Re: AV & Media Room Design

[Marc_F_Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 17:44:52 -0400, "Robert Green"
<ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<7dSdnev958oXYi3bnZ2dnUVZ_qfinZ2d@xxxxxxx>:



>On the positive side, providing sufficient manuevering room for a
>powerchair usually means there's more than sufficient air flow.  Hopefully
>I can find some metal grillwork that I can use to make equipment shelves,
>perhaps by making "frames" out of 1" square hardwood and the metal
>grillework if I can't find something pre-made that doesn't cost a fortune.
>Having fully  ventilated shelves will hopefully keep "hot pockets" from
>forming when equipment gets stacked up.

After a burglary relieved us of audio gear (later recovered by the police)
and enough of our difficult-to-replace CD collection to serve as a warning,
I moved much of the AV equipment into the basement with the other HA
infrastructure. And since there is only a crawl space under most of the
house and the space in the full basement that does exist is at a premium, I
(bravely? naively?) chose to shoehorn all the gear and wiring into an
otherwise wasted part of the basement that was poorly accessible owing to
the air-handler, boiler, water heater and duct-work. IOW, I created lotsa
obstacles to a 'clean' installation. I am once again addressing these
realities owing to the partial retirement of CyberHouse and its physical
sequelae.

(One advantage of the 'federated, PC-centric approach is that although much
of the HA system is disconnected and in boxes on the floor, hanging from
the ceiling and/or in my Porch Sale, the What-Me-Worry Napco security
system has remained completely unperturbed and fully operational.)

Part of my solution is to use two surplus 5-foot-tall, roller-mounted 19"
racks. These are open on all sides which provides excellent cross
ventilation, but create yet another challenge/problem -- namely  how to
connect the moveable racks to the extensive wiring on the wall.

The solution for the 'computer' rack is to connect it to the rest of the
world only through a 12 gauge extension cord powering a 120VAC isolation
transformer on the rack and two fiber optic cables (one is gigabit
ethernet; the other is audio). This tether is long enough to let me move it
anywhere in the basement. An important advantage of the galvanic isolation
provided by the  use of fiber, transformer and rubber wheels is a high
level of protection from lighting/transient electrical sub-systems damage.
We have suffered repeated equipment failures despite whole-house surge
protection at the meter installed by the utility. The damage was partly of
and apparently partly because of the plethora low-voltage gizmos attached
to the computers.

At last count, the HA system controlled by a PC on this rack had about
fifteen RS-232, RS-422 and RS-485 devices. They are no longer connected
directly to the PCs, but via www.comtrol.com multiport Ethernet--> RS-xxx
hubs which in turn are connected to the PC's via fiber. An added advantage
to this approach is that the RS-xxx-connected devices can be controlled by
any computer connected to the Internet (as we used to say, "anywhere in the
world" ;-). This also provides a means for failover from one computer to
another and permits the re-allocation/reconfiguration of individual serial
devices from one computer to another with a batch file or a few
clicks/keystrokes and without physically unplugging and replugging.

I also 'rolled my own racks' (pun intended) using  with 19" rack rails from
http://www.gruber.com  like these
http://cgi.ebay.com/Pairs-of-16-Space-16U-Rack-Rails-for-EIA-19-Rack-Mount_W
0QQitemZ190135078156QQihZ009QQcategoryZ23789QQcmdZViewItem bolted on to
24x18x6" steel HA 'sandboxes' from our local www.graybar.com.

I'll post some pictures when the HA system looks presentable again. Right
now that part of the basement looks like the I35W bridge in Minneapolis.

... Marc
Marc_F_Hult
HA and Electronics Porch Sale jist beginning at
www.ECOntrol.org/porch_sale.htm