AV and data cable wall outlet

[sm_jamieson]

I'm thinking about some AV / coax / ethernet cabling into the far corner of my kitchen, where it might be useful to connect up various things. Options:

1. worktop cable outlet (useful for some things, like a TV sitting on the work surface)
2. various wall plates - OK but difficult to future proof. Need at least 3 x cat6 (can take HMDI also), 2 x coax, some audio cables, etc, etc.
3. Some type of big modular wall plate that can be customized with snap-in modules in the future.
4. A tidy cable duct outlet in the wall. Could push cables up behind plasterboard and out of the wall, to, for example, a drop-down screen. Cable would have to exit upwards to repect minimum bend radius etc.

1. is easily available and might be included anyway.

1. Takes a lot of space and not future-proof.
2. Anyone know of such a thing ?
3. Anyone know of such a thing ?

Cheers, Simon.

[Gareth]

Option one sounds to be the easiest and most sensible if you are not sure of future use at this point: a work surface television should have or could have Freeview HD built in which, if satellite was not important to you, would reduce the need for cabling including possibly audio cabling to just a standard aerial cable.

I've tended to just replace standard size wall plates with new standard size wall plates when wanting to upgrade an ethernet or aerial socket.

I recently blanked off three ethernet sockets for a friend because they haven't been used - wireless technology isn't perfect but has come a long way. The cable wasn't cheap and iirc cost twice as much more than the wireless router :-o

Never seen a tidy cable duct.

[Tim Watts]

Mixture of both:

I have sunk extra back boxes above most of my sockets with seperate conduit runs. The boxes are mostly singles, with the odd double.

I plan to use Euromod type faceplaces into which you can snap pretty much a module for anything that exists[1]. Euromod should be pretty furture proof - and if not, there *will* always be a standard faceplate with some sort of modular option.

[1] I've seen everthing- VGA, sat, aerial, network, fibre optic, louspeaker to name a few.

I would avoid the "mega custom" modular plates, especially the combined 13A socket + ELV ones. They are too custom and I personally like a bit of plaster at least between my mains and ELV stuff.

Cheers,

Tim

[Tim Watts]

That wasn't clear... Use modular as 3) but use standard plate sizes as 2). A double plate takes 4 modules.

[sm_jamieson]

I was imagining something that looked like a small upside-down ventilation cowl, just under the wall cabinets, so the cables would exit from this upwards in a fairly tidy manner, and the "hole" in the wall would be hidden from any likely viewpoint. Simon.

[sm_jamieson]

Euromod sounds interesting.

To repeat what I just wrote in response to Gareth, for the cable duct outlet in the wall:

I was imagining something that looked like a small upside-down ventilation cowl, just under the wall cabinets, so the cables would exit from this upwards in a fairly tidy manner, and the "hole" in the wall would be hidden from any likely viewpoint.

I still think that sounds intriguing.

Simon.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm glad I ran in SCART cabling from living room to kitchen - initially so I could watch recorded stuff in the kitchen. But it proves handy on live stuff too - use the same FreeView tuner and you don't hear that annoying sound delay between two different ones.

[sm_jamieson]

What is the max length of scart cable. Its quite thick bulky stuff. Expensive ? For the future, HDMI over cat6 cable seems to be the thing. Simon.

[Tabby]

I like standard mains accessory blanking plates. You can drill and mount whatever you want almost as densely as you want. Pretty essential to mark up properly and take steps to ensure the drill doesnt wander, you dont want it looking a bodge. Layout the desired sockets on a grid matrix. The plate can be replaced any time in future for a new connector layout. The one downside is its not a quick snap- in solution. And if using a drlll press, its easy to apply too much pressure.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Mine is about 40 ft with no problems.

HDMI wasn't really around when I installed this.

[Dave Liquorice]

CPC have brush plates in standard single and double sizes. They also have larger multi connector plates but they won't be particulary easy to modify for changing requirements, though TBH is that really going to happen in the corneer of a kitchen? Couple of ethernet ports, Coax and mains is probably all you need in reality. HDMI, on a kitchen set, is it worth it?