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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I keep saying that, come next general renovation, I want the flat to be cabled like ships in Star Trek are - with cable routes being walled only in half, like C instead of an O, with the open side masked by panels that can be removed to access the wiring, whether to inspect, repair or replace. After all, isn't it ridiculous that to do anything with cables, one has to pretty much demolish the whole flat first?

Everyone rolls their eyes at me when I say this, and for some reason no one has seen such installations, nor heard of anyone doing them. Am I crazy or what?

(And yes, if I ever build a house, I'll make sure to add Jefferies tubes!)

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I noticed the parent commenter used the word flat so they are probably in Europe and thinking of stone/brick houses. Meanwhile a lot of replies, probably from North Americans, mention drywall and drop ceilings. There’s a huge difference in construction styles in different regions. Not to mention average age of buildings and likelihood of renting vs owning. Just something to keep in mind when reading comments.

This is already a thing. This is why offices have false aka "drop" ceilings. It creates a void space for cable runs and air handling.

Funny thing - during last renovation, I agreed to a drop ceiling. I didn't realize until it was too late that they'll just hang drywall-ish thing from the frame and paint it over, so while technically cables run most of their length overhead, I'd still need to effectively destroy the ceiling to get at them.

Plus, this does not solve the problem of the starting and ending segments of cables, that just go vertically through tight holes bored in the wall.

I mean If you have drywall it's trivial to pull a cable down and throw in a lv bracket and wallplate

If you're inspired by spacy things, why not just use flat ethernet cables ON the wall, which come in all colors? Then combine them with triangular LED-panels (powered and brightness-/color-controlled over those cables) at places where they have to turn sharply, or branch from a little switch (hidden behind such a triangular LED-panel)? If you don't get what I mean, search for pictures of 'Nanoleaf' to get an impression of the many forms you can build.

That looks rather OK for my tastes. And is simple to implement, up to 1Gbit/s. Not because of the limitations of the cables, they go up to 40Gbit/s in flat form factor, but for the small switches, or SBCs which could be 'abused' as such.

Anyways, Nanoleaf or any others don't come ready for POE, so have to be modded, but not by much. Controlling them over ethernet requires more modding, but not that much either. One could also use the remote, and just give power over POE.

IIRC Panduite is the brand name version of something closest to that. Though you could also use Unistrut as a trough and protect the cables that way in a different enclosed space.

More generally I'd like modern houses to have more 'wet walls' like they had in the Matrix, where there's a space big enough for a worker to actually maneuver between rooms. Problem is that's also a space pests and fire can move.

That would consume a lot of valuable space as well.

I was going to mention Panduit too, but originally refrained from posting.

If You have never used Panduit, choose wisely the room where it initially is installed. Start off with the lab or workshop or under kitchen cupboards (ie, places where the other half isn't going to get bothered by it). Also, it helps if the area has many semi-permanent cable runs ("this extension will only be here for a few days..." - unintentional fib). Personally, every time I install a new rack or mounting board (think 1m x 2.5m board on a wall to hold tools or "temporary" power strip/network equipment/test fixtures), I put in a length of F2x3 "narrow slotted duct". I use much smaller under the cabinets. The larger ducts are good for hiding the extra cable length so only what is needed escapes the enclosure.

Initially, it is often ugly. I would not want to live without it. Bonus points for creative mounting (the other half still has not noticed the piece across the lower back of the upright piano but has noticed the lack of cables).

> Though you could also use Unistrut as a trough and protect the cables that way in a different enclosed space.

Uh, what? Why are you telling people to violate the NEC? Do not use strut as a raceway, why would you suggest that? It’s way more expensive than a UL listed raceway, and not suited for raceway purposes anyway.

For surface mounting, use a listed surface mount raceway: https://www.legrand.us/wire-and-cable-management/raceway-and...

Legrand makes many different sizes of surface raceway.

If you want pathways inside a wall, use a listed conduit (PVC or EMT), if you’re fishing into existing walls you can make sleeves out of EMT or PVC (drill a hole and slap bushings on both ends)

I have always though the same thing. Adding new cables should be doable by pulling off a panel attached to the wall or ceiling.

Every house has baseboards: why do we not just make baseboards big enough to run all our wiring?

Why do you need to access the whole cable? The thing you care about is where it emerges from the wall. Put in plenty of spare junction boxes and conduit from junction to junction and you'll have a modular maintainable system and your walls won't look like junk.

if you plan to include electrical in this, you're probably going to run into some issues with the building code.

true, unless it's low voltage PoE. i think the building code only covers standard voltage.

Anything high enough amperage is a fire hazard, even if its a low enough voltage to not be a shock hazard. Also “PoE” is a very loosely followed spec, there are a lot of non-spec PoE devices out there.

Depends on jurisdiction. There's no 'the' building code.

Ha, cool. May I encourage you to label the panels that cover the fibre connection with "ODN"?

In older places here in Singapore, that predate widespread indoor electricity, I see that the cables are often on top of the walls (but hidden inside some plastic sheathing).

So that works like you suggested, but is a bit ugly.

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