Journey from Room to Home Theater with DIY Acoustics

[aloklala]

You have a very good point and I will install a fire alarm in the HT room. I will also purchase a Fire Exhaust.
I have the Elecricity wires from my main board to the HT room under the roof concrete. Other wires within the room are behind the glasswool which is not flamable.
I do not think it is possible to have any Inflamable sheaths for the wires. I bought all Havells best grade wires and have no joints in any wires from from the switch to the bulbs.
Also I am installing an exhaust fan in he cabin where I will have the 2 UPS and 2 stablizers. This will pull the cold air of the AC into the cabin and through it out and so keeping the whole AV compartment and Eletric compartment cool. I will post detailed pictures of this system soon which I think is a really good arrangement.

 

[manoj.p]

The cloth material should be fire resistance grade. Also make sure to put wires through conduits. That should be minimum given the amount of cloth coverings you have. Keep a fire extinguisher at hand too.

 

[amitkr]

Great going Alok

 

[captrajesh]

With so much wood and fabric, are you taking any steps to safeguard against fire? IMHO it would be wist to invest in automatic fire alarm since:

1. Significant amount of flammable materials
2. High amperage wires running through the same materials

E.g. if you are using power conditioning, transformer is those units can get really hot.

Also, please evaluate if it is feasible to cover cables in inflammable sheaths.

You have a very good point and I will install a fire alarm in the HT room. I will also purchase a Fire Exhaust.

Fire alarm is not only an overkill but is not very relevant for the given application.

The easiest way to eliminate electrical fire risk is to disconnect electric supply to the room. That is what we do in banks for strong rooms; Power is supplied through an external cable which has to be physically removed to close the door.

Since your HT room is a separate room, you can think of putting a 'RCCB' Leading manufacturer like 'Anchor' has these devices. In addition to 'MCB' they have a tripper which can be used to disconnect power to the room when one is getting out. I have one for my entire flat.

I do not think it is possible to have any Inflamable sheaths for the wires. I bought all Havells best grade wires and have no joints in any wires from from the switch to the bulbs.

correct; you may consider fire retardant cables instead.

I am installing an exhaust fan in he cabin where I will have the 2 UPS and 2 stablizers. This will pull the cold air of the AC into the cabin and through it out and so keeping the whole AV compartment and Eletric compartment cool.

It is a good idea to regulate temperature in the AV compartment.

In addition you may consider installing a handheld Fire extinguisher which can handle A and C class fires. The best example of such equipment is Mono Ammonium Phosphate (MAP for short) based extinguishers which are powder based.

 

[NetFreak]

Fire alarm is not only an overkill but is not very relevant for the given application.

The easiest way to eliminate electrical fire risk is to disconnect electric supply to the room.

Dont agree with that.

In this case, room will house:
1. HTPC
2. Speaker cables with high amperage

It is quite common for HTPC to be left on for doing things such as downloading media or format conversion that can take hours.

OTOH, smoke detectors cost just 3 -4k rupees. This is a minor expense as compared to overall cost.

 

[ashishkesarwani]

From all the pictures which you have posted it seems like you are using the absorptions panels in the entire room, I am afraid that this outcome of yours will make your room dead and High Frequency of your speakers will get effected. Also one biggest disadvantage of a dead room is that the amplifier and speaker has to work harder to give the same SPL output which in the long run shortens the life of both.
Also a dead room doesn't sound very well with Music.

 

[captrajesh]

Dont agree with that.

In this case, room will house:
1. HTPC
2. Speaker cables with high amperage

It is quite common for HTPC to be left on for doing things such as downloading media or format conversion that can take hours.

OTOH, smoke detectors cost just 3 -4k rupees. This is a minor expense as compared to overall cost.

Smoke detectors give out an alarm only after a fire takes place and is only useful for evacuation of personnel. With my limited knowledge as a Security Manager of a Bank, IMO it is impractical to rely upon smoke detectors to manage fire incidents in home environment where you have housewifes, children and elderly who cannot be expected to have knowledge and temperament to deal with such exigencies.

