So who's cables do you use to make custom lenght wires?
I know its been discussed in the past, but there were so many brands, it made my head hurt.
I'm doing my first rack at our own HT room and don't know when I'll do another one. Still I want to make it look nice and am looking for a simple to terminate, cost effective solution.
I can't imagine spending $1.20 per foot on mini coax and $2-3 per connector. At that rate I'm looking at dropping $30+ bucks just to do a single component and digital coax drop from sat to amp. That would add up quickly.
I've got a sample package from Planet Wave (sp?). I also played with it at CEDIA. It looked simple enough, but I think their prices were in the $1-2/ft range per single mini-coax and few bucks for each connector.
I'm not going to buy whole 250ft spools in 5 different colors, that would add up quickly.
I'm not trying to be cheap; I'm simply in the area where my clients don't want to spend money on racks, dressing, and custom cables. If I can make it affordable, say less than $50-100 more (custom cables vs. premade ones) for simple setups (Sat, DVD, Amp, display) I think I can sell it.

easier to troubleshoot,
easier to manage,
and cleaner.


patch panels . .

The Audioquest ITC connectors are a great solution. Strip the wire and push the connector on and it's not coming off. Built in strain relief. And if you do make a mistake, you simply cut the cable jacket near the connector and it can be removed and reused.

The pricing for ITC connectors is comparable to standard compression connectors, and the connectors work with Audioquest bulk cable as well as other manufacturers' mini coax and RG59/RG6. Personally I am using the ITC connectors with Audioquest bulk cable - I think the pricing on Audioquest cable is competitive and it is good quality cable. But if you want to use less expensive cable the ITC connectors will work with it.

It is fairly easy to set up an dealer account with Audioquest and they provide great support.


The ITC connectors come with color coded labels which can be placed on the connectors. So if you only want to buy 1 color of cable, you can at least color code the connectors.


I think you can meet these pricing goals with the Audioquest ITC connectors.

[Link: audioquest.com]

Yes, the above are some of the reasons I prefer patch panels or wall terminations.


When I asked what do you use, I was referring to HDMI baluns.

If your market does not allow for racks/custom cables i would stick to premade patch cables. Reason being that there is a significant amount of labor involved in making the custom patch cables. If you are already trying to squeeze in the cost of hardware for the custom cables you will end up eating the labor involved to make them.

One reason to start trying to transition into custom cables is overall efficiency. If you stock raw cable and connectors you will never have to place another 3' 6' 9' 12' etc etc cable order. You wont have to run out to radio shack to get an RCA to BNC adaptor because you can just grab a BNC compression fitting and make the cable yourself.

Right now we stock 14/4 speaker cable, Cat5E/6, 23 gauge mini coax, RG6, Cresnet. These 6 cables handle 95% of all of my cabling needs. The only premade cables i carry are optical and HDMI. My rough-in cable is the same as my trimout cable so i never find myself in a "which van is it in" situation.

Nice work, but from a purely non-professional point of view, wouldn't the vertical runs look nicer if they were run on the sides, which also wouldn't obstruct any of the connections? Also, wouldn't it be cleaner to keep the service loop outside of the rack?


The Venturi effect will not substantially help with cooling the equipment and will interfere with a much more efficient means of cooling- the chimney effect. If the units and shelves are properly installed, then the amps at the bottom will not heat up the components above them- the heat travels in a linear path behind the equipment.

I have a general question for the pro's as I'm in the beginning stages of cleaning up my rack. I've noticed that the majority of racks that I see in the pictures that look very clean also don't have many connections to the equipment. I'm not sure what the difference is, but almost all of the connections in all of my equipment is being used- for the video router, the audio router, the receiver, the amps, the source equipment, etc. Am I doing something wrong, is more equipment being specified so that the system can be easily expanded in the future, or are the pictures being taken before everything is connected?

Thanks,
CJ

A majority of the devices we use do not require shelves as they are equipped with rack mount faceplates. (We are 95% industrial, not HT).

