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communications for high end home

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hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
Re: communications for high end home

Congratulations Scott! In my experience you are one of a kind, assuming that you are a small one or two man shop because that was what I was referring to.

I was of course also referring in that quote to selling, installing and maintaining key systems and PBX's and I meant what I said. I wasn't talking about data networking.

I too am proficient in electrical as well as telecom. I was a small electrical contractor for many years then switched exclusively to telecom, now an Avaya dealer. My reason was that I found it extremely difficult to handle sales, installations and customer service on the telecom end while trying to maintain an electrical business. Driving around in a truck with "Jack's Electrical Service" on the side filled with coils of NM, shelves full of electrical boxes and EMT benders in the back window didn't help my credibility with potential customers when my competition all had trucks and names reflecting their specialization in telecom. Sure, I would sell a system (actually Panasonic :)
 

scott thompson

Senior Member
Re: communications for high end home

hbiss ;

Thanks for the reply and the kind words! :D

Most of the work in these areas was done within a small organization - 4 people normally, 6 when things became very busy.

Worked with a few larger companies also, totaling around 4 years. One Company I was with doing the EE/Installer/P.M./Broom-Pusher thingee, had 40 Electricians. Worked with them for 1? years straight.

I'll add more later.

Scott35
 

pacscott

Member
Location
Hawaii
Re: communications for high end home

Aloha,

I am sorry, but hbiss and others make good points.
Just from your description I can tell that you made a good effort, but had you some guidance from a home automation pro you might have planned better. OnQ and other mfgrs make panels that can manage all of what you are talking about. My concern would have been your installation methods. Did you keep all low voltage wire as far away from AC wiring? Did you leave long lengths so that terminations can be managed properly. Did you use boxes (leaving short tightly wound wires) at each location or did you use a low voltage ring so extra wiring can be pushed into the wall and the wiring is not compressed in a small box so there is ample to pull out to make terminations? Did you use a staple gun on the cat5 that will be used for LAN? Compression from stapling can reduce data flow. Did you read up on LAN wiring methods? Bending a Cat5 to a radius tighter that 4 times the wires diameter can impede data flow.
There are cables that have two rg6 and two cat5 cables in a single bundeled cable that make these kinds of installs easier. You should always run a separate coax for local cable and satellite. It is not desirable to combine. There is so much more to installing what you are talking about in a custom home that you currently seem have a grasp on. I am sure you are very competant, but you are not informed well enough in the area of low voltage to give your customer all the options he should have had. Normally a pro A/V L/V installer would have made a presentation giving the customer all the options available for a custom home. A phone system is a must for a home of the type you are talking about. Did you wire for door entry intercom? Panasonic digital systems are great. They now have digital phone systems for the home that include private "cell" sites on property that enable you to walk over a large property with a wireless (cordless) phone and have no distance restrictions and no fade out of any kind. Using the right punch-down blocks with amphenol jacks is essential for interfacing with a phone system. I would have never considered not wiring for a phone system. This is what I do for a living. You are getting good advice in this forum. Call a pro and get some good consult to finish your job properly.

Good Luck!
 

hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
Re: communications for high end home

For some reason that last post got me thinking about the time we installed a system in the home of the CEO of a well known dotcom company. I won't mention the name except it to say that I was expecting to find William Shatner somewhere.

Anyway, we didn't install the premises cabling, rather it was installed by an electrical contractor and we got there after the fact. Old house, plaster on lath, nice fish job, neat work, enough said.

At each of the many locations there were two CAT5's, two RG-6's and two fibers. This was all crammed into a double gang cut in box.

To top it all off, the fiber was cut to the same length as the the other cables at each location, something like less than 6 inches. (Well they wouldn't fit into the box if they were longer, right?) Good thing the fiber was there for future use because I didn't want to be around when they find out that all that fiber is useless because it can't be terminated due to the short length.
 
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