch mounted, and my MTA phone modem from charter.
Cool thing about the phone piece is it uses rj45 so any jack can be phone or internet, i just have to patch it into the given spot.
Panel has the following
2 rg6 and 2 cat5e per bedroom x 3 rooms
2 rg6 1 cat5e living room upstairs
1 cat5e kitchen phone
3 rg6 3 cat5e family room basement
5 rg6 and 2 cat5e outside to the old box to extend a few things to the panel (1 jack i couldnt get to from the attic 1 cat5e 1 rg6, 1 rg6 for charter, 1 for cat5e ATT, and 3 for satellite).
Almost wish i had gotten a little bigger panel with all the wire on there now, but it should be OK. Not worth going cat6 for me because of the limited conduit space i could get up to the attic.
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sk1939Premium
join:2010-10-23
Washington, DC
kudos:9 | Looks nice and clean, but why are your outlets ground up   .
Seriously though, it looks nice. |
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| said by sk1939:Looks nice and clean, but why are your outlets ground up .
Seriously though, it looks nice.
Cheap monoprice screws i guess? I did them by hand and it did that so i couldnt have been much easier on them. I dont really like the gold coax F outlet either (didnt pay much attention to that when i bought them), so i may get silver at some point and get some better screws too.
I also dont really dig some of the sharp angles i had to do on the coax, but i couldnt really figure out a better way to get everything in there and tied together correctly. |
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| May be wrong , but believe sk1939 is referring to the 120 outlets being mounted ground pin up 
Do we really want to restart the debate on if the ground pin should be up or down ? If we do I vote for up .
Your project looks nice . May be a little work now , but will really pay off in the future .
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| reply to cooldude9919
Ah i guess i read that the wrong way. I put new outlets in around 6 years ago or so i was doing so much stuff i probably didnt pay attention to that at all! |
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 Jack_in_VAPremium
join:2007-11-26
Mathews, VA
kudos:1 | reply to MrFixit1
said by MrFixit1:May be wrong , but believe sk1939 is referring to the 120 outlets being mounted ground pin up
Do we really want to restart the debate on if the ground pin should be up or down ? If we do I vote for up .
Your project looks nice . May be a little work now , but will really pay off in the future .
Been in a lot of different medical facilities in the past months and I've noticed that every one of the hospital grade receptacles (green dot) are mounted ground pin up. Maybe there is a standard? |
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 fcislerPremium
join:2004-06-14
Riverhead, NY | said by Jack_in_VA:Been in a lot of different medical facilities in the past months and I've noticed that every one of the hospital grade receptacles (green dot) are mounted ground pin up. Maybe there is a standard?
I've read and heard that ground up is preferable in a situation like that because anything falling onto the conductors results in hitting ground first, followed by the live/neutral - vs bridging the live/neutral.
I have actually seen this happen with a copier. Ruler dropped down and BANG - shorted the outlet. It was a longshot to make but it did happen.
Along the same area a much common scenario used to be the metallic wall plate covers coming lose. After a while they would begin to rotate. Once they were hit in just the right way BAM - short!
After asking the fire marshal we had maintenance replace the covers with nylon. |
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AVonGaussPremium
join:2007-11-01
Boynton Beach, FL | I'm not an electrician, but I'd say if you have a metallic outlet cover causing a short, you have far more serious issues that nylon covers will not be able to fix. In some use areas, I would imagine a metallic cover would provide additional safety over a nylon or plastic plate. |
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| reply to cooldude9919
Looks nice! Do you have a link to the cable tie-labels you used on the cables? |
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| said by jeffmoss26:Looks nice! Do you have a link to the cable tie-labels you used on the cables?
Yep here you go, they are called Kableflags and are pretty handy.
