Managing wires into closet (1 Viewer)

[cozzman]

I bought a house about a year ago that had a perfect partially finished basement setup. The TV sits right next to the closet under the stairs, so this fall I mounted the TV on the wall and wired all of the components into the closet through the wall. I have a pretty clean setup outside of the closet with the wiring, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to manage all of the wiring coming into the closet through the wall. There are a lot of cables, component video, speaker wires, cable line, RCA audio (for an external wall plug), IR repeater, etc. Right now I haven't put the wall back together because I haven't figured out how to cleanly wire it all, so I thought I would post here for suggestions. The options I've considered are just passing the wires through the wall (the easy way), using the customizable wall ports to patch everything (expensive and takes up a lot of space), or find some kind of patch panel box or something (haven't found anything yet).

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I would do a combination of one and two. I would separate the cable into "like" bunches: Speaker wire, video cables going to the display and other so they are easier to manage in the closet. I wouldn't terminate them at a panel. Its expensive and can be a failure point. I would bring in the bundles using a single or double gang cutout with a trim ring for each (depending on how many wires are in each bundle). Leave enough wire that you could turn the components to get to the back with out having to unplug anything. To finish it off I would use something like a midlite trim plate:




They are also available without the gromment as a split plate so you can attach them without having to feed the wires through. There are lots of other options: http://www.midlite.com/products.aspx?catId=765 and they are just a few bucks each. The give a very clean look for not a lot of money ($5-10 each at Amazon). Dont forget the trim rings (these are retrofit, new contstruction might be better for you): Single gang, double gang.