The Rack!
The brains of this property will be an innocent 19" rack behind a locked door.
Picking the equipment, cooling, power backup has been the subject of many hours of research. Here’s the conclusion:
How big? 18U works for my needs. I’m leaving a few blank panels to distribute heat and hopefully can get away with passive cooling. I like the look (and price) of this one from NavePoint (Perforated Cabinet Pro Series):
Mesh doors and sides help my passive cooling dreams, and the lock should keep renters at bay. I can ask my low-voltage electrician to terminate all the wires against the wall and just assemble this rack without the back panel for access to all the speaker wire and RJ45 ethernet drops.
18U space:
1U/2U: Digital Logger Ethernet Power Controller 7 PDU — This will let me remote control turning things on and off (like powering off the amps when the house will be empty, or if I don’t want renters playing music outside); as well as script things like power-cycling the modem if the internet is out. I believe I can configure HomeBridge to expose this as 8 switches which will be easy to manage. Lastly it takes two power mains so I can keep my critical network equipment on a UPS circuit while having my audio equipment on a regular circuit and the PDU will act as a surge protector. Seems worth it for $395. I like PDUs at the top of the rack so power cables can hang down and be zip-tied to the right length.
2U: Shelf (cable modem, Lutron Caseta Hub Pro)
3U: Keystone panel for 9RJ45 — this will be the blank above the Unifi Dream Machine Pro — I’ll have 8 RJ45’s from the UDMP plus the modem ethernet that have to go places so seems like a brush panel would do the job nicely. The look of a patch panel is nice, but seems like overkill so maybe just a brush panel. Lastly I like having 1U above the UDMP because it can run warm to the touch.
4U: Unifi Dream Machine Pro — the brains of the network, as well as Hard Drive for the cameras. I like the Western Digital Purple Hard Drives, likely a smaller drive like 4TB since I don’t need long term retention for the cameras.
5U: Patch Panel (24) — To make the 24-port switch wires all neat and tidy. Need to keep a few of them grounded for the outdoor cameras (and access point). Add 24 6" patch panels and it keeps the mess of ethernet wires hidden away (and lets the heat from the switch have some room to breathe.
6U: 24-Port Switch — I like the UniFi Enterprise 24 PoE Switch. 10G between the switch and the UDMP, L3 routing, PoE to every port, 2.5G Ethernet to half of them which should give me a little headroom to support the latest devices, and a single row of ports will make for a nice looking patch panel.
7U: Raspberry Pis — I’m planning two Raspberry Pis mounted in a rack with room for four. UCTronics makes a nice and affordable option. Raspberry Pi 4 4GB #1: HomeBridge, PiHole. Raspberry Pi 4 4GB #2: Home Assistant. PoE Hats seem nice, but might cheap out and go with a regular USB adapter and use the Digital Logger PDU to power cycle if I ever need to.
8U/9U: Vented Blank Panel (heat dissipation and passive cooling)
10U: 1U Shelf — I’m going to have 4 Airport Expresses to provide whole home audio. This shelf is to just line them up and have 4 pretty green lights in a row. The back of each amp will have power (up to the PDU), ethernet (up to the patch panel), and a 1/8" audio to RCA adapter and a RCA cord down to one of the amps below.
11U: Amplifier (AudioSource AD1002) — I like these amps for a few reasons. (1) They’re auto-on, auto-off; so I can set it and forget it. If you cut the power at the PDU (ie. you’re going away for a week) and restore power they go back into standby mode. (2) They’re Class D so that means power efficient and low heat generation; (3) They’re cheap ($175) so they’re not precious and put out a decent 60W which can pair with a sensitive set of speakers to keep things at normal volumes. No idea why bass and treble are on the back, so set that before you install these on the rack… The plan is to set the volume to the max I’d normally want music to play so that when someone cranks AirPlay to the max this is the volume limiter to keep the neighbors happy. If you want a sub, there is RCA out that can run from the amp to the sub and you can do the 12v trigger wire if the sub doesn’t support signal-based on/off sensing.
12U: Amplifier (AudioSource AD1002)
13U: Amplifier (AudioSource AD1002)
14U: Amplifier (AudioSource AD1002)
15/16U: Vented Blank Panel(heat & passive cooling) — could replace with a fan to pull in cooler air if temperatures becomes a problem.
17U/18U: UPS — Still deciding the model. Refurb APCs for $399 are overkill, but may be worth it over a TripLite 1500VA model for $250. I plan to have Solar & Batteries so this is a backup for a backup; but the home batteries could run to zero with an outage plus a cloudy day and the network is also the security system with the cameras and NVR; so I’m thinking of this like an insurance policy to have a UPS on a UPS.
Heat
Always a concern in a rack behind a closed door, the gear generates heat and electronics don’t like heat. I’m picking generally passively cooled gear and making choices that don’t generate a ton of heat in the first place (Class-D amplifiers for example instead of Class AB). I’m hoping to passively cool by just leaving a big enough space; but plan B is to put some kind of vent into the room and worst case a fan that I can trigger with a temperature sensor to pull hot air up and out of the space (and a passive vent near the bottom to let the cooler air in. Need to chat with the contractor about where to place the rack in the first place and see if I can find a space where there can be a volume of air above the rack that’s big enough to absorb (and dissipate) the heat. The rack is only 3 feet tall, so if I can keep a few feet free above it should be able to buffer the heat generated.
