Tanner Ridge Cinema Construction Thread

[YW84U]

And so, after some paint on the foyer side and some wider casings to cover the difference in the jamb widths, I ended up with a much better entryway to descend into the theatre:



a view to the right, into the future Master BR



A new closet to stow away those household odds and ends:



And finally, the entry to the theatre:



I'll be pulling the trigger soon on the carpet for the theatre and entryway, and then be able to finish up the baseboards and likely put up some crown as well.

I've still been putting off finish sanding the drywall in the equipment closet I suppose I better get back at it, but I know I have to remove the equipment again before the dust flies........

[YW84U]

Well, I got out of procrastination mode, and began to tackle the equipment and storage closets at the back of the HT. I have come to dislike drywalling!

Out went the equipment (much to the protest of the kids), and the sanding began





Oh, what a joyous occasion when you come to the realization that the primer is up, and the dust is now OVER!! I'm always amazed at how just a simple coat of primer will instantly transform a space into something that looks 'normal'



This area will be home to general storage of stuff I don't use very often - out of sight, out of mind! Onto the painting......

[YW84U]

As for the equipment closet, flat black was the theme of the day. I had mounted a cool little 50W halogen fixture inside to at least provide some basic lighting while mucking around with cables and such



For the rack itself, I went with the shelf./bracket combinations available at the hardware store. Gives me some latitude to adjust for height or new equipment down the road, is sturdy, and a fancy pre-made rack was out of my financial reach.....



The most interesting part of painting out the closet was the concrete knee wall at the back. Rollers just did not want to fill in the gazillion dimples in the concrete! I used up some flat black spray paint instead to get most of the white pock marks.

Something I remembered from a couple of years ago, is the need for good ventilation, especially with aerosols. I had attended a scene once where a lady from a renovation/restoration company was working in an under the stairs area of a basement with a plastic drop sheet taped to keep the aerosol primer overspray in. She had been working with a halogen spotlamp, which ended up arcing at the extension plug - immediately igniting the entire closet area, her clothing and the plastic sheet (which shrunk onto her and lit also). She did not survive after two days in the hospital, as she was over 80% burned. Needless to say, I remembered this rather vividly as I started spraying, so off went my lamps, open went all of the doors and a fan was placed. Took about a good hour to vent the fumes from one half can of spray paint.

I put this out there just to remind everyone to please always think safety when you are building out your HT....

[YW84U]

A little more paint, and some trim dress it up nicely...



And back goes the equipment



I painted the trim with a satin automotive paint, which is really good at not showing 'touch marks' you get from flat black surfaces and is very washable. Next up will be picking up some aluminum sheeting, and cutting it into face plates to cover the gear. I've started mapping out the equipment profiles on AutoCAD, as I found a shop nearby that will machine out the cuts for me if I can provide them with the CAD files. I found some aluminum for about $50, and I think I might be able to get the machine shop to cut the templates for me for beer money. More on that to come.....

I also pickup up some black split-loom tubing from the autoparts store, so as I re-wire everything, I can contain the cables in a more organized fashion. The wall plates are now labeled, and ready to go



I didn't bother putting keystone jacks in for all of the extra wires I ran, as I figure I can do that later whenever I have the need for them.

Next up will be cutting and blocking the louvered door for the closet, jambs, trim, and the DVD shelf.

I'm so glad that the drywalling is done

[YW84U]

I figured since I was drywalling, I touched up the last few blemishes on the DIY screen. I suppose no one else really noticed, but they were bugging me - especially with the stage lights washing down....

I put on two coats of Kilz 2 latex primer overtop, and followed up with two light coats of what would be considered as Behr SilverScreen (discussed extensively in the DIY Screen Section).



Overall, I'm very happy with the screen results - texture, finish, etc. I was anxious to see if going more grey would make a difference in contrast and PQ. What I have found, after a couple of movies, is that the blacks are improved - as well, the letterboxing is less noticeable. I did a quick AVIA setup to adjust for the different screen, and only really bumped up the brightness a hair to compensate for the new surface. I think I will keep test driving this screen paint for a while, and see if anything may need tweaking down the road. So far, I give it a thumbs up versus just the Behr UPW flat I was using thus far.

