puntloos Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 I'm planning a network and audio equipment rack built into my house. And as you can see it has two doors, one into the office, one into the livingroom. But, I want the livingroom door to be 'tiny' and near the floor, as invisible as possible. My program renders it this way But perhaps this picture is somewhat more illustrative: (of course in this picture, this is just some cupboard - I need to 'punch through a wall') How would you do this? Just cut a minimal hole and hope a joiner can insert a door properly? I don't need to service the equipment from this side (of course?), I can just reach into the closet from the back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 What are you hoping to achieve with the tiny door? For me, the ideal AV cupboard would have a full size door front and back, the awkward bit especially with AV kit is getting round the back to plug it all in and especially awkward when you want to reconfigure something. Perhaps a side door in the side would help with that? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 We have similar small cupboards either side of a chimney. One for the vacuum cleaner etc and one for the Sat receiver, x-box etc. Main issue is the difficulty of getting to the back of equipment as ours only has a front door. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntloos Posted December 19, 2021 Author Share Posted December 19, 2021 53 minutes ago, ProDave said: What are you hoping to achieve with the tiny door? Main reason is aesthetics, and Wife Acceptance Factor - having my amplifier and the media streamer hidden away is a good thing normally - so I'd almost want no door at all, but instead reality is that sometimes you want to just be able to punch the power button. So indeed a small door - something like 35x35cm seems great to access at least the main amp and with a bit of squeezing anything else. Second - with my PC in the network rack and my desk+monitor in office I'm normally ok, but I have a VR headset I want to use in the livingroom sometimes. Third - most amps come with room autocorrection - for which you need a wired microphone. Not a dealbreaker to extend the mic somehow I guess but easier this way.. 53 minutes ago, ProDave said: For me, the ideal AV cupboard would have a full size door front and back, the awkward bit especially with AV kit is getting round the back to plug it all in and especially awkward when you want to reconfigure something. Perhaps a side door in the side would help with that? Well, I do have full back access so most things can be easily wired from the office. The front I want as unobtrusive as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 Why not hide it behind a hinged painting or something? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperJohnG Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 9 minutes ago, Onoff said: Why not hide it behind a hinged painting or something? We used to have a safe fixed into the wall behind a painting. Thinking back now, it was pretty cool. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntloos Posted December 19, 2021 Author Share Posted December 19, 2021 17 minutes ago, Onoff said: Why not hide it behind a hinged painting or something? Huh. Not a bad idea, but I'm a bit worried about noise levels. But perhaps a painting with a serious backplate can be designed. Which.. kinda is just a door again 7 minutes ago, SuperJohnG said: We used to have a safe fixed into the wall behind a painting. Thinking back now, it was pretty cool. I might just do both 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalvinHobbes Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 revolving bookcase on grand designs the other night Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 6 hours ago, puntloos said: Huh. Not a bad idea, but I'm a bit worried about noise levels. But perhaps a painting with a serious backplate can be designed. Which.. kinda is just a door again Maybe some acoustic foam panels would help in the "cavity"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 Need to be sure that none of your equipment needs InfraRed (IR) remote control as IR struggles to get through much other than air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 37 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said: Need to be sure that none of your equipment needs InfraRed (IR) remote control as IR struggles to get through much other than air. All ours is in a cupboard (under the stairs) and I use an Infra Red remote extender to relay the signals to the cupboard. More modern things like a firestick use a wireless remote so are not bothered by walls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 13 hours ago, puntloos said: Quote For me, the ideal AV cupboard would have a full size door front and back, the awkward bit especially with AV kit is getting round the back to plug it all in and especially awkward when you want to reconfigure something. Perhaps a side door in the side would help with that? Well, I do have full back access so most things can be easily wired from the office. The front I want as unobtrusive as possible. Do I recall correctly that the rack going to be full height 40U or something, so this is just the bottom 10U or so poking through to the living room? If so, will the top 30U face the opposite way, i.e. front panel towards the office not the living room? Else there's no way to get to the rack screws on the front, and most network gear is oriented the opposite way to media gear (i.e. with majority of the connectors on the front panel not the back). But of course they all have a couple of useful connectors / buttons on the opposite face so in practice you need some way to get at both sides of each unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntloos Posted December 20, 2021 Author Share Posted December 20, 2021 4 hours ago, joth said: Do I recall correctly that the rack going to be full height 40U or something, so this is just the bottom 10U or so poking through to the living room? Correct, that's the idea. 4 hours ago, joth said: If so, will the top 30U face the opposite way, i.e. front panel towards the office not the living room? Else there's no way to get to the rack screws on the front, and most network gear is oriented the opposite way to media gear (i.e. with majority of the connectors on the front panel not the back). But of course they all have a couple of useful connectors / buttons on the opposite face so in practice you need some way to get at both sides of each unit. Well, you know this better than I do - but my understanding is: - that the networking gear will be facing 'ports towards the office, power plug towards the livingroom(a wall). - My PC will probably have to turn into a rackmount - get myself a special case. Will see, it's not an urgent need - Audio gear, main bunch of ports towards office, includes power, controls facing towards the door. And - it will perhaps even be standing on the floor or on simple rack shelves. Something like this: Should work, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 8 hours ago, ProDave said: All ours is in a cupboard (under the stairs) and I use an Infra Red remote extender to relay the signals to the cupboard. More modern things like a firestick use a wireless remote so are not bothered by walls We have a repeater that receives the IR and sends it down wires into the cupboard where its rebroadcast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted December 20, 2021 Share Posted December 20, 2021 1 hour ago, puntloos said: Well, you know this better than I do - but my understanding is: - that the networking gear will be facing 'ports towards the office, power plug towards the livingroom(a wall). - My PC will probably have to turn into a rackmount - get myself a special case. Will see, it's not an urgent need - Audio gear, main bunch of ports towards office, includes power, controls facing towards the door. Most of the issues I have are not so much with network cables but with coax and HDMI which are on the back of things like DVD players, Sat recievers etc. Power is another issue. We have a few mains adaptors in our cupboard for things like the network hub, game handset chargers , IR repeater etc. Its common to find the sockets are too close together to allow two adaptors side by side. Long (only 5m) HDMI leads also gave us some problems. Even now my TV sometimes refuses to recognise my Humax Sat receiver has been selected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
puntloos Posted December 20, 2021 Author Share Posted December 20, 2021 1 hour ago, Temp said: Most of the issues I have are not so much with network cables but with coax and HDMI which are on the back of things like DVD players, Sat recievers etc. Power is another issue. We have a few mains adaptors in our cupboard for things like the network hub, game handset chargers , IR repeater etc. Its common to find the sockets are too close together to allow two adaptors side by side. Long (only 5m) HDMI leads also gave us some problems. Even now my TV sometimes refuses to recognise my Humax Sat receiver has been selected. It's a good point to keep sockets sensible. Will try to remember. HDMI - the trick is to buy proper ones. I have a 4K, 15m HDMI cable that works just fine at that resolution (4K is harder to transmit, needs better cables..) . But yeah it would be very bad to have a poor cable embedded in your wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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