This is an office building we have been working on. We are installing a rack for all the voice and data cabling (per specs of the IT guy all must be on a patch panel).
How would you set up this backboard differently? Top left is where the alarm cabling comes in. voice, data and coax are in the top-middle.
Bottom left is the feed from the building entrance terminal. The bottom right is the bottom floor's voice, data and coax cabling.
I figure I may as well ask for some advice before the cables are terminated (We have 10' of slack above and below as well as about 20' coiled up at the backboard right now)
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I don't at all like those conduit sleeves on the right that are just on the board for the stuff coming from below. I also would like to see connectors and bushings on the ends of that EMT coming down from the ceiling. Matter of fact (and others may not agree with me) if those are just short pieces that are there just to sleeve the cable through the ceiling tile I would get rid of them too. All that EMT and Unistrut makes it look like a sparkie did it. Use "D" rings for everything and be done with it. Oh, and lose the sheetrock screws!
After that there is really not too much to comment on. Right now it is what it is and the rest is up to you as to what you make it look like.
-Hal
CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 65 WARNING: Some comments made by me are known to the State of California to cause irreversible brain damage and serious mental disorders leading to confinement.
I'd ditch those short pieces of EMT for the cables coming up from the bottom. That's a waste and pretty silly-looking. If the upper EMT's are just sleeves into the ceiling, I'd ditch them too. All of this EMT is complicating your installation. I'm not particularly crazy about that four feet of Unistrut X 2 either. I'd have just used Minerallac clamps (conduit hangers) for each pipe and kept them to the left side.
Gotta love those Sparkie 1/2" EMT clamps for the tie cable. Man, they think that anything can be secured professionally using an EMT clamp. I'd rip that crap out and start all over again. I would run that cable up the left side of two 66M1-50 blocks mounted vertically, one binder per block.
I'm sorry about the patch panel requirement, but since Junior is going to tell you how it's done, I'd lace all of the cables neatly up the left side of the backboard, then dip over to the rack (gag) at the appropriate height.
Obviously, the alarm wiring won't be on patch panels, so I would route that wiring as far to the right as possible.
Now comes the most interesting situation: What does he expect you to use for termination of the tie cable? One pair per jack? Two per jack? "RJ45" per jack? What if the circuit is two pairs and the patch panel for the tie is wired for one pair? Trip to Radio Shack?
Dude, you need to put your foot down and tell them that they don't know what they are asking for. Not everyone buys Cisco, despite the efforts of these guys.
Everything on the bottom was installed by the concrete / flooring contractor. It is PVC Pipe, we wanted it changed out, however it's set into the concrete.
I'd ditch that EMT on the right as well. It looks very odd to see cables running "loose" out of the PVC from the floor and then going into metallic conduit for a short run on the board.
Clean off all the EMT, run the voice/data cables all to the right and place a rack in the corner that will leave a little backboard exposed for the alarm and coax. Or convince to to install a little more backboard and use punch blocks.
I have to agree with all the above and get rid of the conduits coming up that high. You can pull the cables back down long enough to cut the PVC with a sawsall. Then ring everything back up like Hal said. I see two ways to make this look good. D ring the cables up to the 7' you need to install them in a rack and place a short piece of cable rack between the wall and to rack. I will usually run to the end of the equipment rack to make it look good. This way you can lace them out nice and neat into the rack. Or I have ran rack up the wall and laced them out up and over to the rack.
Either way run these (the cables coming up and down) all on the same side and lace them out to the rack or the backboard.
Mike Jones "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953
