HT closet, how would YOU organize your wires?

[Coytee]

Setup for those who might have missed it elsewhere:

First: Stairwell comes down in the back of my downstairs room. I'm putting my LaScalas under this space and on the "high" side of the steps, I'm putting a shelf above my LaScala and will install my equipment there. This spot is a natural corner and I'll have access to two walls to install doors.

Second: I have installed at my Left/Right locations in the room, the following:

A) 2 pair of 12-g wires for speaker runs from this closet (4 individual strands so I can biamp)
2 wires for RCA outlets in case I put a RCA input amp near the speakers to biamp 'locally'
C) 2 wires for XLR outlets in case I put a XLR input amp near the speakers to biamp 'locally'
D) 2 Cat 6 wires for unknown purposes, perhaps one for triggering, one for networking or ???
E) 2 RG6 wires in case I or anyone else ever wants to put a cable box here
F) 1 Cat 6 wire to be the phone line next to the cable box

To my center location, I have the following:

A) 2 pair of 12-g wires for speaker runs from this closet (4 individual strands so I can biamp)
2 wires for RCA outlets in case I put a RCA input amp near the speakers to biamp 'locally'
C) 2 wires for XLR outlets in case I put a XLR input amp near the speakers to biamp 'locally'
D) 2 Cat 6 wires for unknown purposes, perhaps one for triggering, one for networking or ???
E) 2 RG6 wires in case I or anyone else ever wants to put a cable box here
F) 1 Cat 6 wire to be the phone line next to the cable box
G) 4 more Cat 6 wires to my video outlet to (hopefully) allow me to future proof myself if I ever run HDMI across the room over Cat6
H) 2 HDMI wires so I can have an additional input to the TV if I want to.

(fingers are panting about now...)

To clarify.... I have TWO batches of the first group and a single batch of the second group. I've got a lot of wires dangling around in my closet right now.

I'm ALSO going to have some other concerns for wires if I put a projector into the room BUT.... for conversation sake, let's not worry about that yet.

Ok, so I have all these wires already run to the various destinations. They all head back to this single closet. In addition to the above, I'm going to have a lot of outlets in this closet so virtually everything can have its own plug. I really detest power strips!!! These outlets will be both switched and unswitched. I will probably have two 4x4 boxes (with two outlets each) connected to each circuit I have (four) so I'll probably end up wtih eight boxes, sixteen outlets and thirty two individual plug in opportunities. Because some of my stuff has power cords on the right....and some has it on the left... I'm ALSO as of today, now debating on running yet another set of outlet boxes on the left wall so I can pull the left sided power cords directly to the left and get them out of the way. (to the left as you are standing in front of the opening to the closet). The other wires (all of them) are currently intended to be on the back wall.

I will also have a side door access if I can sneak that past the wife so I'll be able to wire things from the side and not have to stretch back to plug things in.

Ok... here's the gist of my situation: all of these wires have been 'bundled' by me so that the bundle of wires with the "red" tape around them are all the wires going to my left corner. White taped bundle is center and yellow taped bundle is the right.

I'm going to probably put my plugs in some kind of vertical format since I'll run my boxes up a stud inside this closet.

Would you:

A) Keep your boxes in the closet organized such that the "left cluster" of boxes contained all the wires to the left corner (RCA, XLR, speaker, CAT6, RG6 etc...)

or would you

Organize the boxes such that ALL of the RCA wires were in one locationi, ALL of the XLR wires were in another location (even if simply next to the former), ALL of the speaker wires were in one location....

In other words, would you organize the plugs per location or maybe, organize the plugs (wires actually) so wires of the same kind are kept together?

Here's the important question....what ever you would do... "why would you do it that way over the other?"

I'm personally leaning on keeping it organized via location and not wire type so I would have all of the left corner to one spot, center to one spot and right to another spot. I know I can do anything I want. Just looking for other organizational opinions. I'd rather ask the dumb question than screw something up from a logical layout perspective.

[Pete H]

Do you lay awake at night thinking about this? ROTFL, and you wrote all of this and didn't even post a picture.[:'(] It's is really going to come down to, which way you prefer to look at. I would want all my wires run by type of wire as labeling the boxes themselves L/R/C would be simple, but I would do it simply for the ascetics, as I would prefer to look at groups of the same kinds of wire as I think it looks cleaner. IMHO

[Coytee]

I'd rather type 10,000 words than post a couple pictures... []

Here is a 'before' picture. Once I post this, I'll run downstairs and get a current picture.

This is looking at the tall side of the closet. This is the left side. You can see the corner perhaps. The front doors of this closet will be waist high (two dorrs at 12x36 I think) AND will be on the left side. You are seeing the front of the closet where the LaScala will slide in underneith.

If I get my way, the spot above the speaker will also have a pair of these same doors (wife already has four doors with no use for them)

Will return shortly

PS: disregard the roll of toilet paper. It's Charmain and I simply had it there to squeeze it and see what that commercial was all about.

[Coytee]

Just took this....tired to get the same perspective. My flash quit on me so had to brighten the picture.

This is my current mess of wires, you can see the colors of tape around some of the coils.

