Projector People: Running Cables

[ControlD]

OK, my basement remodeling project is coming right along and I will be getting the drywall installed on the walls sometime in the next two weeks. I will be mounting a projector on the ceiling, which is already finished (drywall).

I am wondering how people that have projectors mounted on finished ceilings handle cabling as follows:

(1) How are you physically bringing the cables out of the ceiling that need to attach to the projector? My Google-fu is failing me on this one. It seems like there must be flush mount plates that attach to the ceiling with an opening to drop cables through but I have found almost nothing. I could mount an electrical outlet box and use some type of wall plate I suppose. What I am picturing in my head however is just a round plate with a decent sized hole in the middle to drop the cables through. I plan on using a Redmere HDMI cable so I need to drop the cable through, not have a termination on one side and another cable on the other side.

(2) How to you provide access to get back in the ceiling for future cable runs? It seems like if the plate I am looking for is big enough I could just pop that off and reach my hand up. Otherwise do people put some type of removable panel in the ceiling for this?

I though about running a piece of PVC up the wall and across the ceiling so I can pull wires in the future, but I still need a way to access those wires up in the ceiling.

 

[razel]

Like you mentioned for future cable runs PVC pipe attached to generic wall boxes are a livesafer. I wish I did this as a passthrough for future cabling between floors when I had the chance.

 

[purbeast0]

my buddy is an electrician and he came over to help with the wiring for my setup. i already had a finished basement. we had to cut like 12 holes in the wall to fish cables all through the basement. he also installed 2 breakers into my electrical box that luckily was in the basement. 1 of them goes to the outlet in my ceiling as well as my a/v closet, and then i have 1 in my a/v closet that only my subs plug into.

as far as the ceiling goes, we installed one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C4EAL8

only wires i have going through there to my a/v closet is a serial cable and an hdmi cable. i do however have a spare hdmi cable up in the ceiling/walls just in case this one went bad for some reason. if that was the case, i'd just unscrew that plate and grab it up there. i also have a couple pull strings.

ideally since you don't have drywall yet, it would be smart to run some kind of tubing like you are thinking, with a pull string, so that way it would be very easy for you to run new wires through there. i don't have piping that wire is running through, so it could get caught on other wires or stuff in the walls if i ever did have to pull wires through again.

here is a long thread about my whole process if you are interested, with a lot of pics in it of the entire progress:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php

here's a pic of the panel installed in the ceiling. the wall got pushed in a bit so he had to use a metal backing plate on one side.

http://i.imgur.com/hTkMV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jgqog.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tvDjbOB.jpg

 

[ControlD]

No wonder I couldn't find what I was looking for. "Low voltage cable plate" is not what I was searching for! Thanks!

 

[Loki9961]

my buddy is an electrician and he came over to help with the wiring for my setup. i already had a finished basement. we had to cut like 12 holes in the wall to fish cables all through the basement. he also installed 2 breakers into my electrical box that luckily was in the basement. 1 of them goes to the outlet in my ceiling as well as my a/v closet, and then i have 1 in my a/v closet that only my subs plug into.

as far as the ceiling goes, we installed one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C4EAL8

only wires i have going through there to my a/v closet is a serial cable and an hdmi cable. i do however have a spare hdmi cable up in the ceiling/walls just in case this one went bad for some reason. if that was the case, i'd just unscrew that plate and grab it up there. i also have a couple pull strings.

ideally since you don't have drywall yet, it would be smart to run some kind of tubing like you are thinking, with a pull string, so that way it would be very easy for you to run new wires through there. i don't have piping that wire is running through, so it could get caught on other wires or stuff in the walls if i ever did have to pull wires through again.

here is a long thread about my whole process if you are interested, with a lot of pics in it of the entire progress:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php

here's a pic of the panel installed in the ceiling. the wall got pushed in a bit so he had to use a metal backing plate on one side.

http://i.imgur.com/hTkMV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jgqog.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/tvDjbOB.jpg

Hi,

I am planning to run projector cable and would like to know how you accomplished yours, been searching the forum for a while for the right link. Would you mind posting the direct link to your thread/post explaining how you did it