Very nice work.

For anyone who has not detailed racks out like this you must realize the time commitment and bid correctly. Also if you are the person in your company who is responsible for the rack work be prepared for snide comments from other other employees. Things like "Are you sleeping back there"etc... Normally it is good natured but there is some rack envy that comes out.

When most young people get into this business, I think this is what they invision, Working with high grade equipment and custom racks. They don't realize that most "older guys" working behind racks have had to spend plenty of time installing dishes in winter, belly crawling thru crawl spaces, and getting roofing nails in their heads in attics.

I always told my crews "I want to see art" and judging from some of these pictures people are creating just that and more.
Our clients would show off the back of the racks as often as the front. Every year dealers are just taking it farther, better and faster.
Raising the standard, what a novel idea.

Alright, its time to talk about the rack design itself and how it can help/hinder your wire management. I think a big portion of a good looking, serviceable wired rack is have the right parts and pieces in the right places.

Lacer Bars: Round or "L"? Straight or Inset?

I was working on one today a Slim5, 26" (first 26" that I've done, usually 20"), I have the L shaped Lacer bars (which I typically prefer) but this time we have with a 2" or a 4" inset. This was nice to get the cables closer to the equipment. My problem is bringing the wires up and down (vertically) in the rack.

In a small system, there isn't much and the wiring can be strapped to the rear rack rail. If you are using the Inset lacer bars, they are in the way. What do you do? Do you run them on the front of the lacer bars, starting to take up the middle?

What do you use for vertical cable management in a rack?

What parts (tools) do you spec in every rack that helps to make everyone more serviceable and better managed?


Here are some pics, they are terrible, the lighting was bad and taken with iPhone (which is usually actually half way decent but these suck).




I put the router and modem on a shelf and put a vented blank panel over the front that can easily be taken off if for some reason you need to see. There is a APC G5BLK dedicated to the 4 network pieces (modem, router, switch, wap) so the client can easily reboot the entire network by pressing a button on the front.




This shows the lacer bars and the two vertical power strips that I'm using. Bottom strip is for in the High Current of another APC dedicated for the AVR and two Velodyne Sub Amps. The vertical strip above it plus into the AV portion of the APC and is for the Denon Bluray, AppleTV, RTI XP8, Zektor 8x8 and 2 cable boxes. I started bringing the speaker wires and network LAN cables in but must not of taken a pic.




Another terrible pic, but shows the inset lacers.







I have at minimum 20 Cat 6 cables to bring in plus at least 15 Speakers wires and component and an HDMI to the rack. Plus if they end up putting a 12 channel amp in, thats 6 more 14-4 wires to bring down (unless they end up in a 2nd rack). I'm struggling mainly with vertical management.

Also, the network gear is so shallow, I almost wanted to mount on the back of the rack, but didn't .

I've only ever done Slim5, AXS and SRSR. Do the other racks have some features that make them more desirable for cable management? If so, what?

I like the L shaped because it gives you a flat service to support your bundles. I use a cobination of straight and inset depending on what i am trying to accomplish.


The slim racks dont have a built in space for vertical runs. The frame of the rack is basically the rails. Freestanding racks typically have a shell around them. The space between the rails and the shell gives you a spot to run your cables. Here you can see an example. Most of the speaker cable bundle is tucked into that dead space.

Stationary rack


Rack with wheels


Since you don't have that space you have to create a chase using vertical lacer bars. Heres is an example. It attaches to the sides of your rack. In some cases you have to modify it. I usually have to cut them to length and pilot a few new holes. Its hard to tell because the cable is black but there are a lot of bundles running up that vertical lacer bar. Those mushroom shaped knock outs are for your zipties or velcro.



You have to make a choice though. To have veritcal lacer bars or inset lacer bars. If you try to use them together you cut off your vertical path.

Here is an example of using the vertical lacer bars and the inset lacer bars. The inset bars are reversed. Its a facebook page. This is the link [Link: facebook.com] They have a lot of nice wiring pics there and they use large interconnect cable.....and they do it very well.


Lacer bars & patch panels are pretty much the only thing that we use in terms of cable management. Also.. The horizontal power strips are something i have talked about before. They free up the space used by the large vertical power strips.

Vertical Lacer strips : [Link: middleatlantic.com]

Thanks again Stamp. I have been using a mix of Vertical and Horizontal power strips. haven't really decided what I like most yet.

Alright, how about tips on making and wiring your interconnects? Whats your method?

To have very nicely "combed" cables they have to be laid out in order from coming from the wall go into a piece of equipment. So how do you go about running your cables? One at a time, run it, label it, put a fitting and go to the next one?

Do you rough measure all your cables, label them, put on the connectors, then install them?

Do you rough label pull extra wire to each piece of equipment, then run the last bit along the lacer and to the input jack, put on a connector and label?

I haven't figured out my favorite way and am curious what others do?

Lets say i am wiring all the sources to the video switcher. I start by cutting a peice of cable thats slightly longer than i need for getting from the furthest source to the switcher. Then i cut every wire that length and terminate one end of each of those sections of cable i just cut.

I label the terminated end neatly and then i label the other end. Doesnt have to be neat because its gettings cut off soon.

I plug in every cable to the sources or the switcher. I usually choose whichever is on top in the rack so i dont have to fight gravity while bundling them. Then i neatly zip tie the cables into a nice bundle across the lacer bar until i get it to the edge of the rack where i have to take them down the rail. Then i use my fingers like a comb to straighten them out and i start making a nice neat bundle all the way down putting a zip tie in every 10 inches or so. Once i have a good bit zip tied i start strapping it to the rails with zip ties. Being sure to remove the temporary ties that were holding the bundle together as i go until i reach the horizontal lacer bar for the switcher (if the switcher were at the bottom in this imagined rack).

I take each set of cables (input 1 or input 2 or output 1 or whatever) and lay them across the lacer bar and zip tie them to the lacer bar to hold them in place. Once all the wires are zip tied in place i make the zip ties permanent by moving them all about 1" to the side of where the wires will plug in. This makes room for the 90 degree bend from the rack rails. Then i take one wire and decide how long it needs to be. I usually just take it to the edge of the component and cut it even. This usually gives me enough wire to terminate it and have it land perfectly at the connector. Then i label it again and plug it in. Then i rinse and repeat for the rest of them.

About 50% of the time you get lucky and your bundles wiggle around enough to get your wires all perfectly overlapped and stacked on top of each other. The other 50% of the time you have to play with them a little The part that needs the attention it where the bundle comes down the vertical rail to the lacer bar for the switcher. The top and all the way down always looks perfect. It can get tricky at the end because you dont know which set of wires goes to which input until you get them down there.

As long as your not trying to do to many wires at once you can usually get it to play nice pretty quick. Using black cables helps hide the minor imperfections.

I am fighting a losing battle trying to switch over to premade interconnects and horizontal wire chases like this one. I think 2 of these in each rack would make it so the cables could be perfect at each end and the excess could be hidden but still accessible. My biggest reason is to cut down on installation time and try and save whats left of my hands and wrists :).

Yes, this is true - this is quite large - it is Liberty 20AWG SD. We are in our last spools and after that we will be using Audioquest 24AWG and maybe Liberty 23AWG that my friend Stamp likes. The rack in those facebook pictures is a SAX and we had very limited space to run wires.

Lacing bars are your friends.