When a higher velocity draft couples with a lower velocity or static air, the resultant movement of the two including the increased movement of the lesser velocity air is effect is called the Venturi effect.

The "chimney effect" is more of a confined space or channeled airway and our racks are open and draw cool air from all sides including a 1U or 2U grill at the bottom of all our racks.

I'd consider the planet waves basic wire and connectors for lower priced markets. It is about the easiest solution there is for custom cables. I wouldn't buy the different colored cables just get black pre-wire cable and use the BC series connectors. The connectors come with a package of different colored rings that go on the connector.

Their HD series is the more expensive series. The planet waves cable tests pretty well, almost as good the RG-59 Liberty Serial Digital cable but way better than mini-coax.

Bob

I like Planet Wave. Personally I dont think it is faster than other solutions, as they claim. But the flexibility of the wire and look makes for a clean finish.

They are pricey though. I wired up a rack last week with 142 connectors and nearly a box of wire.

I'm familiar with the Venturi effect (I'm an engineer). Please don't take this personally, but it has nothing to do with what you are talking about.


Yep, that won't work for you if you keep it all open.

I would like to put forward the opinion that your current method of cooling, while easy, is inefficient. Here's why.

First, consider that heat rises. With open sides, this means that the second from the bottom piece of equipment can only cool with the air that was warmed by the piece below it. Follow that up the chain, and you can see that you can quickly rise above the 80 degree mark commonly used as a benchmark for cooling. The higher the density of equipment, the worse it becomes.

Secondly, the Coanda effect that you referenced in the beginning is fairly localized in your application. If you are depending on it to cool your equipment, you'll have large areas of static air once you get away from the edges.

Compare that with racks that use the chimney effect to cool. The sides of the equipment are blocked off by the sides of the rack. The back is closed off so that the hot air can be channelized (preferably to an A/C return). The front is open for cool air to come in (preferably from floor vents). If the equipment is vented on top, one space is left between it and the next piece of equipment with a slotted 1U cover. If the equipment is vented in the back, the equipment can be stacked directly on top of one another. The cool air now comes in the front of the rack, over the top of the equipment and the heated air is drawn to the back of the rack and vented out of the top. The hotter equipment, like amps, are placed at the bottom so that the chimney effect can be more quickly and forcefully activated.

Imagine this- build a small camp fire. Sit back and brown marshmallows for smores and site back and watch the flames lazily flickering in a light breeze.

Now, build the same-sized fire into a chiminea. You'd be hard pressed to brown a marshmallow in that! The heat is much more concentrated and intense. The fire is hotter. Why? Because there is much more oxygen available because the chimney effect brings it in so quickly and moves the hot air and smoke away so much more effectively.

CJ

I couldn't do the runs on the outside rails because when I wired the rack the side panels were on back order and I didn't know how they attached to the SLIM5. I typically don't put my wire runs down the side rails because if I do that, then need to add a wire management bar or something, I will be pushing a screw into my trunk. The service loop was actually for the extra two zones on the PAD8 that the 12 channel amplifier didn't support, in case we added an additional amplifier later on down the road.

I will let the engineers at the Greenbelt, MD facility of NASA (which was our most recent install) that they are wrong as they use the same concept for the same reason in their avionic simulation systems.

PLANET WAVES IS YOUR FRIEND!

We use planet waves as we are  more of a mid market company.  As others have mentioned, they're easy to work with, it's small enough for easy fishing.  I haven't had 1 issue with a fitting not making proper connection.  The wire cutter and tester are easy to deal with.

My issue with some of the other manufacturers is that I didn't want to buy another compression tool.  I've got one for coax, I've got one for BNC, I couldn't handle having 3 compression tools.  So we went with Planet Waves.

You've gotta make sure you're charging for it though, because it is pricey and it goes fast. 

Aint that the truth. We always have a generic number for cabling, but should really build the skus in dtools and do it right. There is a lot of build time associated with building cables. Anybody know the best way to deal with that using dtools? Just use a flat labor for each cable build? how do you determine the time invested in terminating and testing each cable?