A peek inside the madness of Home Office 7.0 (beta)

In the first post about planning Home Office 7.0 (beta) I showed the general plan for the layout and shape of the new setup. As some of you have labeled the new cave. Since I’m nocturnal and happen to like bats perhaps CAVE is fitting.

Layout Plan

As you are reading this various new parts of what I consider the infrastructure requirements of the new setup have either already arrived at its destination or are in transit. In the next few weeks a bunch more stuff will be shipped from the various different vendors and with luck most of it will be waiting for me by the time I arrive. The DLink DSR-500N has already arrived. The Honeywell HHT-149-HD is in transit. And a bunch of APC Performance SurgeArrest 11 Outlet power splitters will be arriving in the next few days.

In the next weeks a new HP 1810-24G Procurve Switch and four APC Back-UPS Pro 1500 units should be dispatched along with a NeatDesk Desktop Scanner which came highly recommended by my friend Shel Holtz.

In the meantime, planning has taken on a more detailed form. Normally when I plan a new layout, new hardware, and everything that entails, I usually start with a rough plan, then a more detailed plan, then a more detailed plan that includes the wiring for network, power, and audio, then some more details on monitor cables and how to hook them up to the multiple inputs. The trickiest part is usually the cables, network cables, power cables, and monitor cables, and in particular the LENGTH of those cables. I’m leaving the length planning so I know what to order and how many of each for later. I could possibly get away with my simple layouts and just guess things based on experience but since it’s a fairly different layout this time around I’m going to wait with that until I’m on the spot.

Audio Plan

In the layout image on the left you can see the process of going from a desk top (surface) layout to one that details what equipment will be under the desks. Primarily the under-the-desk planning is to provide enough leg space as well as the most efficient placement of computers relative to the monitors (again, a cable length issue) as well as planning which area I would be using the most. Combined with the under-the-desk layout there’s also some markings that allow me to plan which inputs on which monitors will be hooked to which outputs on
which machines.

At the bottom of the schematic there’s a bit of height measurement stuff to ensure things will fit properly, like the small 8U rack that I have planned for the combination of audio and network equipment. I’ll be using a simple Raxxess ER Rack (on rolling casters) 19 inch rack to hosue the current HP 1800-24G 24 ports gigabit switch and the new HP 1810-24G 24 ports gigabit switch. Along with the DLink DSR-500N.

Network Plan

There’ll be a pair of 9 individually switchable outlets in 1U strips in the rack. One will provide UPS backup power through one of the APC’s (for the networking equipment and some other related parts that will have their power cables run from it. The other will be hooked up just as surge protection and provides power to the audio portion of the rack. The audio portion will consist of a new Behringer Eurorack Pro RX1602 and the current RX1602 and Behringer DEQ1024 at a later stage. I’ll also be adding a new Behringer Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496, though. And of course the MiniAMP 800. Not sure yet what kind of speakers I will be hooking up. Since I will continue to use my Sennheiser HD650 headphones the choice of speakers is not a priority to focus on right now.

Power Plan

The image on the right provides an indication of what I plan to do with the audio wiring and setup. And yes, feel free to call me insane for all that audio stuff just to hear all my system sounds, mixed. 🙂

Equally important when planning a new layout and office setup is to plan the network ports and cables. The image on the right shows the current plan and as you can see I’m nearly filling up two 24 port gigabit switches.

But the most important thing, of course, is power. Without power there’s nothing. I’m going with four relatively lightweight UPS units, the APC BR1500G’s, because a lot of server based stuff is being decentralized in the new setup so having lengthy and extended run-time is less of a concern this time around.

The layout plan of the power configuration on the right gives you an idea of the number of outlets required to power everything that’ll be in the new office. As usual I probably forgot to include 10 different things which is why I’m making sure there’s plenty of sockets all around for convenience.

Most of the other hardware, computers, workstations, servers, monitors, cables, and just about everything else will have to wait a little longer because I first need to get the office in proper shape, which means power distribution circuits and outlets, carpet, and desks and furniture. In that order.