[YW84U]

From the earlier pics, you can see that I framed out an area about 19" wide (standard rack width), then ran a 5/8 board around the inside to finish it like a 'door frame' - this was so that when I get around to making face plates, they can be 19" wide, and have the 5/8 wood edge to screw into to mount them. This was then finished off with trim molding on both sides. I attached two adjustable rack rails (with double slots) to accept varying lengths of shelf supports - these are from the local hardware store.

For each component, I used a 9" shelf bracket, finding that these were more than deep enough to accommodate my various gear. Now if I had cut the shelf 'square', the equipment would not sit flush with the front of the rack. So what I did, was when cutting the shelf, I 'notched out' the fronts - making a 5" x 18" portion that fits the shelf flush to the front:



Of note, is that the shelf bracket comes with holes to screw down the shelf - each shelf was screwed down to secure it. This is important, since some of the weight will be sitting over the area not supported by the bracket per se. This is okay, as the shelf brackets themselves have the two notched tangs on each side, preventing the shelf assembly from being able to tip forward. I started from top to bottom, leaving some room for air gaps for the gear, but not too much that it would be hard to make a faceplate for (or look funny). Once the shelves were in, the equipment was just slid into place.

Now this left me with a wiring spaghetti in the backside:



Saturday was spent cleaning up the wiring octopus ....

[YW84U]

First up on Saturday was wiring for network and cable into the closet:



Again, Leviton Quickports were the flavor of the day. Two Cat5e and one RG6 coax to feed the monsters in the closet



I picked up some various sizes of split loom tubing and heat shrink from the autoparts store, as well as cable clips and such. I concealed the speaker wiring in the split loom, and sealed it off with shrink tube. Banana jacks were added as well, rather than just using the screw down portions of the wall plates



I labeled each one, seeing as I'm getting older and forget things once and a while

I wanted to keep the backsides of the components as 'clean' as possible:



The big question was what to do with all of the power cables of many lengths, and how to tidy them up a bit........

[YW84U]

The solution: a huge split loom tube, running the outside perimeter of the rack! This way, I could loom the wires from one shelf to the next inside the tube, and direct them out to whichever shelf I liked. I combined both the power cables and some of the input feeds (except optical):



I started along the bottom, secured it to the lowest shelf, and then ran it up one side of the rack.



This way, everything is relatively tidy, and can be removed/changed if necessary. Perhaps this is not as grandiose as some of the commercial solutions, but I figured for about $20 and a day's effort, it just makes things a little nicer to work with.

I carried on the same flavor with the Bass Shakers in the sofas as well - that way, I can easily unplug them if I need to move them around to vacuum up popcorn and such



Wow, that flat black sure looks lousy with a camera flash . It does look better in person.......I'll have to swiffer everything again from the looks of it!

Now onto dealing with the access louvered door and DVD storage cubby!

[YW84U]

Time for the DVD shelf - some 1/2 inch MDF did the trick:



Alas, it will not hold my entire collection, but at least I can have a few faves on hand (Demo Disks, Happy Feet and a whack of Sci Fi).

Trim, paint, and voila



I've got most of the trimwork done, expect for a few odds and ends to tidy up. Next mission is to cut down the louvered door I bought from 80" down to ~ 68 inches or so. I think I will haul out the old Wagner Powergun to spray this one...the idea of painting those infinite slats does not seem enticing....

[YW84U]

Time for an update I guess!

Last weekend, I cut down the louvered bifold doors to about 66 1/4 inches...good for midgets to pass thru! I was originally going to spray them with latex, but the thought of hooking up the sprayer and such kind put me off. So four rattle cans of satin enamel later, I have nice black really short doors




I started on the cover for the projector / soffit. Originally in my plans, were to ensure airflow came from the right hand side (intake) of the HD72.



So I created a beveled 'frame within a frame' for the lens, and then blocked out the left hand side with more MDF



and wrapped it with black fabric to finish it off



It's held in place by way of velcro, and that the backside of the frame is cut to fit into the 1/2 inch gap I had previously left around the drywalled opening. This way, if I need to service it, it will be easy to access and have some extra elbow room to play with.

