Design Ideas for Easy Wiring Entertainment Centers

[Ken Close]

Greetings. This is my first post and I am asking about a topic that will support my design of an entertainment center for a wide screen TV. I am a novice furniture maker, but have many "carpentry" projects under my belt. I have a full shop and 200bf of cherry just waiting to be turned into an entertainment center. Later posts will share my concept and seek critique.

For now, my lurking has yielded a bunch of threads on entertainment centers, with design pictures and suggestions. These have been great. Folks here are obviously talented and experienced. And yet I have seen few (actually none) comments about a common and troublesome headache--how can you set up the design to facilitate the wiring hookup of all of the components.

I would appreciate comments and suggestions of places to look for additional information, including threads here at the Creek which I probably missed, and other useful URLs. (It has been amazing and frustrating to use Google and even Ask and not find any relevant sites/articles which might discuss this topic.)

What do you have to suggest? Thanks for any advice, and I appreciate how welcoming all of your regulars are to newcomers.

Ken

PS: I have searched and found several messages coaching on file size limits for upload (100K max) but I did not see any hints on reasonable sizes. Image editors of course can export optimized file sizes and you can resize in any amount, but what are recommended image sizes (dimensions) which show detail yet do not put too much load on the servers?

[Alex Berkovsky]

Ken,
Welcome to the forum. IIRC, Popular Woodworking mag came out with an issue recently covering the topic. I will try to go through my stack and find it.

[Ted Baca]

Ken, as a audio nut maybe I can give you some ideas, if I understand your question correctly. What I have done on my cabinet is attach a vertical rod or strap of metal on each side of the cabinet. I used a 1/2" spacer to offset it. On the side of the cabinet that is adjacent to the TV side I added a 2" recess in the seperating wall. This gives plenty of room to run cables back and forth. On the rod/strap assy's, I use the double sided velcro to secure the cables in an orderly fashion to make tracing each wire easier. I seperate the interconnects from the power cables to avoid any EFI issues. If you place a back on the cabinet (make sure you place cooling holes at the top and bottom for convection efficiency) I cut out three half round access holes on the bottom edge. This half moon at the bottom permits easy removal of the back. I use one hole for power cords, one for speaker cables out, and the last one for antenna, phone, etc..
One other point of explanation, the reason I tie the cables to the side of the cabinet is for organization as well as supporting the weight of the cables to releive the load on the component jacks.

[Ken Close]

Alex: thanks, I hope you find the issue.

Ted: your idea sounds interesting, but I might need a sketch to understand completely. To further clarify my needs, not only am I concerned with cable/wire routing, but also with cable/wire hookup to the components.

For example, in my current setup (regular tv in an armoire/bookshelf system), all of the cable/wires have long pieces of string attached to the ends of each cable, which are in turn labeled. When I had to change the DVR (take it in for service) or the TV itself, the unhooking/rehookup was a nightmare and a two person job. If I had dropped a cable end while unhooking, retrieving it would have been an additional nightmare, especially the tv cable which originates at floor level. Dropping it would have meant complete disassembly of the shelf/center system to retrieve the cable. And now that I am going to install a much bigger tv with additional components, I am seeking a better approach. Strings all over the place seems a little archaic with all of the new technology, and a brand new cabinet. ;)

So, I am concerned with cable routing, but also with how to hookup and unhook components as easily as possible, and how to adjust the design of the overall center to facilitate this.

Hope this clarifies further.

[Al Bois]

As far as the cable hookup is concerned, if you are going to get a new tv, make sure you get an HDTV with an HDMI (or multiple HDMI) input. This will allow you to run a single wire for fully uncompressed digital video signal along with sound in a single cable. You can do away with separate audio cables, multiple video cables (like component), etc...

If you buy a TV with HDMI input(s), all you need is that single wire for everything (DVD player, Cable Box, etc...). If your equipment has HDMI outputs, the single HDMI cable will run both the video AND sound to the TV.

For it to work properly, you will need to have a cable box, dvd player, etc... with HDMI outputs (obviously). The only other wires necessary are the speaker wires from the receiver to the speakers (if you have surround sound set up). But for the components to the TV, all you need is the HDMI.. Isn't technology great?

When I originally set my first system up, I simply used colored tie wraps at each end and mapped it out against the floorplan to my house. When wiring the system, if one end had an orange tie wrap, I just found the other end with a matching orange tie wrap and knew I had the correct wire. If you run out of colors, just double them up.. (i.e. 2 orange tie wraps on each end of the same wire.)

Also, if you're TV only has one HDMI input, all you need is either a dedicated HDMI switch to change the input signal to the TV from the DVD to Cable, etc..). You could also use your receiver as the HDMI switch (if it's a newer model) as most of them now include HDMI switching.

If you need great prices on HDMI wire, which is generally very expensive or HDMI switches, check out monoproce.com. I got a lot of my wires from there. They seem to have great reviews and the wires I got from them are top notch.. You'll save a ton of $$ vs.Monster and the quality is the same IMO.

[Matt Meiser]

There is a really slick pullout system that allows easy access to all the cabling, but it is VERY expensive IMHO. I always thought the best bet would be a closet with a door on the front and the back. Opening the back door would give easy access to the wiring. If we ever build a home theater in our basement this is probably what I'll do.

[Jim Becker]

I always thought the best bet would be a closet with a door on the front and the back. Opening the back door would give easy access to the wiring. If we ever build a home theater in our basement this is probably what I'll do.

