KaMLuNg

iTrader: (5)

what kind of wood would your recommend for a fence? i cant' afford rod iron... and all the white from vinyl makes it feel like a hospital

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

^Pressure treated pine

SamDoe1

PT pine if you want to do it cheap, cedar if you want it to look good, composite if you want it to look good and never touch it ever again.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

if you just agreed with the person that already stated your gospel you would avoid future carpal tunnel

CCColtsicehockey

This probably follows the same for the furniture I want to build. I have really thought of building the stuff out of composite now too but damn it costs like 3x what even cedar costs.

CCColtsicehockey

Ok, so chair project is moved to hold at this point. Back to planning my fire pit entertainment as I can still use my cheap old pool furniture chairs, I got from a country club years ago that was just giving them away.

I have been planning this for a long time but started making some drawing of it a few weeks ago and getting more serious about it. I had come up with the design I was pretty sure I was going to use until I revisited another idea I had ditched a while back. Now I am torn between the two ideas.

The idea I had thought I had settled on was to basically build a privacy wall like I had posted a while back in this thread.



I sketched out some basic drawings of this idea. At first, I thought putting the speakers above might put the TV to low but once I calculated everything off the rough sketch it still puts the TV 4in higher at the center of the screen than what is recommended for a 55in TV.



Started to go a little more detailed and plan the insides of it that would support the weight and also hide the conduit to run the power, audio, network, and speaker cables. The dotted line boards would be behind the first layer of boards. In the center is where the 60x40 TV box will go.



Yesterday I started pricing out everything for it and realized if it was going to cost as much as it is to build this as it is looking like it might be worth considering the other design I was considering as well. The reason as of now the cost is higher is I plan to do the entire thing out of cedar except for the posts which I am going to use pressure treated 6x6 and then wrap them in cedar 1x8 to make 8in cedar posts. This came out much cheaper than actually special ordering 8x8 cedar posts which are close to $300 each.

The finished project would basically look like this with a wall box mounted to it with this design.



And doors with one of these two designs. Leaning towards the second option.





So the second design I considered was making a cabinet with a lid and a TV lift. This way I don't have a huge wall next to the firepit when the TV is not in use blocking the view of the property. I can build the lip to have a lip so as to keep all water out of it.







I would probably do a combination of the last two designs. Not sure if I would build it out of composite decking or cedar. Most likely cedar though.

If I built a cabinet with a TV lift I think I would need to probably pour a concrete slab for it to sit on as well as part of the project.

Looking for some opinions on the two ideas and issues that maybe I am not thinking of that either design could pose.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

I like the lift option. The wall option reminds me of those bulletin boards you see at state parks.

Midnight Mystery

I thought your house was a tourist attraction when I first saw the picture...

CCColtsicehockey

I never thought of it looking like a state park board

The only issue with the lift is I now have to figure out where to mount the speakers. Don't really want to put in posts just to mount the speakers on. The speakers also have a passive bass radiator which apparently works well if you have something to bounce it off of so the roof of the board would have provided that. Not the end of the world though. It could mean needing to go back and switch my design to rock speakers after I already had ordered the other speakers though if I go with the lift. That is unless I just mount them to the trees.

CCColtsicehockey

I got some work done that is needed indirectly for the above project. I need to move my second access point in my house as far to the back of the house to provide stronger wifi for the TV streaming. In a lovely design choice there are zero outlets in my unfinished attic. I can understand not putting a lot of them in but not even one seems crazy to me. So this weekend I added two outlets off the light circuit for my unfinished bonus room/attic.

Existing switch for the two lights in the attic


I added a junction box so that I only had to add one additional pull into the light switch box. I did this cause I might add an additional outlet in this box in the future but also will be running another outlet from this box down the road to the roof of my screened in porch so that the TV has a constant power outlet instead of being on a switched outlet like it currently is.


Followed the path used for the lights to get to the other side of the room.


This is where the accent point will so it has the closest proximity to the backyard.


I put the second outlet to the right of the door actually behind where the end of the wall would technically be if the room would be finished. In the short term I will just be putting a small amp here for my outdoor porch speakers. In the future I will get a small rack as this will also be the central location for POE cameras I plan to eventually put in.




Next part of the project was to install some cross boards so I could walk on my first floor ceiling to get to where I will need to run the eventual screened in porch outlet, my speaker wire for the deck speakers, and rear camera for the one side of the back yard and one for the gate on that side of the house. The builders happened to leave me a present. Definitely was here from the construction as the expiration date was May 19 2006








Just short of the green foam insulation board is where I will need to squeeze to run the new outlet for my porch. I will also probably run some cat6 to the location when I do as well since it will allow me to hardwire that Roku since it will have easy access in the attic to a switch.


My original plan was to run the speaker wire all the way to where the speakers go inside the attic. I no longer think that is possible. I will have to just get to where you can see the light coming through at the soffit and then run the wires outside pushing them up into the soffit as I go. My fat ass is not making it past those air ducts. Also trying to crawl on slopped roof supports is probably just asking for me to put my foot through the ceiling.


I also need to buy a couple masks for the next time I go up there so as not to breath in anymore of that insulation while I am kicking it around.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Colts will be watching pr0n by the fire in no time

stogie1020

Wow, nice workup! I have a thought, though. Since you will be running power out to the stand for the TV (whichever design you choose), why not run Cat6 in the conduit as well so you don't have to worry about "crap the TV wifi signal sucks"... ?

Also, my vote is for the TV lift version, unless you really are going for the State Park look (in that case please put a map of your property up on the board )

thoiboi

OH man you're planning on putting an AP right up in the attic? I hope you get a good quality one because the extreme temps in the attic will surely lead to premature failure.

thoiboi

Network cable plus power in the some conduit is a no-no... The EMF interference would ruin the connection. I'm ashamed of you for suggesting this Stogz!

