BES Glow Fish sticks

[Anthony]

Mmm, glowing fish sticks . . .

No, not those fish sticks, I'm talking about a line of flexible fiberglass poles for pushing or pulling wire through walls.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=365-510

I was originally going to buy a Magnepull or similar kit for my wire fishing, but after watching an electrician run a line in about 30 minutes with only 3 holes in the wall I was sold on these fiberglass rods.

Also indispensible here was a Wall-Eye. This is a lighted periscope for looking in walls. It's disorienting, but with a little practice you can hold it, see your target and get the rods exactly where they need to be. The light is a little weak, but with a supplemental flashlight in the ceiling I could see 8 feet away, no problem.

http://www.techtoolsupply.com/index....ROD&ProdID=341

I should have spent the 5 bucks on the one with a holster case. I found myself putting this thing down and having to go up and down the ladder to get it.


Anyway, back to the review:
The good:
These things can take a lot pulling stress and can bend a lot tighter than you would think.

The variety pack of ends has just about everything you need to work through a problem. Specifically, I used the magnet, chain, hook, and bullet end.

The bad:
The glow doesn't seem to work that well. I wasn't running it in total dark, so maybe that was it, but I found it no different than finding the rods on the floor in a lit room. Still, they are light in color so with a light they are pretty easy to spot in the wall.

Also, these things can hold a lot of bending tension and when something gives they can whip out. I had one bent to hold it in place and when I hooked it, it moved enough so my bend came free. Missed hitting me by about 6".


Methods:
First off, unless you have access to raw space behind, above, or below -- you will have to punch a hole in drywall. Get over it. It is easy to patch. In this particular installation, I had a wall plate ceiling run and surround speaker to install. I lucked out that the wall plate stud bay was aligned with the ceiling box for the projector and was only one bay off for the surround speaker.

So the runs were: up the wall from the equipment rack, over to the ceiling, and then a speaker line over to the far wall for the surround speaker. I had to make two holes to drill into the top plate of the walls. After that it was all on the fish sticks to get the job done.


HDMI cable. I thought this one would be the hardest. I just put the end through the wall into the ceilign bay and had the hook end on the fish sticks. Reached in, hooked the connector and pulled. In fact, that ended up being the easiest one!.

Next was the RapidRun Component cable. They are nice and put a bullet end with ring on it for pulling. For this I used the magnet and chain. First, put the magnet up hole from the wall and leave it there. Then put the chain on another stick and put it through the ceiling. When the chain gets near the magnet, they will attach. Leave the one rod in the ceiling and pull the magnet out slowly. It should pull the chain with it. Now just hook the chain to the RapidRun bullet/ring and pull.

I also piggybacked a Cat5 and speaker run on this one, so as I was pulling, I got all the wires to the ceiling box at once. This is a great tactic, just be sure to stagger the wires so that only two are going through a bend at any one time.

The Hard Part (ceiling box to speaker hole):
This one required a double-pull to get completed, since the cable was being fed from the other direction. It is always easier to feed up the wall and snag in the ceiling than vice versa, however if you go up-over-down, you obviously have to do one of the legs backwards.

A double pull involves pulling an intermediate wire to your "final" wire and then using it to finish the job. I like using Cat5 for pulling wire. I always seem to have it, it is small, slick, and takes a lot of tension. Plus, you can leave it in a lot of places for an emergency hookup later. You can use it for RCA, speaker, data, phone, IR distro -- pretty much anything in a pinch.

So for this pull, I did a loop and hook. I looped the cat5 around the end of a stick and taped it in place. The loop was such so I could hook it easily, but not so big as it would flatten in the hole as I pushed it through. I held this in place and went to the ceiling. Got the hook onto the loop and pulled. Ideally, I should have used paper tape or some sort of magnet to make sure the wire pulled off the stick, but retained the loop. Instead, I unscrewed it from the wall stick (the one that poked it through initially). Then I pulled the cat5 to the speaker wire, taped the two together and pulled the speaker wire the rest of the way. It was Miller time

I have pics, but sadly not here with me today. I will post them as soon as I remember.