ALL of this is going to be heading down the inside of the right wall (as you look from this perspective)

[Rich_Guy]

I'm telling Mr. Whipple!

However you can be as anal as you like with wiring your project. I would keep the power cords away from the rest of the cables and not put in a bunch of unnecessary connections, otherwise this is a place for you to be as organized as you like. You should draw out a few plans and either go with what you like or post them here for ideas and comments. []

[Coytee]

As you first walk into this room, you'll have two banks of switches on the right. The lower bank of switches are at standard height and are for various lights and perhaps a ceiling fan (one is open for unknown use)

The upper row of switches are EACH assigned to a 20amp breaker and one of them will control the left corner (upper outlets switched, lower outlets always on) as well as another bank of outlets in this closet. some of these will also be switched and some unswitched.

The next switch controls the center location... and the next switch controls the right side location and the last switch will only control things in this closet.

Why?

Why not!

[]

I want to be able to simply walk into the room and hit 4 switches and let everything power up however I last left it. Upon leaving the room, I want to be able to kill everything (which is my main reason) with these, without having to turn 142 different items off. If I locate all of my amps in this closet, these switches will be over kill. If however, I put some amps next to the speakers (see next picture) then I don't want to have to walk around the room every time I turn things on or off.

[Coytee]

This is my left corner. The right corner is pretty much mirrored to this howver, I have my distribution panel over there so that made me change it just a little.

Left wall is where my speaker wires, CAT 6 and 2 RCA wires are located. Orange outlets (my wife LOVES those!) are set where the lower outlet is above the bass bin of the Jubilee and if I install a shelf in the corner, the upper outlet is above where this shelf would be. This will allow me to set my amp above the K402 if I want to do that. Might be kinda cool with a tube amp.

On the top right are my XLR wires. These are the ones I'd most likely use. Bottom right are the two RG6 and Cat 6 phone lines. (my phone punch block is in this same closet that I'm messing around with.

Reason for the orange isolated plugs.... to differentiate them from the others so the wife won't plug her Vac-O-Matic into them and just as important....they were 100% free!! They were extras for my (electrician) brother in law and he dropped them off one day.

[Coytee]

Here's my center location. I bought two 45' lengths of HDMI (Bluejeans) so I could hard wire directly from output into TV. You can see the four runs of Cat 6 buried in the same box for possible HDMI use in the future. I thought about doing one of those pass through connections but these wires don't seem to be that flexible so I just left pigtails out long enough to reach the tv if I set it on top of my LaScala.

Orange/White outlets together.... white outlet is "house" outlet on the basement circuit and the orange outlet is on this HT dedicated circuit. Switched upper and unswitched lower, just like the others.

[Coytee]

It's is really going to come down to, which way you prefer to look at.

They won't be very visible outside of this closet. It will be drywalled all the way around and on one side (perhaps two) I'll have two of these 12" doors, acting like french doors, to give me access.

For perspective, this picture is looking in where the doors will be mounted. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure the wife won't care for the idea of doors on both sides of this corner. If accurate, then this will be the only way in.

[jamesV]

Personally I would go with the "Left Cluster" this way you can put labels on the faceplate's and it would be easier to read and understand which is plugged in and what isn't. Maybe even run the wires along that 2x4 and put the boxes there, while facing the closet, the left corner would be the connections for the right cluster in the middle would be for the center cluster and the right corner would be for the left cluster

I do like the ideal of all the same connections together but how would they be labeled to know which outlet is for which location?

James

[Coytee]

I do like the ideal of all the same connections together but how would they be labeled to know which outlet is for which location?

I'll admit that this has crossed my mind (doing it this way) as well as your concern. I think I'm beginning to slide towards the left cluster, middle cluster and right cluster.

Actually, if you look at the picture above, you can see the 'floor' plate along the back side of this wall, on the other side of the opening. I might mount four of my outlet boxes (four 2-gang boxes) on this plate to get them as close to the bottom as I can. I might then add a 2x4 horizontally above them and add my second row of outlet boxes along this. So, all these boxes would be mounted horiziontally rather than vertically.

Then, add yet another 2x4 horiziontally to act as a header over the outlets and from this 2x4, take two (three?) 2x4's vertically as normal studs using say, the left side of each vertical stud as my mount for more boxes of wires. This would create by simple organization, a left column, middle and right. Each column would be associated with the specific area in the room and each column would have its own set of wires, making it difficult for someone to screw up. (not that there is a lot of re-wiring going on in my life anyway!)

Regardless of how I do it, I don't really see it being done without some form of mismash of wires. Unless of course, I go out and spend more than I want to spend for a custom built panel that has all these nice connection points on a panel that will fit between my joists.

I forget where, but I've seen one of those and seem to recall it cost more than I really wanted to spend for something that would otherwise get little use.

Maybe I should simply tell the wife I'll put the wires I need across the floor and forget all this 'hide it from view' nonsense!! I think we all know how she'd react?

[NOZ]

Coytee,

I don't know the components you are using, but if you are hooking up a receiver, you don't want to kill power to it as it will erase your level settings for each mode every time you kill the power to it.

