this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Maybe not the prettiest, but a little cleaner than it was when it began. If I had it to do over, I might use a small 9.5" rack if such a thing existed. Originally I had the Netgear and patch cables in a Square-D circuit breaker box but it seemed unnecessary and a bit cramped with no air flow. I then added the Firewalla and moved the fiber over with all the other gear. I have room to expand but I don't think there is anything else I will ever need to add to this location. I have another networking rack more centrally located in the house. There was also tons of coax here but I coiled it up and tucked it away in case it is ever needed again. I originally wired my house with 2 network drops and 2 coax drops to each wall outlet. This spot services 6 drops to my office, two lines to my main networking rack, and the main internet connection.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I would strongly consider a couple coats of a fire retardant to the backer board just as a solid safety measure.

You can sort of think of it like this... Every single line that connects to the equipment on that board runs through various other aspects of your house. Any single lightning strike or unfortunate short around any of those little pathways would concentrate back to the equipment you have in this photo... And right now you have that equipment bolted directly to a flammable surface that is attached directly to your home. For sure you would not pass a safety audit if this were in a corporate data center, and I'm not saying that should be your goal. But you may also want to consider your insurance policy might fight you on pay out if this did become the origin of the fire.

You haven't installed a bonding bridge either (which would really be over kill here but you could consider it if you were to upgrade a few of these components later). A couple coats of a fire retardant would be valuable piece of mind... You can use fire treated plywood designed specifically for use in this sort of application as well instead if you wanted though.

You can find intumescent coatings on the internet...

https://www.gaf.com/en-us/products/topcoat-fireout-fire-barrier-coating

Here is an example of a plywood rated for telecom panels

https://frtw.com/?page_id=57

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is great advice and had I thought/known this I might have chosen another backer material. I just used what I had laying around. Elsewhere I installed cement backer board for this very reason. I just didn’t think about this equipment or the wiring being of concern. I will look into the Intumescent coatings.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I would say it is seriously low risk in a residential configuration like this, and not worth stressing to much about tbh. I happen to have a couple years of experience in IT and have had to bring data centers into compliance for this sort of stuff before, and figured I'd share what I know.