For years I’ve had fans in the back of the audio cabinet to keep my stereo stuff cool. Even modern equipment generates a lot of heat, esp the Receiver or any Amps you have.
When I got this audio cabinet about 8 years ago I put 3 fans in it. I got the best fans that I could find to reduce the hum that fans all make – Vantec Stealth 5″, and a Vantec Stealth 3″ for the center bay. There is a small transformer hooked up to the Aux power of the receiver so that the fans turn on whenever the receiver is on.
Phone and CAT5 wiring around the house to distribute the connections to several rooms around the back of the house.
Cat-5
The wireless-G connection to the computer in the back room was flaky. A large wall mounted mirror on a wall between the office router and the back room reduced the signal strength. Using a cantenna on each end helped the signal strength, but did not eliminate the flaky connection. Using one cantenna was better, but was still not reliable, and there was message loss.
In a completely different direction, its time for a new satellite TV service [Dish] and the DVR requires a phone connection – Dish charges another $5 a month if there’s no connection. They are probably harvesting viewing habits with the phone line, in addition to allowing PPV ordering.
These two issues have created a project to wire a set of CAT5 cables around the house. The rear of the house has no crawl space and no attic, so the wiring is external on the outside of the house. The best and simplest method appears to be to use outdoor CAT5 cable with UV coating and silicon gel for direct burial. Oregon is wet, so while not used for direct burial, the cable is likely to be wet for much of the year. Continue reading “House wired phone / CAT5”
Seems like I never have enough printers. An old Deskjet 855 is hanging around until I use up the last ink cartridge. Then I’ll recycle it. Hard to get carts for it these days. And an HP 7550 is my photo printer. Great colors on photo paper. And recently an Epson R200 as a solution to write labels on CDs and DVDs. See this article: Print labels on your DVDs and CDs… [Content no longer available.]
I needed a printer cabinet. So I slapped one together from stuff I had around the house. 1/2″ OSB and 1/4″ oak plywood. I may get around to painting it, but for now it’s a natural. Click on the picture for a larger view.
Printer Cabinet
Construction is routed dados for shelves with glue and staples.
Windy Weather 