STOP RUNNING CABLE THROUGH DUCTS!!!

NO!

I noticed that the family room was colder than the rest of the house, and started to investigate. It didn't feel like much air was coming from the duct, so I bent down for a closer look and noticed something strange inside.

Pulled the vent cover off, and pulled out a huge tangled mess of cables!

All these cables, balled up inside the duct. And fed through this hole.

WHAT THE F***!

Maybe I'll do a blog post about this, where I document removing the cable and repairing the ducts (since this is all over the house).

Also... This is a cable staple.

It's not just for electrical cable. All those Cat5, Cat3, Coaxial, etc. cables have to be secured too.

Secured != wrapped/draped over other cables.

</rant>

@Tester101 in your house or ? you still looking for a new one / moving ?

In my new house.

you bought one then ?

Yes sir.

nice. congrats

And now the work begins, again.

thats why i want to build my next one. don't really wanna go through all that again - let the builder deal with it

At least I should have some stuff to report during PUT.

for sure

I could never build, I'm too much of a control freak when it comes to that stuff. I'd have to quit my job, and live up the contractors butt.

my only problem with building is theres nothing left. you'd be hard pressed to find an open, decent sized lot in amherst. its a half hour drive for my brother to work (from wheatfield to Ingram Micro) which isn't far from my job. Or Clarence which either has septic tanks (not dealing with that) or is so far out, is just as bad

or lancaster i guess, but thats even farther than clarence

@Tester101 If you're gonna quit anyways why not do the GC work yourself :P

but if i build, the pizza oven is going inside of the kitchen! :)

@waxeagle I don't know any good contractors in the area, so finding good subcontractors would be difficult.

Part of being a good GC is having the number of all the best subs.

Morano builds a decent house (went to high school with his kids)

another one on millersport is good i hear (forget their name)

@Tester101 good point

sub contract it like my uncle did - took a little longer to build than normal but he was able to choose who did what and throw what he could to his friends that do concrete, plumbing, etc...

we're italian - we know a lot of construction workers :)

@lsiunsuex That only works if you know people in the area.

If I want to mount a switch in a structured media panel, do I need "rackmount", "rail mountable", or "wall mountable"?

your wording is a little tricky

This is the panel I'm looking at.

@Tester101 that's not rack

that's not rail.

so I'd guess wall

normal rack mounted switches (not telephony) are 19 inches wide

(telephony equipment is wider - 24 or 26 inches i think)

Maybe they make racks, or rails that fit in the panel?

so like @waxeagle said, i'd think wall maybe

what are the dimensions on that panel?

Greybar can order you any kind of rail / mount you could possibly need - you won't find this kind of stuff at home depot or lowes

if its 19 inches, your fine - you may have a problem with depth but thats a different issue

if you didn't buy it yet - do something like this - monoprice.com/products/…

$23 gets you 4u's - enough for a 2u switch and a 2u patch panel

14 1/4" x 14 1/4" x 3 1/2"

@Tester101 what kind of switch? a network switch? not nearly wide or deep enough

personally, i'd stay away from stuff like that... "most" rack equipment is 19 inches

@Tester101 I'd go with adhesive velcro mountable.

What is typically used in structured media panels?

standard home equipment and zip ties

or the cheap way - 4ftx4ft 1/2 inch plywood screwed into studs and mount everything to that

in the cabinet, you'd normally have a patch panels for phone and ethernet

I need to fit a cable modem, a router/4 port switch, and an 8 port switch.

cableorganizer.com/signamax/unloaded-patch-panels/… something like this is unloaded - you can put anything you want in it - cat5e jacks, telephony, coax, rca, etc...

same stuff that fits inside leviton structured cable wall plates

I'm not looking to spend a ton right now, so patch panels are not required.

DO IT RIGHT OR GO HOME!!!!!! :)

I just want all the Ethernet, cable, and phone in one place.

I'll do patch panels and stuff later.

then just do a plywood sheet as big as you need it (+ a little for growth) and screw the stuff into the plywood

That's a good idea, but I'm putting it in the basement, so dust is a concern.