CCColtsicehockey

I would love to run cat 6 out there honestly but right now there is no easy way to get there. The power I just have to run from my shed which is only 25ft away. cat6 I would have to get from the attic to the firepit area. Only way I can think of being able to do that is to run conduit down the wide of the house which doesn't thrill me and then do about a 60-70ft trench for conduit to the fire pit. The hope eventually is to upgrade my entire wireless system to Ubiquiti Networks and then on the side of the house I can put an exterior AP out from the attic.

Hey maybe if I put a map of my property on the outside of the TV enclosure it will work as an anti theft measure

CCColtsicehockey

To many kids around the neighborhood for that.

Football and Hockey by the fire

CCColtsicehockey

I will be running two seperate conduit pipes. One for power and then another for network/audio/video. spacing them about 6in apart to let the ground be a bit of insulation as well.

CCColtsicehockey

You think? I was planning on just putting my second ASUS that is running in AP mode in there. Was hoping not to move to an outdoor AP off a controller for at least a year.

CCColtsicehockey

One other concern with the motorized tv lift would be the fact I don't think I would be able to use a TV mount with an arm anymore which means I wouldn't be able to angle it towards the yard. Not a huge deal though.

stogie1020

Clearly, I am not a cabling guy!

CCColtsicehockey

Hadn't really looked into it but seems I might be able to just use this outdoor AP and not have a special controller for it.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

thoiboi

If you go with a non-Cisco/UBNT type AP, you should be able to run it as standalone without the need for a controller.



I'd personally opt for a properly rated AP knowing that attics can run pretty damn hot.. (e.g. on a 80-85 degree day, i've seen attic temps of >120) and that's not considering humidity that might corrode the internals faster than normal.

thoiboi

Maybe that's the explanation for your subpar speeds in your 10G network

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

where do you think kids come from!???

CCColtsicehockey

That is almost impossible to happen

CCColtsicehockey

So turns out my outlets might have been pointless. I thought my Bose SA-3 amp which came with a set of Bose 251 outdoor speakers was rated for harsh/outdoor conditions. Turns out that is incorrect. It has a max operating temp of 104F which means there is no way it will work in an attic. I have decided at this point to turn the closet in the one guest room that is upagainst the attic in the space for my switching, audio, camera equiptment. I can just pull back some insulation and install a 2 gang box for passing network and speaker cables through. I can also install an outlet as well in the closet for power from inside the attic. This does still contain the heat inside the closet but I really don't want this equipment out in the open. I think it should stil be cool enough.

thoiboi

I think this is a much better approach for the safety/longevity of your equipment 2-3" Schedule 40 PVC make for excellent conduit for networking/HDMI/etc

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

CCColtsicehockey

So not even sure that conduit is needed since the closet and attic share a wall that only is seperated by insulation and the finish drywall inside the closet. I figure I can just mount two boxes (one for speaker wire/cat 6, one for power from the attic side and cut the wholes. Run the wires and then cover the box back up with the baffle of insulation I pulled out to install the box. Would be the same as any other electrical box on that wall which there are two of already.

None of this will be run to the shed as of not at least. Stil unsure I want to run conduit down the side of the house and trench it all the way over to the shed and firepit to get network into there vs just mounting an AP on the back side of the house. Nothing is more than 100ft away from the back side of the house so it should have basically full signal strength. I already get a 45mb speed test from back there using the AP that is in the house so an exterior mount one should be full signal strength pretty much.

I still have an old cheap Denon 2ch receiver that is going to live in my shed. We will see how long that lives powering the firepit speakers. I really at this point don't see another way to power those without running close to 150-200ft of speaker cable per speaker one you factor in the conduit path you would have to take to get it back to the house.

svtmike

Do a 55 GW microwave link. You will be able to watch TV from the future.

thoiboi

I completely misunderstood and thought the attic was ABOVE the closet


If it's just on the other side of the wall, then yeah that should suffice

stogie1020

I am using a twisted pair of twisty ties... I mean, its twisted pair, right?

svtmike

It’s gotta be shielded. What are you using as a shield?

thoiboi

If it's not a Level 25 Heraldric Shield, GTFO.

stogie1020

Two layers of tin foil left over from my JimmyJohns italian-on-white wrapping paper. No good?

svtmike

No reason that shouldn’t work.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Jimmy Johns

Midnight Mystery

Sausage sandwiches so freakin' fast you can just open up and swallow!

CCColtsicehockey

So the weekend before the Easter holiday I got one of the projects completed that has been on my list for a while. Decided to make half a closet upstairs into a network/cameras/AV cabinet. So in prep for that, I had to get power and network extension in that closet.

The attic wall on the closet side was strange and had insulation, plywood, studs, plywood, then sheetrock. Had to remove the insulation and plywood first.




Finally can get to work


On the other side of the attic is where the phone line cat5e ends that I connected together to get a link to my office. I had to fish an additional cable into that box and into the attic. Couldn't see into space so had to use my phone camera to locate the cable and reach in and grab it.




Then routed the cable up the trusses and across to the other side of the attic to bring it down to the closet


Time to cut in some boxes




Used a razor blade to cut out the sheetrock




Large bit for some holes to fit the saw blade


Had bought a hole saw to do this. About 2in in I realized it was going to take forever.


So I taped up the wall


Then I switched to this.


It was not only much faster and easier but also made much cleaner cuts


The one box got a little close to the stud so I had to notch it a bit




Boxes installed




Wiring up the power
[img][url]http://jrphotodesign.net/public_photos/house2/network/network_closet/IMG_20190426_085351.jpg



Two cables done and many more to come