Yes, this is the way the pros really prefer to do an installation for home theater, although it's tough to do in many cases, depending on the layout of the home. Much easier when you are building out a home theater rather than incorporating home theater into an existing room that has no adjacent hallways or rooms where the "back" of a closet would be unobtrusive.

[Greg Funk]

Ken,

I used the AX-S series pull-out equipment rack from Middle Atlantic (http://www.middleatlantic.com/enclosure/roll/axsm.htm). It includes a couple of removeable rails that you bolt up when you want to pull out the rack. All of the wires and cables fit into a fold-up tray. It is worth having a look at their site as they have a few newer options that weren't available when we built.

I would have liked to have access to the back of the equipment but it was on an outside wall.

Greg

[Todd Burch]

Kinda tough to answer at this point. We don't know what components you'll have, or if this is a built-in or standalone piece. Budget? Were you wanting to build all this functionality in, or bolt it on?

Todd

[Jamie Buxton]

If this is a big entertainment center, don't build it as one humongous piece of furniture. Build it as several separate modules. They can dock together if you like, or stand apart from each other. The key is to put wheels under the module(s) with the electronics, and have access from the back. Pull that module out from the wall, do whatever wiring you need to do, and push it back against the wall. You don't have to leave the casters visible. Conceal them with a skirt around the cabinet bottom, and nobody will know they're there.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Matt hit my answer before I got there, but in a pinch, I use slide out shelves for the components to ease frequent changes & additions to the system. I put them on drawer slides.

[John Schreiber]

Our system is not big or complex, but it's easy to get to the connections because the whole thing is on wheels. I just roll it out from the wall and make any connections necessary. The only requirement is that the wires to the wall be long enough.

[Alex Berkovsky]

Alex: thanks, I hope you find the issue.Ken,
I found it... it's the June 2006 (http://www.popularwoodworking.com/store/backissue.asp?issuedate=6/1/2006) issue. It covers the design aspect of the entertainment centers.

[Ken Close]

Alex: many thanks for the reference; I ordered it and it is "on the way". I wonder if there are similar articles in some of the other ww mags--guess I will do some targeted searching.

Ken

[Rick Gooden]

This type of solution works very well if I understand your problem:

http://eholovision.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=38

[Alex Berkovsky]

Alex: many thanks for the reference; I ordered it and it is "on the way". I wonder if there are similar articles in some of the other ww mags--guess I will do some targeted searching.

KenKen,
Try using the Magazine Index Search (http://www.woodworkingmagazineindex.com/index_Search.asp)

[Marcus Carr]

Ken,

I built a large oak entertainment center for my 55" big screen last year. I would be happy to take some pictures tonight and post them.

Marcus

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I love those black pull out racks Rick, are they as expensive as they look?

[Al Willits]

If the pull out racks are more than you care to spend, make the shelf large enough to pull the electronics out and turn to a 45 degree angle.
They don't need to be all that big to do that.

Al

[Rick Gooden]

Kelly,
I've been using this type of solution for a few years, as a designer of high end custom A/V systems, and they work very well. I would not dream of designing a system without easy access or proper ventilation. These systems allow you to simply place the components on shelves rather that using rack kits. Cost is between $4~600 depending on size. If one were extremely creative they could design one with door glides and lazy susan hardware, just an idea.

Rick

[Ken Close]

Ken,

I built a large oak entertainment center for my 55" big screen last year. I would be happy to take some pictures tonight and post them.

Marcus

Marcus: would love to see them.

I really need to "peep" some additional "constraints" or objectives I have in my search for the improved entertainment center. This really will become a detailed and illustrated new thread once I get some sketchup drawings more complete.

We have an existing wall system composed of older cherry, standalone cabinets. Center is a 36" wide armoire and on each side are a pair of glass doored display shelves, with a pair of 45 degree open bookshelves on each end of the unit. It is all a coordinated design, with great molding up top, vertical fluting, and arched (cathedral?) raised panel doors. These are Broyhill commercial cabinets which are out of date and no longer manufactured.

We do not want to get rid of the entire system just because we want to stick a wider tv in the armoire, so my design concepts are either to a) replace the center unit with a designed and built - but wider - unit and attempt to duplicate the design and match the stain color; or b) and this is the wild one - actually "stretch" or "extend" the existing armoire so as to preserve its features and most of the existing wood. How you might ask, could such a thing happen? Well, this is where I want to upload some sketches showing my ideas and see if they have any feasibility at all.

If anyone has attempted or completed any modification of an existing entertainment center to accommodate a wider screen TV than it was originally designed for, I would like to hear about it.

Don't all laugh at once please.

Ken

[Lee DeRaud]

Very expensive, but probably the best answer for a custom-built unit:
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=11184

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Ken, I build entertainment centers once in awhile....I'd be happy to take a look at what you have and what you want and toss in my .02.

[Marcus Carr]

Well, I forgot to take pictures of the entertainment center in the living room. Here are some pictures I took just after completing it, while it was still in the shop.

[Ken Close]

Marcus: pretty nice. I assume the credenza holds the TV with the other cabinets flanking on each side. It seems your components are hidden behind the solid doors, so you open them to allow the remote IR signal in. Did you consider the gadget I have seen in various catalogs which puts a small sensor exposed in one corner with some cables to carry the remote's signal inside to the various components? Thus the doors can remain shut and you still operate the components. I recall the gadget was not cheap.

Thanks for sharing.
Ken