Some more from this week's job which is an SAX rack and not an AXS due to space problems. Our guy used the lacer bars in a kind of different of way since there was no space the rack and the had to go behind it.

One advice is when you are using a Slim 5, AXS or SAX from MA or Skeleton Rack from Raxess to add a wide vetical lacer bar like the one in the picture. These racks do not have enough space on the rack rail to route all the low voltage cables. See the 2nd picture from the botton on the previous post.

Stamp, I agree with everything you say about rack elevations and they help a lot. But regarding power management of the rack equipment the rack elevation will not help you much. What you need is a power schematic, something like the one below.

Crowded!

We get a schematic just like that for everything. power, lan, cresnet, AV etc. My comments were more 101'ish for those who are just starting to plan out their racks. Everything is calculated up front and documented with D-Tools.

the racks posted are very sexy.   but do any of you find that there isnt enough service loop left in the wires?  I don't wire racks anymore, and we have a guy that does some great work, but I am constantly trying to get him to leave me more service, since I am the one that ends up having to troubleshoot things or service them down the road.  I used to put a loop on every wire that I could, then plug it in.  It may not have looked perfect, but it saved my ass on a few occasions.  I would hate to cut a bunch of zip ties and ruin a pretty job, just to pull out some slack on a cable to re-terminate an end.   

I keep a nice 6' service loop in the ceiling above the rack. Other than speaker cable i connect every cable in the house to patch panels. Once they are all tested i ziptie them in permanently and they never have to be touched again. Then i make patch cables for everything in the rack. If you have a bad cable its just a patch cable and typically no longer than 6' so you can easily replace it.

forgive my ignorance, but I love those cables! what brand of wire/connectors are those? do you have luck with them?

BTW: i agree with Ducttape, Those racks are sexy!

I noticed that you have a shop? makes so much more sense doing them their then at the customers house.

Those setups look fantastic. Thanks for the input.

If you are talking about ours, the cables are Liberty Interflex Serial Digital 20AWG and the connectors are ITC. We are finishing our last spools of this cable and we are moving to Mini from now on. We will be using the Audioquest 24AWG but Liberty also has some nice one in 23AWG. Even smaller diameter cable e.g 25-26AWG is also fine for racks but usually requires 2 piece connectors and you will have hard time labelling it.

Regarding connectors we now use ITC from Audioquest but the Liberty Connectec line is also excellent. Never had a problem with these 2 lines but we now prefer the ITC ones since they are cheaper and also reusable.


Yes, we prefer to build them in our workshop.

This is so incredibly humbling.

Our racks start off nice but after some troubleshooting and reterminating ends tends to look not as good to say the least. We are a smaller organization so I dont have the man power to have a dedicated rack specialist. I cant wait until we get to the place in our business that we have the man power for this expertise.

Awesome work guys.

The best way to do this is if you terminate all of the in house wiring at a patch panel(s) of some sort. That way you can pre-wire the rack and essentially build yourself a harness that plugs into the patch panel(s).

You guys and your purdy racks are starting to piss me off.
Every time I clean mine up I get something new to test and I am right back to messy (sigh).
Oh for just 6 months of a static rack.

We usually do this as well and we even terminate speaker cables. I agree with this and I try to allocate budget so that we can do this on every job. Every cable coming to any headend should be terminated. This is not only for the ones that will be patched to the rack/equipment but also the spare/provision ones.

I have something I want to discuss though. When we terminate we can test all the cables using a good cable validator/verifier like the Fluke Cable IQ or the JTSU Validator. You do not only check for shorts or correct mapping but also for bandwidth in cat5e/cat6 cable. This is even done for cat5e/cat6 used for component video because the baluns are wired in 568A/B format. With HDMI baluns though it seems we can not terminate/patch the cables because this will cause problems. Also it seems you can not properly test the cable because they are wired straight-through and not in the 568A/B format and the testers mentioned above can not do a bandwidth test. What do you do in the HDMI balun case?




Can you explain this more? Where are you terminating on the rack the patch cables are shorter but on the wall sometimes the patch cables are long (e.g 3-4m).

How did you come up with the number? If it is a bad cable from a source to a switcher or to an amp then it is not so easy to replacfe. If it is a bad cable from an amp or from a switcher to a termination panel then again it is shorter. Also control cables are not that easy to change.

I dont know what you mean about not being able to test the cables properly because they are wired straight thru. I use panduit wallplates in the rooms and panduit patch panels at the rack all terminated following 568B. I use a continuity "lan tester" then an HP validation tool.

I dont use HDMI baluns. We distribute component via Crestron PVID's. We only use HDMI for surround zones /theaters and the HDMI switcher is local. This is all changing now with Digital Media though.


I dont have any cables on the back wall. Every cable in the house is terminated to patch panels. The patch panels are within 6' of anything in the rack.




Its very easy to replace cables for me because i use 23 gauge black coaxial cable for interconnects. I cut a piece of cable slightly longer than i need. I terminate one end and plug it in. Then i follow the bundle with the new cable and cut it to length and terminate it and plug it in. Then i loosely zip tie the cable in place following the old ones. I clip the ends off of the bad cable that was being replaced and pull it out of the rack. Then i tighten the zip ties and clip the old zip ties off. Done. It usually takes 5-10 minutes to replace a bad cable. I rarely have a bad patch cable at the end of the job because i test them as i install them in the racks.



I use Cat5 with RJ45 to DB9 adaptors for control so they are just as easy for me to change.

rj45 to db9 is the only way to go , IMO. it makes troubleshooting control issues alot easier and if you need a null, it is very quick fix.

Steven