It would be nice to have a sealed cabinet

I suspect you could fit everything in one of those media panels, but you'd need a larger one for all three devices (modem, router, switch)

the one you pictured looks like it's better for a single all in one device plus wiring

temporary until i buy the proper stuff

And the UPS in the cabinet will take up a load of space

@BMitch So maybe the 28" panel would be better?

@Tester101 why not just get a rack?

or 42?

yes, figure you'll be sticking all your equipment on one side, wiring, power, etc up and down the other.

@waxeagle Isn't rack mount equipment usually more expensive?

For a home, I don't see the need for rack mount

@BMitch If I get one of these panels, will I be able to mount all my consumer grade gear in it?

@Tester101 most consumer grade gear has screw hangers so you can hang it on the wall, you could do that in a panel like this

Sure, zip ties, adhesive velcro, or you might get lucky with screw holes

Alright. Thanks guys.

i might have a 4 post 42u 19 inch rack i could sell you if you wanted it that we got from an office that closed that we gutted

@lsiunsuex shipping on that would be beastly :)

well, @Tester101 is local to me so... he can come and get it with his truck :)

but yeah - shipping might be more than just buying it new from dell or someone haha

someday when i build a house, i'll figure in a network closet central to the floor plan to keep everything in... switches, amps, ups, and a server for backup. someday...

@lsiunsuex Don't forget to install cable chases while you're building. You wouldn't want to have to run your cable through ducts.

haha, for sure

i'll do a raise floor :) - find a nice 24 inch porcelain tile, take off the metal surface on the raised floor panels and attach the tile to it. account for the loss of 6 inches in the floor when they build the walls. done and done.

Do a media closet on each floor, and position them directly above each other.

Then if it's 2 story, you can run upstairs up through attic and down, and run downstairs down into basement and up.

something like that - i've always intended to use autocad to draw out a basic idea and then take it to an architect for structural integrity stuff. sometime off still.

"Dear client, I know you're trying to be helpful by sending me links to the instructions that you googled, but those aren't the correct instructions because of X. I could have found it faster on my own and then wouldn't have to charge you the extra time to send this email explaining that you just wasted both of our times." bang head against desk

Realize that he sent that "helpful information" after I asked him 5 times on the phone yesterday to just let me go lookup the procedure myself.

grr... mutter... grumble... walks away in frustration

19" and 23" are both datacom rack standards

@Aaron yeah, but 23 is traditionally telephony and 19 is traditionally data

@lsiunsuex idk, that girl has really long fingers

lol

hmm I guess our 9010s are 19"

I wonder what we have that is 23, because I remember it being an issue in one DC where they got 19s and we had some 23 equipment

@lsiunsuex looks pretty, but I'm not a fan of sites that steal my scroll wheel unexpectedly (bottom section of the page).

our 23 inch stuff is from our telephony companies - thats all that rack is used for

@BMitch i thought i turned it off - what browser ?

@lsiunsuex firefox on ubuntu

no, the 15454s are 19" as well

hmmm

@lsiunsuex Chrome on Win7 x64 too

It resizes it too because the content is sized differently

washingtonpost.com/local/…

this boondoggle keeps getting better and better

An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.

also awesome: home depot remembers your credit card so you don't need the receipt to do returns

@BMitch Firefox, win7 64. Scroll wheel nastiness. It automagically flips to horizontal scroll at the bottom of the page, removing what I'm trying to read.

Same in Chrome. Both times it happened when my mouse pointer was in the lower div.

@ChrisCudmore That should be directed to @lsiunsuex

i turned it off on a different website (2 sites, same script)

didnt know people hated stuff like that so much - i'll turn it off on this one also

I use my scroll wheel to scroll up and down the page, kinda sucks when I try to get down to the bottom and suddenly everything starts moving weird.

about damn time:

figured the best way to show off the apps was to submit a real app to the store for them to download - without a client yet, the only way i could do that was to submit "demo" versions

1 week later, finally in review

haha wow

I may have had my best derp moment yet for DIY

So that grey plastic thing above the weight on the vertical hose

That is the thing you are supposed to push all the way up to mate with the big nut on the bottom of the faucet

and then turning that is a cinch

I was trying to stick the basin wrench way up in there

just can't beat dell prices - PoerEdge 720xd 2.5ghz Xeon, 32gb ram, 24tb usable raid 5 dual power + rails no os - $9700