Show us your rack! (No not that one!)

Nice job on the cabling. Clean and neat layout.

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Some day I may move to a wall mounted rack but it's the way the cabling turned out that keeps me happy with it.

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Funny enough my hubitat, lutron pro 2 hub, and hue bridge are all on a shelf above the washer/dryer in the second floor bathroom because that's about the exact center of the house...Having them in the rack in the basement is not ideal for reception... :rofl:

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You just need a bigger antenna.... :wink:

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I thought about getting extensions for the antenna mod that @lewis.heidrick did on my hubitat and maybe mounting them on top of the rack...But I think I would need antenna mods on my hue bridge as well as my lutron bridge as well

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I must admit @rlithgow1 has a very fine rack :grin:, and @markbellkosel84 setup is neat and organized. :+1:

My racks may not be nearly as impressive or as neat and organized, but they do get the job done for my needs. They also makes great use of spaces that aren't good for much else.

The network rack is in the top of our bar closet. (Images 1 and 2) It has a 10-foot ceiling! :flushed:

There is a rack in the adjoining closet (3rd image) that is home to my AV Receiver and subwoofer amp. I created the opening between them to allow easy access for network and power connect, and to provide easier access for some changes to the other rack equipment, mainly jumper installation.

It isn't easy to get to, but if I do things correctly, I rarely need to touch any of the equipment in it.

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Wilt Chamberlain would of loved it - eye level for him. :wink:

:rofl: Yes, he would!

I suppose that is some of your highbrow humor @danabw ? :grin:

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Oh, you went there, didn't you. +10.

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It's funny... I don't know if it's my age or what but about 10 years ago I decided I got tired of the giant receivers and speakers and really went minimalist on my AV setup. Just a soundbar on the wall, no wires showing on the wall the tv is mounted on, everything was in the basement then when we switched to roku (and then a roku tv) we even ditched the cable box. Our sound bar (Vizio) is pretty decent with wireless sub and rear speakers. Even now when my Logitech elite remote died I thought I would be annoyed and I wasn't, having just the roku remote makes things much nicer. Yeah, I think it's my age...lol (I'm old)

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@rlithgow1 When we bought this house it already had front, rear and center speakers installed in the walls and ceiling. I kind of liked the idea, so I decided to use them. If they hadn’t been there already, I would have bought a nice soundbar instead.

This tale is sort of like the book ”If you give a mouse a cookie…” Well, I needed an AV receiver. Then I bought a really nice TV that can be the center speaker (The screen literally is the center speaker. It vibrates every so subtly to produce the center channel sound.)

Then I decided I needed a subwoofer, because it just didn’t have enough presence. My wife likes the sound of a subwoofer, even considers it standard equipment in a car, but revolted when the floor mounted model arrived. It was returned with haste. :flushed:

After much discussion about in-wall (as I avoided in-ceiling options) being the only alternative, I ordered a subwoofer, subwoofer amplifier and appropriate speaker cable. Several days later after all the parts arrived. I proceeded with sawing holes in walls, running cable in a hot attic, and making connection the the AVR on a ladder in the top of a 10ft high closet ( that was its own kind of hot). I had it connected. Woohoo!

Not so fast Robin! The audio through the AV sound system would humm and sporadically, without any obvious reason stop working. Hummmm… :thinking: What to do.

I knew the humm was a grounding problem. The infamous ground loop had bit me in the ■■■-ociated power feeds. Yes, the AVR and subwoofer amplifier are on a different circuit than the TV. Let the hunt begin!!

Ebtech Hum-X to the rescue!!! “I’ll connect the TV through this and all my ground loop problems will vanish!” Sadly, no. The hum persisted. It turned out, after several days of effort, to be a ground loop between the TV and subwoofer amplifier. I should have just bought a good soundbar and ignored the built-in speakers, but I am WAY too invested in this now.

I deemed the audio problem to be an issue with the existing long (35 ft) HDMI cable. Amazon! Send me a new one! Shazam! It arrived two days later. Back in the attic.

All my problems are now solved. :smiley:. Not. :unamused: The audio drops persisted. What to do now??? Apparently, after days of research. HDMI ARC sucks on a good day. I’m not having good days. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

What can I do instead of HDMI ARC? Optical audio connection. Amazon! Send me a 50 ft optical S/PDIF cable!! Why 50 ft? 25 ft was the other length option. It was too short.

It arrived the next day. Back in the attic. :sweat: Mind you, when I am installing all these cables at the AVR, they aren’t just poked through the wall. I installed proper wall plates to keep it all neat, so it is way more complicated than it sounds like, and required separate jumper cables from the wall to the AVR.

Finally, after some configuration changes to the TV and the AVR, the sound is fabulous. :star_struck:

While this was a fun project and looks very clean, I would have saved myself a LOT of effort, and probably money, if I had just bought a very nice soundbar.

Ok, what is the next project I can do well but make orders of magnitude more difficult than necessary? Oh! I know! Lighting the kitchen. :sunglasses:

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Here's my little datacenter :laughing:. As I'm sitting here looking at these I realize I could probably get a little shelf for the hubs (two C7s and Hue bridge) and move them to that left wall. Also completely forgot about that obnoxiously long DAC cable. The desktop is my everything server (Plex, Minecraft, Valheim, a few Discord bots) slapped together from leftovers.



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It did start off in a better place.

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Here's what I'm working on:

https://www.printables.com/model/290261-hubitat-cage-body-and-faceplate

To add to this:

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Nice! What are the holes for in the front?

External antennas. You can use some extension cables to get the antennas to a better location on your rack if you want or just mount the antennas directly.

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Ah! That makes sense! Will be looking forward to seeing pics when it’s done!


Re-printing the faceplate because the USB slot is too low. It's designed to fit a standard 19" rack or lack enclosure if you have one of those.

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Nice! Your hub should always stay pretty cool with that setup!

Yea, it's a bit overkill but everything I do usually is.

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