Apart from the above, not only do you have incidences of false positives, you also have false negatives which are even more dangerous.

If some equipment needs to be kept switched on for long hours like servers (in this case, HTPC) it would be prudent to isolate such equipment so that spread of fire can be eliminated.

Speaker cables with high amperage

I've never heard of fire on account of short circuit in speaker cables. I'd be happy to be educated on such occurrences.

 

[NetFreak]

I've never heard of fire on account of short circuit in speaker cables. I'd be happy to be educated on such occurrences.

We are going off topic for this thread. I think OP must be cursing for starting this topic in his thread Will start a different thread for this.

Overall, US (and most of EU countries) have well defined standards for fire safety of speaker cable. E.g. NEC (national electrical code) CL2 and CL2 rating for in-wall installation of speaker cables.

Usually for India these does not make sense since walls are made of concrete. But in this case it might make sense because of wall-to-all coverage of wood and cloth.

 

[nshankar]

The most common response to a fire alarm is evacuation of the premises.

Unless you are a trained fire warden, then you can choose to fight it, provided you are well equipped to deal with it.

 

[aloklala]

Thanks nshankar, Netgreak, captrajesh, ashish, amit and manoj!
The fire alarm is just as a precaution in case something caught fire no one is in the room.

I have 2 starter switches (The kind of swiches used to start single phase motors) which will control the power to the whole room. One before the stablizer (4KVA) of the AC.
Another one before the stablizer (5 KVA) of the all the other electricity in the room. The power after this stablizer goes to all the lights, exhaust fan, AV equipment, projector UPS etc.
I was thinking of having the UPS of the HTPC connected to the Inverter connection. The Inverter has its own MCB, fuse etc. Also the power board from where power comes to the Inverter also has its own MCB. Then there is a 63 Amp 4 pole MCB behind all the MCBs. Behind this are 3 100 Amp old style Fuses and then it goes to the main meter. a 25 mm, 4 pole wire goes from the meter to the pole. All MCBs of of Havells and all wires are also of Havells with no joints in between. To the best of my knowledge I have done a pretty good elecricals connections job with respect to personal attention I gave while getting everything instaled and also got best quality material.
After that I think we can take as much care of the things as possible later also but finally have to trust GOD to protect us.

 

[aloklala]

Progress so far:
1. HTPC ready and working
2. AC installed and working
3. All lights and electricity connections done and working, 6 ceiling lights installed (a lot of lights pending to be installed)
4. Pillars ready to be polished. Any area behind pillars which may be visible has been painted Brown
5. All cloth panels done and tested once after being installed
6. Cloth of the 2 seater sofa to be put on the back row holsted and the sofa is ready for use It is looking awesome (Will post pictures soon)
7. The sub woofer cable of 4 meters is falling short and so I have to get another one now

Pending items:
1. A lot of lights
2. Remote control panel for lights control and dimmer
3. Carpet pending to be installed
All this should be comple in the next 2-3 days except No. 2 above which will take 15 days


:clapping:

 

[aloklala]

Finally the 5.1 speakers are installed!
Only thing pending now is installing the Projector. The guy brought a wrong ceiling mount today and so will have to wait for a few more days to get the right one!
Currently I have put the projector on a small table and projecting from there.
Overall experience is fantastic!!
Will post pics once the projector is also installed.

 

[pupupuchi28]

Finally the 5.1 speakers are installed!
Only thing pending now is installing the Projector. The guy brought a wrong ceiling mount today and so will have to wait for a few more days to get the right one!
Currently I have put the projector on a small table and projecting from there.
Overall experience is fantastic!!
Will post pics once the projector is also installed.

Alok, no pics attached is spoiling the fun. Please weee neeeed pics...dum dum dum...weee neeeed pics...dum dum dum...weee neeeed pics...dum dum dum...weee neeeed pics...dum dum dum...just kidding

 

[mandeep]

aloklala,

latest pics???

take ur time but do post a lot of them

 

[vinay]

Lights - Fabric - Glasswool

Alok,

I am aware that you want to put led lights and this seems to be a very good idea but why did you not consider halogen lights? I have seen photos of a few home theater's with the h. lights and they seem to be very good while i too have many of such lights.

