Hey guys, I finally got around to building my dream comm closet in this project.
I'm going to be talking about how I rebuilt a stuffy old closet into an epic comm closet.
My old setup was functional, but it just seemed to lack that classic geek bling.
I stuffed all the usual starter comm gear on a shelf and wall. It was a good start,
but I just knew I could do better so I hatched
a plan.
First, demolition! My favorite part of course. Time to ditch the designer 45 degree wall,
reinforce studs for the new wall mount rack, and finish up with the standard touches like
paint, a new rack, and all the new hardware choices that come with that kind of upgrade.
The tour starts out with a glimpse of the closet just after I riped out the 45 degree
wall section. You can see my structured cabling
coming down to a comm panel from inside the wall.
I later added a 2" PCV punch-through to the attic for additional runs.
Making her first appearence on iTechStorm is Cat5, our fluffy little mascott. I think
she likes the rack I'm going to install... Oh wait,
nope, she hates it. She's a bit of a snoot sometimes.
Back to the install, you can see a close-up of the structured media panel I installed
when my house was built. I have 8 drops of bulk cable
runs entering the panel.
What I need to do currently, is replace the chipped out stud to the left of the panel
and add another, so I can support the wall rack and
mount directly to studs. You will need to support a
lot of weight! So that means four lag bolts directly into the studs.
Here you can see the result of the stud changes and the addition of an extended power recepticle
positioned directly behind the wall rack. This will reduce the amount of cable on the
external wall and give a cleaner look.
Next I need to seperate the Cat5 cable from the RG6 for each bundle. The consolidated
media cable bundle made running everything ridiclously
easy. The goal is to run the network cable directly
into the rear of the wall rack, just like the power. Additionally, I didn't have much
space in the media panel with all that cable terminating
in a single box.
I was careful to maintain a seperation of power and low voltage data cable to reduce
the possibility of electro-magnitic interference.
If you have to navigate around power cables, always run at 90 degrees across the cable,
never in parallel.
Okay, now I got my first piece of wallboard up, and things are starting to come together.
I break out the joint compound and drywall tape. Yes... these terms are very missleading.
After that, orange peel texture in a can, and popcorn in a can for the ceiling. It helps
to cover up the items you don't want to splatter texture all over. And splatter is the name
of the game with this stuff.
When your texture is dry, it's time for a fresh coat of paint on the wall. I went with
"white". Wow! It feels so spacious in here...
Alright, next level time. For uber flexibility, use a cable-matched patch panel for quick
network re-configurations, easy labeling, and of course bragging rights. Go big or go
home people.
You can see I took the time to label my network cables on the back side of the patch panel
too. This saves time and always helps with troubleshooting.
I seriously suggest getting a cable toner if you don't already have one. It's a magic
wand when it comes to tracing structured cabling. Seriously... get one.
Finally, all finished with my home comm closet project. This officially ups my status as
a true geek. Starting at the bottom working our way up,
I have an APC horizontal metered PDU for power distribution and monitoring.
Next up is a Baytech DS3-IPS remote console access server, so I can remotely configure
everything via serial connection. Now I can spend
my extra time making trips to the fridge getting a beer. That's multi-tasking.
3rd up, is the Cisco 3550 24-port layer 3 switch I use for configuration testing.
4th, a NetGear GS748T 48-port 1Gb managed switch.
Above that I have a 1U horizontal cable manager that keeps the
patch cables nice and tidy. Moving to the 6th position
I have the 24-port 1Gb patch panel that leads to all the structured cat5 drops around the
house.
Directly above the patch panel there is a 2U shelf for non-rackmountable gear. I'm using
it for a Fortigate 60B, and Motorola cable modem. In
addition to that I made use of the space on top of the
rack for a NetGear GS-116 un-managed switch and the classic W54G Wifi.
And finally, the one piece of hardware that makes this all possible is the StarTech 8U
Open Frame Wall Mount Equipment Rack with adjustable depth. Truly
a fantastic piece of gear to keep your home enterprise
network tucked away safely, while allowing access from evey angle. Be sure to check my
video description for any relevant links.
One final note about cable management. Try to support the weight of the cables with zip
ties or cable velcro. And always be cautious about
the bend radius of your cables as you route them to their
point of termination. Be warned, you can cause a loss of bandwidth (or signal) by over-bending
your copper cables beyond factory specification.
It never hurts to protect your investment.
Well that concludes my dream comm-closet build-project. I hope you enjoyed what I did with it, and
you find this video useful. If so, please click
the thumbs up and be sure to subscribe to this channel,
iTechStorm. I'd love to hear what others have done with their setup via comments or video
responses. Don't forget to keep rocking your inner geek
and share this video with others who are looking for ideas.