Why hello there TT braintrust. I would like to use this thread to field design ideas and accepted practices for managing and organizing you telecommunications racks. Pictures of your own work, or what's currently in your comm room would be stellar as would Visio stencils, but any and all input is appreciated.

My current dilemma is figuring out the best method of stubbing out conduit for approximately 100 pulls of cat5e (or possibly cat6). The fill capacity of 3" is 50 and 40 respectively, so I would probably need at least 3. Phone, Data, Miscellaneous/Multimedia. What about a 16" wide piece of ductwork that rises to the ceiling instead of conduit? In my mind I see 3 or 4 holes in the wall about 8 feet high that have have been dressed with plastic grommets similar to those that you drop in your desk after cutting a 2" hole to feed cables through, but larger. Thoughts?

Also, with only a single 42U rack I may have to consider getting an 8U wall mount just for the data and voice patch panels, the RG6 and HDMI patch panels and cable management blanks.

What is TT's opinion on a 25.00 patch panel from monoprice.com vs a 150.00 patch panel from orthotronics or hubble in a production environment? And on the same subject; Chinese cable vs US cable?

Thanks!

8/18/2011 10:35:31 AM

For instance.

8/18/2011 11:46:00 AM

I guess the first question would be where your rack is going to be placed?

Presumably with one rack, you don't have a datacenter type room, correct? Is this a wiring closet, or just going to be out in the open?

this type of thing is pretty common:

8/18/2011 11:59:58 AM

That's what I was imagining, except coming out of the phone board (horizontal) instead of the ceiling (vert).

I have a 6 x 8 room. I threw together some BS in Visio earlier. There will be 4 distinct departments so instead of doing 100 home runs, there will be 25 pair feeder cables for voice and two cat5e feeders to a 7U bracket at the rear of each section. I probably don't have enough space in the 42U for wiring + hardware so that's what the 12U is there for.

8/18/2011 12:39:00 PM

If you go over to Grainger or CES (if you guys have one) and just ask, they will show you a lot of the available options for cabling, might give you some good ideas/understanding of what is proper.

Even though its low voltage, there are still codes you have to follow as well.

8/18/2011 6:57:18 PM

The structured wiring will be contracted out through our PBX vendor. I'm just concerned with making my rack(s) look like someone with OCD/Perfectionism had countless man hours invested in the design.

Not in Raleigh. =(

8/18/2011 7:13:09 PM

There are graingers all over the country.

They will have what you are looking for, all of the rails and tunnels you will need to make it all look very, very pretty.

8/18/2011 8:45:29 PM

^I'm going to check them out this afternoon and hopefully the employees there will know enough to give me suggestions. Looks very promising; thanks man.

8/19/2011 1:07:11 PM

I got a catalog, but the employee wasn't really that knowledgeable on the subject. I'll probably thumb through it this weekend and see if anything jumps out at me.

At this point I'm really more concerned with providing ample space in the wall to fish ~100 cat5/cat6 pulls at a date much past the insulation and drywall phase.

8/19/2011 5:17:12 PM

So far this is the best look solution I've been able to find on google (upper left flush with ceiling). Thoughts?

8/19/2011 8:06:43 PM

I'm assuming you have to go up with this, it isn't raised floor? The overhead cable trays that Bobby showed work very well in the couple of places that I've used them.

8/22/2011 7:53:39 AM

^drop ceiling, no raised floor. Cable trays are fine but I'm more concerned with dressing the entry points and creating a "safe haven" inside of the wall for my cable installers.

8/22/2011 8:50:21 AM

I doubt a $25 patch panel is going to have a noticable difference from a $140 patch panel

for doing physical cabling, i don't see how visio is really going to help, i would just sketch it out, or just start doing it

best advice i can think of is to look at what other people have done so you know what's possible and don't set low standards for sloppy/ugly work

professionals and well-done installations make it LOOK easy, don't underestimate the time it takes to do things right, especially for someone new

some good pics here: http://www.ic2s.com/tabid/100/default.aspx

http://www.cnxdatacom.com/CNXPictures/CNXPictures.html

http://networkporn.tumblr.com/

8/22/2011 12:08:50 PM

^ A+

8/22/2011 12:33:29 PM

It's like plumbing for electrons.

8/22/2011 1:07:29 PM

Poll:

Do you color code patch panel jackets for application or for zones?

10/24/2011 4:49:29 PM

Go with this:

No wait, replace it with this:

Just use ethernet over powerline.

10/24/2011 7:21:24 PM

Do you ever post anything useful in TT?

10/24/2011 7:29:11 PM