Carpenter Ants

[frederic]

As some of you know, I had carpenter ants, carpenter bees, and field mice roaming through the crawl space and above the ceilings in my studio.

Thus, I tore it all out!

Then, I had it treated for carpenter ants, carpenter bees, and field mice. Nasty poison everywhere, bombs, powders, liquids.

Fine.

I haven't been up there in a while because of business travel, so I go up there today to start attaching plywood to the walls. What do I see? Two field mice scurring across the floor and jump under my table saw. WTF????

So I caught them by the tails (while wearing leather welding gloves), and tossed them out the window.

There. Problem solved.

I take peek in the crawlspace with a flashlight, and see a few billion carpenter ants walking around in long rows.

WTF????

There are now few billion flat ants in the crawl space. I found a good use for a 500 page hardcover recording theory book.

Bleah.

 

[frederic]

Oh, no carpenter bees! At least I got rid of something!


Anyway, finished off the gig-E wiring today, its all terminated. The front half of the studio is insulated and wrapped, ready for plywood, which I will probably do this week before I go away next week.

The wiring is done minus one electrical box that I seem to be short, but not a big deal.

Overall its coming out well. Slow, but well. I've designed the steel frame console table, and after a month of iterations I have a solid design and ordered the steel this morning. I got the layout the way I want it. In the crawlspace I pulled up some of the floor, and since the floor joists of the studio are 2x16's, I forced through flexible 6" diameter smooth tubing, which I will be running snakes from the console table to the back right corner, where most of the outboards and midi modules will live. 6" diameter is enough for about 12 24-ch TRS snake cables. TT patch bays on the front, hard wired to phone plugs and midi plugs on the back.

Yay!

 

[RICK FITZPATRICK]

Hello frederic. Carpenter ants. Ah yes. Today I replaced all the plywood at the roof connection to the house, that had become fodder for OSB because of carpenter ants.
Big MOFO's. Well it sounds like your really making progress.
Steel frame huh? Cool. Can't wait to see it. I'm in the market for a M3700 which will alter the console interior height and depth of my console. Fortunately, I anticipated this when I designed mine, so I made a sub interior deck frame which unbolts from the main steel frame. This frame is easily altered simply by loosening bolts on the crossbars. I'll post some pics when I start to assemble it. THAT IS if I get this damn roof from hell done Took 5 times as long as I anticipated.

Frederic, what are you refering to when you say gig E wiring? Between computers?
Also frederic, since my system is mostly unbalanced -10, and I'll have 96 -10 lines from my console to my tape deck enclosure at the rear of the room, I intend on doing exactly what your doing with a cable chase between floor joists. But mine will be wood. Should I line these with a sheetmetal shield that is grounded? Or is that overkill?
All my signal/mic lines will enter the right floor cable chases via the hollow legs that bolt to hidden brackets in the flooring framing. Power, midi, ethernet, time code, and others will enter from the left. I'll post the plan as soon as I finish it.
Maybe you could offer some cableing NO NO's for me. Like is it ok to parallel ethernet ,midi and time code lines for some 20' or more? I HATE cables on the floor so even if I have to seperate the cables by a sheet metal divider or something, thats ok. I just need to know what I'm dealing with. Cause I only will have the 2 chases. But their about 6" x 6" in section.
Well, have fun with the finishing stuff. All the mundane and dirty work sounds almost finished, huh? Gads, I have a TON of preliminary shit to do. And I haven't even planned it yet.

Well keep us informed how it's coming. Good luck with the varmits! I have lots of critters here. This morning I looked out the studio glass door and there was a Deer.
Couple of days ago, a coon came up to the kitchen sliding door. Those don't bother me. Its the sounds I heard last night along the creek that does. Don't know what the f___k it was, but it didn't sound good Like snorting wild pigs. "Wha the.....
was that?" Ha!, if you saw the path into the forest in my back yard, you would swear it's Jurasic Park.
fitZ

 

[frederic]

Hello frederic. Carpenter ants. Ah yes. Today I replaced all the plywood at the roof connection to the house, that had become fodder for OSB because of carpenter ants.
Big MOFO's. Well it sounds like your really making progress.

Yeah, I'm making progress. Slowly but surely. I have a lot I want to do before this coming weekend, as I'll be on vacation for a week then tortured by work the following. I've been "working from home" this week hoping to sneak work on a few things while on endless conference calls. A headset with a mute switch is a good thing.

Steel frame huh? Cool. Can't wait to see it.

