Getting ready for Halloween or Cat5?

Saw this last week and it urked me, maybe it’s a “maker” spiderweb? Lol
I run wiring for a living so I’d be happy to run them through walls and dropped ceiling instead of hanging here and there.
This can be one of my steward projects!

Can meet with someone about what’s up or I can just make notes on what’s plugged where and have it plugged in the way I found it (but cleaner).
If wire length was an issue, I have spools of Cat5 and Cat6 laying around I can use. Even some 100ft HDMI

1 Like

I can help out as well

2 Likes

That would be amazing!

I suspect that was never intended to be permanent, but it pre-dates my tenure.

@elrod might have some thoughts.

1 Like

I can’t say it predates me, but I can say I was not involved in that.
We need to determine where we want the server rack to live and then rerun most of the wiring. The rack’s current home of the electronics lab was the most convenient spot at the time, and isn’t where it has to be. Multiple times over the years it’s been brought up that it may be better placed elsewhere.
On that note I want to get rid of the rack in the lounge and replace it with a small cabinet. The required items in it can be wall mounted too.

1 Like

We want a secure, dust-free location for all the IT stuff… perhaps we could put it in the coworking space? That’d keep it secure from casual gefingerpoken und mittengraben while allowing board and designee access.

It’s annoyingly non-central, but we could wall-mount distribution switches elsewhere if we didn’t want to home-run everything.

Thoughts?

I’m sure the rack in the lounge is fine, just needs a bit of tidying up is all.
I was mostly looking the hanging wires from the ceiling.
I’m here now looking at it, and seems it’s only an extension cord and one Ethernet run per table. Is an easy cleanup, just running a conduit down per table to make it look like it’s on purpose lol
If I had the conduit with me, I probably could have done it right now :stuck_out_tongue:

But if board/whoever decides racks and switches should be planned out, I’ll be happy to help with that as well!

Huh. Perhaps the best short-term option is to just take it down? AFAIK people still shouldn’t be hanging out in the lounge, and we probably don’t want to commit to permanent table locations. WiFi should cover occasional use.

For temporary (up to single-digit days) wired setups, I’d think we’d be cool with covered cords on the floor, no?

As someone who starts feeling twitchy when there’s a mess of wires around (hotel desks are the WORST!), I really appreciate this thread and whole heartedly support whatever decisions are made to get this more organized. I’ll defer to the IT team’s recommendations here.

The cat 5 cables dangling from the ceiling were from the days when our wifi capabilities were not as good and we didn’t have money to upgrade. I used to install networks and it irks me to see that. @kingkeyan I’m glad you are getting a small team together to address this. I have network tools and will try to come and work on it with the team.

Stipulation worth mentioning- 120V extension cord cannot be run inside the ceiling. It would need to be MC flex running from the panel to a box. However, installing a standard outlet in the ceiling isn’t going to work, the plug would tend to fall out. A twist-lock is possible. This would need to be secured well to the ceiling ties and not just to the grid.

It’s also sort-of possible to hang a fixed cable that ends in a plug on bottom, but it can’t be MC flex as that would just unspiral soon. Something like rubber SO cable would be more appropriate, but we do use the lounge for many things, and permanent-hanging SO cable obstructs line-of-sight.

So, I’m saying the ethernet/HDMI cable can be cleaned up, but the 120V power is more problematic. I’d use the wifi personally, but I’m sure people have their reasons

Ya, I’ll just unplug them and get them out of the way and then see if I can tidy up the rack so that at least the door can close.

I’ll swing by Saturday afternoon, 3-5p if anyone wants to help?

Text me to see if I’m still here, may get done quickly
832-628-4687. I check the discourse maybe every day or 2

Oh my gosh, Keyan, that would be amazing. :laughing:
Thank you for offering.
Thank you, yes, @JoeN, @dannym, and @EricP have done a lot of the electrical at different moments, but I’m not sure if this belongs to one of them –
This would be a great Steward project. Thanks for bringing it forward and sharing your expertise.
If the guys above are busy, I’d be glad to meet you in the next couple of days, and we can figure it out.
Thanks again for bringing great energy.
Kye

All done! … for today.
Extensions and Cat5 out of the way and (since I didn’t know where to put them) left on the table

Cleaned up some wiring on the rack, but didn’t want to unplug the wifi or the “cube”, since I didn’t know what it was.

To make room for the door to close, the switch (and everything needs to move back 4-6in. After looking at the rack, there were some full depth shelves that would need for equipment to be removed completely to adjust.

Will give it a go next time, MAY need a second pair of hands but probably not necessary.

3 Likes

Thank you! that looks so much saner already.