It looks cool, but no thanks, I'll pass on the buggy beta products.

Thanks, pretty excited to get back on the road.

Gopro Hero2 and Canon ELPH 300HS.

The canon is on its last leg, still works and records fine but the lens shield is busted and the paint is all scratched off. Doesn't bother me as it has survived a year on the road and done its job well(video is downscaled from its 1080p recordings).

If still in the area:

http://www.nepenthebigsur.com/

Contract signed on this job this morning during the second follow up meeting. Collected deposit and 1st progress payment for pre-wire. Makes that long weekend finishing the proposal worthwhile. 

Nice clients and looking forward to the job!

Paul, for the big jobs you have, do you hire an assistant? Or all solo?

And congratulations.

Set a new record today. Visited FIVE jobs (various meetings/visits/service calls) before mid-afternoon...finally got to the office.

Did about 600 miles (converted to miles for you American folk) round trip driving yesterday to two projects North of Toronto. That too was a heck of a day.

I think he mentioned solo a few pages ago when the discussion was about the one-man shops hiring a second person. I don't know how he does it. Some crazy zen time management skills. :)

Yeah, realize that, I'm just gently nudging him to get some help. ;)

Today the audio calibration was completed on the theater we installed. Video was yesterday and the day before. Lots of long hours but the end result is a kick ass room to watch tv :). Theater is part of a whole house system that we are still working on. Hopefully we put photos up on our website at some point. #tired

What audio gear was used? Do tell......

Crestron Procise PSPHD & 7X400 amp (fed by single HDMI cable from DM switch)
Symetrix Symnet Cobra 4x4 & 4x12 (all speakers/subs routed in and out)
2 Dalney DTS-10 Subwoofers (front wall behind screen)
4 Totem Tribe 12" in-wall subwoofers (1 near each surround)
4 Triad in-wall gold (surround)
4 Triad in-room platinum (LCR)

Video
Sim2 Lumis C3X 3D with Movie Glider & Isco lens
Stewart micro perf 140" screen
Crestron DM 32x32 fiber out to rmc to hdmi feeds projector
Sources - 3-Kscape BD/3-AppleTV/8-Cable TV/1-Oppo 3d BD/5-Mirage Server/2-iPod dock
Crestron DVPHD with 4 sources from matrix switch in. This gives the client the ability to watch 2X2 grid of any of his 15 (and cctv) video sources.

Yeah, still a one man shop and do 95% of the work myself.  I have good relationships with 3 electrical shops in town and hire their guys when I need extra hands.  This is mostly for large pre-wires, pulling long outdoor conduit runs and for hanging large TVs. 

It works out well, but my cost for an apprentice electrician helper is $55-$65hr.  This is a discounted rate and expensive for a helper, but in the end is still less than the cost of bringing on all but the lowest end grunt and I don't have all the headaches of having the employee.

In my area, the hourly rate for an inexperienced wire monkey would be around $25hr and once I add in the overhead of insurance, benefits, etc. I'm not too far off the hourly rate I'm paying for an apprentice electrician when needed.

I still think getting more help in the office is the next step for me.  This isn't a revenue generating position, but would free up more time that I can be in the field (or at least help to shorten my days).

Thursday I finished up a camera job.

Gate cam is run over 2600ft of cat5 (extra conductors from gate intercom) using active baluns.


This camera was way up there (dome cam near the upper right of photo). 


It's positioned there to keep an eye on the back yard which is a full size polo field.

Some of you may remember this job I wired last year with the Middle Atlantic DWR racks in the basement mechanical room with 2" conduit out to all the other structures on the property?

Started to pull the wires between building this week.

Head end with equipment racks.  Conduit above racks goes out all over the property.  You can't see in this photo, but also have 1" flex going to 7 critical areas within the home for future use:


This is the DEMARC location (low volt junction box on the right).  Phone service comes in from Verizon and DirecTV & Sat internet dishes are now also installed here.  This is the farthest point for the equipment racks and is right at 300ft with a pull box in the middle:


Example of some of the pull boxes around the property.  I've got two 2" conduits for low volt between every structure and the racks in the main mechanical room.






Some of the smaller buildings have the 2" conduit run into a small junction box within the structure with 3/4" and 1" flex conduit feeds out to the wall plates.


For the electicians, here's a photo of the panels in the main house... I think the property has 800amp total service.


Older picture of the back of the house that also shows garage and guest house.  Other structures not shown are caretakers house and pool/pool house.  Most of the landscape is in now.  Client has invites out to 500 people for a party on August 18th so crunch time to complete this one!

WOW! i have a thing for conduit, especially when neat. Looks great! did you run all the conduit for your equipment? or did you contract the electricians to do the work for you?