I've found it cuts down the fan noise from the PJ just that little bit more - not tons, but I suppose every little bit counts

More on the next post!

[YW84U]

This week was spent with touching up all of the trim and moldings, installing the bifolds, and finishing trim on the roof of the stairwell. I also made another beveled panel to match with the projector cover - I figured it made the soffit area look a little more 'balanced' to my eye.

In its current state:




and without the can lights - you can see the wall color really drop off without the cans! It pretty much goes entirely black once just the screen is on and nothing else is on



I'll be finishing trimming out the staircase this weekend, and I have a carpet guy coming in next week to have a look. I took home a sample of a charcoal gray, but it looks almost brownish-purple with my lighting. The piece is just sitting to the left of the upper sofa. I think I'm gonna have to grab a few more samples before I commit to a specific color. Most likely, I will go for a medium-plush carpet - It will make the wrapping around stages and risers look a little more uniform, and I don't mind vacuum marks (let me know where the kids have missed on their chores! )

[YW84U]

Well, I pulled the trigger on carpet this week - I ended up going with the 'steel grey' medium plush, from the sample in my earlier pics. It's a pile height of about ~10mm, and will rest upon a bed of 8lb underlay throughout. I was considering carrying the same carpet up over the stage, but after some thought, will be having the stage done in black similar fibre carpet as well. Apparently, black carpet is not a big seller, and I've had to really hunt around to find something that will match the floor texture (I always tell the sales reps that the carpet is for my kitchen - the look on their face is proceless! ).

So at the end of the day, it looks like the carpet man will be removing about $2K from my wallet as he runs out the door . This is for the HT room, stairs, closets, and the upstairs landing. Man, flooring is $$$$$$!

I'm told it will be about mid-June before the installers can do their magic, so in the meantime, I might start working on the cover plates for my DIY equipment rack. I suppose there's no sense in starting on any acoustic panels, seeing as I should measure the room response once the carpets are in and see where I have to go.

My 3 HDDVDs finally showed up from Toshiba!! At least that will help me get through the wait

[YW84U]

Well, so much for working on something other than the HT......

I ordered up my IR solution - ended up going with the Hot Link Pro from Microsmith, along with the extension kit. I had thought about extending the emitters myself, but it will be so much simpler just to plug into my prewired Cat5 rather than splicing a whole bunch of wires.

Now to await the delivery man

I'll post an install write-up with pics when I receive the goods!

[YW84U]

Welcome to the Mircosmith Hot Link Pro Install portion of my thread!

After cruising around the forums and such, I never really came across much info with pics as to the installation of this IR repeater, and I'll tack on a little review as well.

So...........

Here we go!!



I ordered up both the Hot Link Pro as well as the optional Extender Kit. I figured I would be able to splice and extend all of the wiring on my own, but after considering the price of the kit vs. my time monkeying around, I thought to my self "Self, don't bother!".

In the first box, we have the receiver/emitter block, with the plug-ins for the power (via standard Wall-Wart) as well as an RCA connector for the receiver 'eye':



I didn't measure the length of the emitters, but unless you were doing something waaaay unusual, I don't think anyone would really run out of wire between their components if they are in the same cabinet area.

Here we have a looky at the 'eye' receiver window - close up:



As some of the marketing stated, this thing is quite sensitive (not uncontrolled weeping, but the 'other kind'). For fits and giggles, I fired it up on the desk just to see if it was the case. In a 9x9 room, with the eye not really pointed at anything in particular, this thing picked up signals thrown even while the remote was behind my back. The LED confirmation light helps - it grows in intensity as the signal gets stronger. I didn't find anywhere in the room where it did not reliably grab the IR signal from OEM remotes or my Harmony 880. BTW, the LED confirmation is light is Blue - and **** bright!



So in my case, I'm running IR back to my equipment closet, and had prewired for either cat5e or standard speaker wire to run the signals. Next, onto the surgery!!!

[YW84U]

Okay.....

The instructions are not terribly detailed with pics as to how the extender kit comes into play. For the benefit of anyone else like me who prefers pictures...........



Here is a closeup of one of the two extenders. The backside has a slot of the emitter wire to feed through, and the front has ports for either rj45 on cat5, or plain old two strand wire.

