My living room AV install. Work in progress with pics.

[muffking]

Just had the living room walls plastered up today covering all of my sins. So once the decorating has finished I should be able to start wall mounting my VIERA and 6.1 speaker pack which all have backing boxes sunk into the wall for neat and tidy connections.

1st 2 pics shows the walls stripped down to what good plaster there was left after I had done all of the wiring.
http://www.vectra-sport.com/uploads/IMGA0216.JPG
http://www.vectra-sport.com/uploads/IMGA0217.JPG

The next 2 pics show how well the plasterers have covered up the wiring.
Next up is to give it time to dry, decorate and then I can get on with fitting all of the wall sockets, plasma bracket, oh and the marble fireplace of course
I'll post more pics when there's more to see.
http://www.vectra-sport.com/uploads/IMGA0249.JPG
http://www.vectra-sport.com/uploads/IMGA0253.JPG

 

[AdamW]

Looking good! I have promised myself a plasma when I have a big enough space to warrant it.

Now, am I right in thinking your centre speaker will be mounted directly below the plasma, hence the cable for said speaker is in the same bundle? Did you make up those cables yourself or buy them ready-made?

I was to have a very fat bundle of cables exiting a stud wall when I installed my system. What I did was cut a section of plastic waste-pipe about 20mm long, then sanded off the sharp edges. I used it as a grommet through the plasterboard, it looks really neat. Glued in place, filler to make good, then did another one a foot or so to the side of it (it was a seriously fat bundle, so I separated it into two smaller bundles!).

Of course this wouldn't work for you as you have solid walls!

One last thing: I'm sure you would have checked this, but have you ensured that all leads are working 100% correctly? If you found one was incorrect then it would be a hassle to change it now, but a real head-ache if you wait until you are decorated!

Compliments to you, looks like it is going to work out nicely

 

[muffking]

Thanks Adam
The cables are straight out of the box. There is a 5 metre Scart, Component, aerial & speaker lead. All of the cables then exit the wall via a 16mm backing box which I will cover with a blank face plate with a hole big enough to fit the cables through. The speaker lead is just off a 50 metre roll though for the centre speaker to be wall mounted below the plasma like you said. The rest of the speaker leads go under the floor boards to the remaining 5 points which are also fed to sunken 16mm backing boxes ready for faceplates with spring clip terminals which I've ordered from CPC.

I know I should have checked the leads, but I've not had the time or anything round at the house to check it with. I could well end up kicking myself, but as long as there isn't a break in any of the cables then I should be able to replace any of the connectors if they go faulty, even the scart plug.

 

[AdamW]

I guess you're right, I've never ever had a faulty lead. Just being paranoid!

I wonder what would be best for cutting the hole in your blank face plate? They are cheap I guess, might be an idea to buy several and experiment!

Off the top of my head, I reckon a carefully used hole saw would make a pretty neat hole if you supported the underside of the faceplate with a piece of wood. Then finish off with a rubber grommet. They make them in much larger sizes than I realised, I've seen 50mm ones and I'm sure they come bigger than that.

 

[muffking]

For the hole in the face plate I was thinking of screwing a block of wood flush with the inside of the face plate and using the hole saw, I've bought 6 just in case, but I'll have to try and track down a large gromet as I've not seen any yet.

 

[toasty]

check out maplin or similar, you can get lengths of grommit strip.

Might be suitable.....

 

[muffking]

Well I'm one step closer and managed to get the face plate onko too
click me

 

[AdamW]

Looking good!

How was it cutting the hole in the blanking plate? Looks neat from here.

Also, is your equipment rack going next to the left-speaker plate (where the big bundle of cables comes out)

 

[muffking]

Yeah I have an AV rack which will sit in the recess to the left of the chimney breast covering thelower cable entry point and mains socket.
The face plate was cut in 2 positions using one of them round saw style wood drill bits and then smoothed off with a sanding disk on the end of a dremel drill

 

[AdamW]

A mains socket? So it is! For some reason I thought that was going to be a speaker connection plate

Are you planning to do a similar plate on the other cable-bundle?

 

[muffking]

Sorry for the delay.
Yes I made 2 of these.

 

[sandwell]

Looking good, the plasterer has made a good job.

Just one query though, I thought any wiring, even for speakers, had to come down from the ceiling, so that there is no chance of drilling into it in the future accidentally,

 

[muffking]

Thanks.

That's a true enough point too, but keeping the video cables to a minimum legnth seemed to be the most logic step at the time and there's nothing that I'll be hanging onthe wall other than the Plasma TV, but I've mapped out the brick layout on the chimney breast so I know exactly where to drill the fixing holes. In the future if/when I eventually move out that the next owners will see that the trunking is horizontal behind the face plate and will know to check with a cable finder as the TVs mains cable is also in the same place, which means that they should be able to follow its route with a mains tester.

It does beg the question "how do you find things in the wall which are not metallic?" though as I also have plasic heating pipes sunk into the wall at the other end of the room.

 

[ninebob]

I hope muffking is still here, I'd like to see an update with pics of this project's completion...

 

[muffking]

Here you go bob.
It's livable, but still got plenty to do though, such as the skirting boards want fitting.