Just a thought.[^o)]

[Coytee]

but if you are hooking up a receiver, you don't want to kill power to it as it will erase your level settings for each mode every time you kill the power to it.

Interesting. I admit I had not thought of that. I don't yet have any kind of HT unit. The unit I do have (old Yamaha A-2070) is not in use and I'm giving that to my nephew.

Do some of these processing units have non volatile memory??

Regarding wiring, choice has been made. Four columns of 4x4 boxes (no pictures yet). Aligned vertically, bottom two rows are for outlets and the next three rows are for connections. They're oriented in these vertical columns where the left column is for left corner, middle/middle and the third colume is for the right corner. Leaving me left with the fourth column.... this will be where I'll have my video connections. My hard wired HDMI cables come here and my CAT6 clusters come here for possible future use and the other two boxes will be used for my rear channels.

I'll admit it looks kind of goofy having this wall of boxes but... it is what it is!

[jamesV]

I'll admit it looks kind of goofy having this wall of boxes but... it is what it is!

but with everything finished and labeled you not going to have any problems figuring out what is what.

James

[Coytee]

To bring some closure to my questions, here's my wall of boxes. I also have four boxes on the left wall. On the left wall, I have three power outlet boxes up high since I might hang my Crowns from the ceiling. They have very short power cords and I'll be able to go directly to the box without having any extension cords.

Before I get the same laughter here that my wife gives me, I currently have a single gang outlet upstairs. I have THREE power strips plugged into each other to give me enough outlets. I'm going to do everything I can to avoid that in the future!

Ok, so the left wall is four 2-gang outlets (8 recepticals/16 plugs total) Each one of these is on its own 20 amp circuit and plumbed over to the wall switch you saw above. Every single one of these will be switched outlets where the top plug is switched and the bottom plug is not. It's making for some confusion as I'm wiring it up at times!! []

On the back/main wall, the bottom two rows of boxes will have two outlets in each box. These will be tied into the boxes on the left. The far left column is going to be for my front left corner, second column will be for center location, third column for the front right corner and the fourth column will be for this closet and/or video.

Going by rows again, the bottom two rows will BOTH be outlets, all switched on top and all non-switched on bottom. Third row is going to be (left) XLR input for front left corner, (center) XLR in put for center, (third) XLR input for right corner, (fourth) two HDMI's going across room to center location.

Fourth/fifth rows will be combo of RCA jacks, speaker jacks, Cat 6 jacks.

I'm going to cut a piece of plywood for the back panel so I'll have future access to these boxes from the rear if need be.

For anyone putting HDMI cables through an electrical box, you can use the large (3/4"???) knockouts and attach those romex wire connectors (not really sure what they're called) however, I had to remove the compression strap that would otherwise typically hold the romex wire. I put this wire connector in here because I didn't want the rough edge of the box itself, rubbing agasint the HDMI cable. The romex connector thing, has smoothed edges. These HDMI connectors just barey fit through the romex connector.

I should add that I'm not terribly looking forward into jumping into this closet space and roto-zipping out all of those box holes in the drywall. That is going to create a mess!!

[Cal Blacksmith]

How to set things up, use whatever makes a logical choice to you, there is no wrong way.

I think things are progressing just fine, it looks good so far, you are going to have more wires run than you need but this is a very flexable setup and you should have no problem with any future mods you want to do, good on you for going the extra mile now so that you have more choices later!

[Pete H]

I should add that I'm not terribly looking forward into jumping into this closet space and roto-zipping out all of those box holes in the drywall. That is going to create a mess!!

My gosh man, you're not kidding about that![:S] You have a fortune in wires and boxes, have you ever added it up, not counting the freebees from the BIL, but what the purchase of all those items would have been?

[CECAA850]

What are you doing about surge protection for your equipment?

[Coytee]

My gosh man, you're not kidding about that! You have a fortune in wires and boxes, have you ever added it up, not counting the freebees from the BIL, but what the purchase of all those items would have been?

Nope. I try to keep my head buried as far into the ground as I can when it comes to adding this up.

Sort of like diesel costs with my backhoe or the various tractors. I've been on a tractor forum and seen some threads with people talking about diesel costs and how many hours per gallon they get out of their machines... I simply responded by saying I have work that needs to get done and if I'm going to use my backhoe/loader (industrial) or the small or large tractor.... then the diesel expense is what it is. No use in crying about it....just pay the bill & get the work done.

Same with these wires... it doesn't really matter to me what the cost is (not that I like it) becuase in order for me to get the different wires run as I want, I need to do what I need to do.

[Coytee]

What are you doing about surge protection for your equipment?

This topic is actually what drove me to install four dedicated 20 amp circuits. I wanted to get something like this

http://surgex.com/products/powerframe420.html

I wanted it to be a TWO circuit unit however, I only find it in a single circuit or a four circuit. So, I'm planning on getting this. I've already left some extra length in one of my walls, just outside the distribution box. When the time comes for this, I'll mount this on the wall and work it into the system. This box will be next to my second distribution (satellite) panel and will be located in the garage.