The reason for this was simple. If you take two 19" racks and place them side by side, there is a lot of distance between the left rack's right rail, and the right rack's left rail, which is wasted space. By mounting those aforementioned rack rails on the side of a 1/4" steel plate, the wasted space is significantly reduced.

I'm in the market for a M3700 which will alter the console interior height and depth of my console. Fortunately, I anticipated this when I designed mine, so I made a sub interior deck frame which unbolts from the main steel frame. This frame is easily altered simply by loosening bolts on the crossbars. I'll post some pics when I start to assemble it. THAT IS if I get this damn roof from hell done Took 5 times as long as I anticipated.

Thats a nice console... and glad you anticipated the size difference. Thats something I need to learn to do more often. I do everything in "cut to fit" mode.

Frederic, what are you refering to when you say gig E wiring? Between computers

?

Yes, Gig-E is 1000mb network speed, whereas more commonly is 10/100mb speed, all of which is ethernet. If you buy "netgear" gigE network switches and network cards, they support a proprietary version thats 2000mb network speed. I didn't go that route since I have HP switches, but its available today and not too painful to purchase. Since my studio PC is upstairs, and the servers where I'm storing all data (audio, video, etc) are in the basement, I wanted the connection between the two to be as fast as possible.

Also frederic, since my system is mostly unbalanced -10, and I'll have 96 -10 lines from my console to my tape deck enclosure at the rear of the room, I intend on doing exactly what your doing with a cable chase between floor joists. But mine will be wood. Should I line these with a sheetmetal shield that is grounded? Or is that overkill?

Your cable chase, is it a pipe or a trough? If its a pipe, use steel conduit of a larger diameter, its worth the money. If you're doing a cable trough (long hole with a nice cover) you can line it with steel, but steel is a pain to bend and form. You can buy copper instead, which is by far much more flexible. www.metalmart.com is a good source for copper sheet. Don't be alarmed by their prices. Once you have a decent sized order prices go way down.

Anyway, copper is what I used in my two pro studios in my troughs and I actually went through the pain of soldering them front to back and at each bend to make sure there weren't any rough edges to snag cables. I used electrical solder and a weller 100W heat gun, put the copper in with an adhesive, then sprayd it with a primer designed for non-ferrous materials (www.aircraftspruce.com) then painted it with krylon red paint so I could see the cables easier. I painted them black in my first studio, that was a very stupid idea. I swore at my troughs for years!

But you can use steel, but its more difficult to join at angles, bends, or when the steel isn't long enough and you start a new piece. Your cables are your life - don't nick them :-D

All my signal/mic lines will enter the right floor cable chases via the hollow legs that bolt to hidden brackets in the flooring framing. Power, midi, ethernet, time code, and others will enter from the left. I'll post the plan as soon as I finish it.
Maybe you could offer some cableing NO NO's for me. Like is it ok to parallel ethernet ,midi and time code lines for some 20' or more? I HATE cables on the floor so even if I have to seperate the cables by a sheet metal divider or something, thats ok. I just need to know what I'm dealing with. Cause I only will have the 2 chases. But their about 6" x 6" in section.

Your power cables should be inside steel conduit, and grounded properly, no exceptions. If you use small diameter conduit, you get one wire per conduit, if you use larger diameter, you can shove more in there. But it has to be inside steel conduit otherwise your other cables are going to hum at 60hz whether you like it or not.

Once all the power cables are in, then you can play with ethernet, midi, timecode, audio, etc. Audio should be as far away from the power conduit as you find acceptable. SMTPE timecode is balanced, so its okay to be a little closer to the power feeds, but use shielded and ground it on one side. Ethernet is unshielded, but its twisted pair, so its okay to be near the conduit (just not inside with the power cables), and if I may be bold and suggest putting your wordclock lines together, in steel conduit as well. I'm sure you really don't need a 48,060hz wordclock :-D

Well, have fun with the finishing stuff. All the mundane and dirty work sounds almost finished, huh? Gads, I have a TON of preliminary shit to do. And I haven't even planned it yet.

Plan? Plan? Huh? heh-heh. I make "overview" diagrams, then make the rest of it up as I go. I could spend a decade drawing pictures and never lifting a hammer. At least a basic plan is good because then I "stick with the plan" and not mid-construction, change my mind 20 times about what goes where, move the feeds there, yada yada. I always have "one more idea" I try to incorporate and its easier to just say F-it and just build the design and be done with it.

pigs. "Wha the.....
was that?" Ha!, if you saw the path into the forest in my back yard, you would swear it's Jurasic Park.
fitZ

See, having spent many years in boy scouts when I was a kid, I find nature relaxing and a good thing. As long as its outside