All in all it took about 3 hours and 5 holes in the wall -- 3 of which ended up being wall plates (equipment, projector, and speaker) -- so only two to patch (and of those the speaker will cover one of them. A lot easier than I was anticipating. This was my first job in a "finished" room. Usually I have some access to raw spaces, which needless to say, makes the job much easier.

But I'm sold on the glow-fish-sticks. A longer chain and couple extra magnets and this would be the perfect kit.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Moving this to the Design and Construction Forum, since it’s about installation and not interconnects...

Good job Anthony! This is a great companion to my In Wall Wiring article. I didn’t cover in-wall where there is no attic access.

I have pics, but sadly not here with me today. I will post them as soon as I remember.

That would be great, hope you can get them up! It’s hard to follow a “how to” narrative without pictures.

Regards,
Wayne

[Anthony]

No problem on the move, Wayne. I wasn't sure where to put it.

Sadly I don't have as many pics as I would like, just some of the finished product. I may have to go back and stage some B-reel shots to show what I was talking about. I'll be back at that customer's site Wednesday and can snap a few more.

I saw that Parts Express sells a 10' chain for use with this system. That would have made the "hard part" much easier, as I could have done the magnet/chain trick again and been done with it -- no fussing with a loop.

I also used Wire-Track in this installation for the first time. I will write up a review on that as well. It's a baseboard conduit that runs behind the molding, but allows for easy reconfiguration. Hopefully after reading all this people won't fear a remodel Home Theater!

[Anthony]

Okay, finally some pics!

Here are two pics of the primary run. The first shows the terminal point and the cutout to gain ceiling access. They are in the same stud bay on the wall.

The Second shows the run across the room, including the ceiling box. Luckily for me, this ceiling used criss-cross bracing and not fire-block for reinforcement. Otherwise, I would have had many more holes to drill.

when that ceiling box was not in there, I could reach in pretty easily to move things around. I still needed the WallEye to see and do precision catches and lock on magnets.

[Anthony]

Note that the red lines aren't exact, but were meant to show that all were in the same stud bay.

This next image is a closeup of the terminal wall to ceiling hole. it is sized such that I could get my 1" drill bit in at a decent angle to go mostly vertical in the ceiling plate. That HDMI connector and RapidRun bullet end are pretty big.

The pole with the magnet went in there. Another pole with the chain went in through the ceiling hole. The magnet pulled the chain out, I attached the cable, and then pulled.

[Anthony]

A similar feat was required to get the surround speaker wire over to the far wall. However, I did not have a chain long enough so that involved a hook and loop pull. First I got the speaker wire to that ceiling box with plenty of slack.

I put the hook in the ceiling all the way to the end. That little port hole was done by the electrician running the power to the projector. It came in very handy for seeing and guiding the hook at the loop. Otherwise, I would have had to used a very long chain and magnets (and a bright light in the ceiling bay).

The loop there is exaggerated, it was very small so that it wouldn't deform when pushed through the ceiling hole.

Speaking of holes, here's a closeup of the wall. There's a stud between them. It was easier to get into that stud bay to run to the ceiling that move across bays in the ceiling. That hole is that large so that my entire drill would fit in with a really long 1/2" bit to drill into the ceiling plate. Both of these holes will be covered by the dipole surround speakers, although the paint crew is going to patch it.


So once everything was hooked, I pulled the CAT5 and pole up into the ceiling bay, unhooked and pulled both wires out in that little access hole. I taped the speaker wire to the CAT5 and pulled both through.

[Anthony]

Sorry for the crude drawings. I just finished the rough in there and my tools were back home, so no time to shoot some B-reel!

I'm planning on running a 3 way switch to the hall leading to my theater this weekend. That will require many of the same tricks. I will be sure to take a few pics and post them when I get a chance.

I have now added a 10' chain to the toolbox. This will make vertical runs much easier, as that is long enough to go through a full wall.