First step, is to determine the polarity of the ribbon wire - the + side will be the one closest to the confirmation LED. You peel back the wire for the LED only, and somehow mark the + side with something so you don't lose your place whist flipping things around:



The kit actually has a couple of + stickers there for you!

They recommend making your cut somewhere ~ 6 inches from the main block to provide some leeway while working on the cable.

This next part just somehow feels 'wrong'.....especially on something new you just took out of the box!



Phew! Off to go get a wobbly pop to soothe my nerves after that..................

[YW84U]

Next...

Take one end and feed it through the slot in the back of the extender, and feed the ribbon cable up overtop of the IDC fitting - take the time to ensure that the wires rest nicely between the metal connectors to ensure a proper contact. The extender box has polarity marking on it, so you can't really go wrong:



The top portion of the fitting is scotch-taped inside the extender box - you can remove it and now place it over the cable, making sure it lines up within the fitting:



The lid of the extension box provides a 'clamp' that when closed, will force the IDC fitting down onto the cable and engaging the contacts



And within moments, you have yourself a nice, secure connection



For the other end, just rinse and repeat!!! The polarity will be on the other side, but it all goes together smooth and quick!

You're now left with the main receiver block with LED and eye on one extension, and the IR emitters coupled to the other. It's just a matter of now connecting them with cat5, or speaker wire of your chosen length with the screw-down terminals.

Total time (minus wobbly pop) ~ 5 minutes. I have no idea how long it would take to me splice the emitters separately without the kit, but I don't think I could have done it more cleanly and simply myself

[YW84U]

Since I had prewired cat5e, I opted to make two small patch cables to run from each end of the box to run into my jacks at the front and back:





The kit comes with velcro mounts that grip the unit quite well. I mounted mine just in behind the centre speaker on one of the framing members. Plugged in the 12v Wall-Wart, and mounted the receiver eye and LED:



A mounting bracket come for the eye - single phillips screw, and it was snug and aimed with the window towards to room. LED had a clear double-sided tape for adhesion as well.

In the closet, it was merely a case of cat5 patch cable, and mouting all of the emitters to the IR windows of the components. Lots of wire to run up to the PJ and shelving, and the extra was just tucked into my split loom tubing to keep things neat.



Everything fired up right first time around. Now that I had extended the IR, I wanted to see if any of the sensitivity was reduced in any way. With the 880 pointed anywhere towards the front of the HT, a strong IR signal could be obtained with no misses. I've found that if I do point towards a side wall, it is less sensitive and can miss the odd command. However, if I use a macro on the 880 and leave it sit on an arm rest pointed towards the front from the back row - the unit performs flawlessly. (It's actually kinda cool to see the LED tap out the macros like morse-code! ).

After living with it for a few days, I can say that I am more than happy with its performance. Unless I'm intentionally hiding the remote from it, the unit repeats everything reliably. The blue LED is quite bright - so if you're one to fidget with your remote often during a movie in a dark room - you may consider placing it somewhere out of the sight-line to reduce distractions

Time to start AutoCADing the face plates for the rack components while I wait for the Carpet Man!!

[YW84U]

Tomorrow is carpet day!!!

Today was spent removing all the old trashy berber both in the theatre and the entrance.... not only had to remove the carpet, but the other floor coverings the carpet was intended to 'hide'....

First off, the entryway - not too bad, but had to deal with some ancient tiles left by the Roman Formica Installers...



Fortunately, they broke up nicely and took only about an hour. Next up, was the theatre



Yay! remove carpet to find CARPET! I guess they didn't feel like taking the old stuff off before they primered the entire basement. Nice.......maybe I can sell it on Ebay as an antique? Maybe I'll leave it, and it'll be back in Vogue in another twenty?

They had glued that stuff down to the rubber backing in the day - but I quickly found out that after 40 years, the rubber disintegrates into a chalky mass that crumbled to the touch. Spent some quality time with my ShopVac and a scraping blade to get it outa there.

Onto the Scraping of The Goo.....





Took a couple of hours of scraping to get the glue off of the concrete, but I think I'm ready for the carpet boys in the am!

It's so nice to be getting closer to the finish line !! More to come tomorrow......