»www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TO···_s00_i00 |
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| reply to cooldude9919
as much as i hate media panels, i personally prefer using a small rack attached to a backboard, i will say this is really really nice |
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| said by telco_mtl:as much as i hate media panels, i personally prefer using a small rack attached to a backboard, i will say this is really really nice
I had thought about that, but honestly i had no good spot to put something that stuck out that far from the wall. With a split foyer we have all finished space, and our laundry room is very small and anything sticking out would be in the way. This being recessed in the wall in a closet makes it the only good way i could do things. |
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| reply to cooldude9919
Where did you get the media panel and the accessories installed in it? I am looking for something similar for my new house. |
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| said by rbnice1:Where did you get the media panel and the accessories installed in it? I am looking for something similar for my new house.
Most of the stuff i got from westsidewholesale, they have some deals when you buy so much $$ worth. I got the coax f patch panel from ebay.
Heres the bulk of the stuff i got from westside, top price is regular, bottom of each item is after discounts.
Item Sku Model # Quick Ship Qty Subtotal
Leviton Telephone Input Distribution Panel 11983633 476TL-T12 Yes 1
$66.75
$60.08
Leviton AC Power Module (two duplex gray receptacles) 11983690 47605-NDP Yes 1
$35.00
$31.50
Leviton 1x4 Passive Video Splitter Module, 2.05 GHz 11983708 47690-4C2 Yes 1
$15.50
$13.95
Leviton Series 280 Structured Media Center Enclosure and Flush-mount Cover, 28-Inch 11983686 47605-28W Yes 1
$66.75
$60.08
Leviton Push-Lock Pins for Structured Media Centers, Bag Of 20 11983624 47615-NYL Yes 1
$4.50
$4.05
Leviton Universal Shelf Bracket used with Structured Media Center - White 11983623 47612-UBK Yes 1
$29.25
$26.33
Subtotal $195.99
Bundle Savings $21.76
Free Economy Shipping $0.00
Shipping Savings $20.34
Grand Total $195.99
Total Savings $48.10 |
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| reply to cooldude9919
That's pretty nice. Yeah the screws you get with Monoprice plates are pretty cheap. You have to be very gentle with them or the cheap paint flakes right off the screw heads.
The only thing I would do is replace the barrel connectors on the coax with the blue centers that are rated to 3 GHz. I got stuff from here before: »www.prosatellitesupply.com/CONNECTORS.htm
10 pack for $4.99. They are really good connectors fully swept to 3 GHz.
My monoprice patch panel looks like that but its numbered in the opposite direction. Overall I think structured cabling in the home is a great idea and its really convenient having Ethernet at each TV for a game system or streaming media player / blue ray /etc.. |
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| reply to cooldude9919
I am looking at that site now...prices are okay but, still more than my suppliers.
Why don't they sell the Cat 5e or Cat 6 Leviton jacks? I have not installed a 41108-RI5 Cat 5 jack in years! |
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| reply to cooldude9919
Got my power wired in and my MTA modem moved, 5 port switch mounted, and the UPS in there, but man space is getting really tight near the bottom of the enclosure. Got some short patch cables on order, along with a short power cable for my UPS (came with a 6ft one which is crazy overkill and i dont want all that slack taking up room). Ill get some totally complete pictures in a week or so. |
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 DaarkenRara AvisesPremium
join:2005-01-12
Southwest LA
kudos:3 | reply to Jack_in_VA
We have an engineer who specifies that all outlets be ground up. If the electrician doesn't install it that way, the engineer wont sign the electrical final.
More then one electrician has found out the hard way.
We have a special nag price just for him when he engineers one of our special systems.
Nice structured wiring job.
Most of our technicians put the time to do it right like that.
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Getting it Done. |
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| reply to cooldude9919
Pretty much done, got my short patch cables in place, just waiting on a short 1ft power cable for the UPS so i dont have 5ft of slack clogging up the bottup of the unit. Its really a tight fit with the UPS in there, but all my other gear is on a UPS so i should get a decent runtime with only the MTA and "Green" switch on it. Anything else i should do to it? |
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