How many of you guys run all of your structured wiring into the main equipment rack instead of a wall mounted panel?

We normally use a seperate panel but as cat5 in being used in more and more applications I am finding that we could use all of these extra runs to be in one location. THe obvious disadvantage is have many more cables in a rack with a lot of cables already.

Any input?

Just located them close together. It is bad enough to have the cable and phone guys messing around in our structured wiring cabinets. I really don't want anybody in my rack.

That said I don't see any reason not to put a cat5 patch panel in the main equipment rack. Just make sure that the runs that will or could be used for TVs, touch screens, DA, etc. go there and leave the phone drops on a seperate punch down block.

OnQ makes a rack mountable drawer with wire control arm that holds several modules.

sorry but i dont mix and match. my structured wiring goes in its own panels or racks. never shall the 2 meet.

ed

Understood ed, but like ddeca has pointed out, what about using the extra cat5's for some type of control or for baluns or for rg6's for video only scenarios? I am running into the same scenarios as ddeca. Putting all of those wires in a can is not always feasible. There are times that we pull extra wires that have no home immediatly. Where should they go?

thats why i put in a few pvc pipes between the equipment rack and the structured wiring panel

ed

I have done both, and settles on a combination.

My partner liked to use wall mounted relay racks or swing gate racks for the Data.... but we didn't want to put any lof the RF or standard phone terminations in there for the servicing issues Jayson listed above.

Now we also put in whole house speaker terminations on Neutrik speakons to fill in the rack (and justify the cost of the rack).

We also used OnQ's custom panels (with the bi-directional mount pattern) and their phone punchdowns, RF bulkheads and amplifiers.

It depends on the size of the job. The issue for me is data, not so much RF or voice. I often run data into the rack. A. I use managed switches and routers and I often have lots of gear in the rack that requires Ethernet connections. B. I want those devices on the same surge and line conditioning as the rest of the equipment in the rack. C. I prefer rack mounted network gear D. I prefer to segrigate voice and RF from data, even in a structured wiring bundle.

I also think one of the great marketing hypes are structured wiring cabinets. I prefer to do my own. That means that my RF is slightly less attractive and I shed zero tears about that. For cost no object I'll add some Crestron lighting back boxes and put that equipment in the back box. Other than having covers and hiding the wire I think those back boxes are a poor solution. I look at the way commercial contractors specializing in data or voice do it and other than dedicated racks for voice, data or RF no one uses a back box; especially one designed to screw up RF and make cross connecting voice neigh impossible.

Damn right data and A/V racks meet on my jobs. Crestron requires Ethernet and if you are using Ethernet Crestron devices you may have 10 or 15 Ehternet wires just for this; as does CD servers, DVD servers, DVRs, and lots of equipment soon to show up but not yet part of our installation packages. If anyone is doing IP audio you will see yet an other reason to have data in your audio rack. As video via the network becomes more popular you will see yet an other reason. I need to control the router and how addresses are handed out and having that router locked in my rack helps me to do that. Running 6-15 data lines out of the rack into a second rack is a solution we have also used but I don't see it as superior to moving the data into the rack and using a 2 gang 110 rack mountable punch down block.

Alan

If you use OnQ, the extra coax cables can terminate to a 12 port or 8 port RF bulkhead
[Link: onqlegrand.com]
[Link: onqlegrand.com]

As for the extra Cats pulled for audio and video distribution, IR, RS-232, etc., I still terminate them, how they will be terminated depends on where they will be located.

If it's a wire located in the structured wiring distribution, it goes to 110 to RJ45 punchdown blocks, and I like to use a seperate block for each type of signal.

In the case of keypad cables, IR and RS232 which are going directly to the rack, I terminate them to RJ-45s and put a patch panel in the rack. The cables then go to the equipment so that the configuration can be changed at any time and the biggest obstacle is replacing a jumper.

Since this method requires extra panel space, modules, patch panels, etc., these methods are used in the higher end systems with heathire budgets.
We fight for the budget to use these methods in more modest projects... Sometimes succesfully, sometimes, not.