The fabric and glass wool on ceiling too may not be a good idea for the simple reason that these will become too much in the room as you are already having enough of it.

One thing is really good that i think you will rectify the errors if any.

V.

I am not planning to put any halogen lights in the room.

I am planning to put fabric on the ceiling too. I am still not sure if I should put glasswool below the fabric on the roof also.

I am thinking of trying out how the room sounds with this arrangement. If it sounds too dead then I will put either 4 mm ply on top top 6 feet glasswool on the walls or put aluminium foil below the canvas on the top side of the front panels to prevent high and mid range frequescies from being totatally absorbed.

 

[vinay]

Passion

Alok,

We are all here to learn from each other, this is what a forum is all about. The consultants and related are not going to help so truly and efficiently because of their monetary interest etc.

Indeed it was a great experience for both of us, we spent over 5 hours talking purely about the making of home theater, it was a high way to passion.

I enjoyed the metro train journey from Delhi to Noida. The maximum local trains we Mumbai people use, we deserved the right to first have these metro trains, but since you guys are in the Capital, so you'll had the first chance. Congratulations.

V.

Vinay came to meet me and see the progress of my Home Theater yesterday. Thanks a lot Vinay! I learned a lot from you.

Wow, It was a great experience.

 

[vinay]

Fire

Indeed safety is quite a big issue.

In my case i have taken basic precautions in terms of quality wiring and running them separately so that they are near about isolated from the fabric and glass wool. I get the a/c serviced on regular basis and from the right people while i had hired a very experienced electrician for all the wiring and his team did a great job.

My gadgets do not get hot because i always use a a/c and i had seen to it that there is no ceiling fan provision in my Mini Theater because sometimes there would be a temptation to use it while that is a another story that these 3 blades can not compliment a true dedicated home theater.

I have taken other usual precautions to keep the flames at bay.

We are a high risk in case of fire especially during night.

V.

Hi, one question about safety.

With so much wood and fabric, are you taking any steps to safeguard against fire? IMHO it would be wist to invest in automatic fire alarm since:

1. Significant amount of flammable materials
2. High amperage wires running through the same materials

E.g. if you are using power conditioning, transformer is those units can get really hot.

Also, please evaluate if it is feasible to cover cables in inflammable sheaths.

 

[vinay]

Fire

Alok,

I and more members too have the fire extinguisher in our home theaters. In-fact there was fire in one of the member's home theater and the extinguisher probably saved him from bigger damage.

I always thought that glass wool is flammable if it is not flammable, quite a relief.

V.

You have a very good point and I will install a fire alarm in the HT room. I will also purchase a Fire Exhaust.
I have the Elecricity wires from my main board to the HT room under the roof concrete. Other wires within the room are behind the glasswool which is not flamable.
I do not think it is possible to have any Inflamable sheaths for the wires. I bought all Havells best grade wires and have no joints in any wires from from the switch to the bulbs.
Also I am installing an exhaust fan in he cabin where I will have the 2 UPS and 2 stablizers. This will pull the cold air of the AC into the cabin and through it out and so keeping the whole AV compartment and Eletric compartment cool. I will post detailed pictures of this system soon which I think is a really good arrangement.

 

[vinay]

Fire

I too am in a similar situation.

It is recently that in my Mini Theater i have been keeping desk top and a/c on for 24 X 7 so this grows my risk too.

I have a smoke detector and have not been using it for more then 2 years, i will now again start using the detector.

V.

Dont agree with that.

In this case, room will house:
1. HTPC
2. Speaker cables with high amperage

It is quite common for HTPC to be left on for doing things such as downloading media or format conversion that can take hours.

OTOH, smoke detectors cost just 3 -4k rupees. This is a minor expense as compared to overall cost.

 

[vinay]

Dimmer

Alok,

As you are going for led lights, will the remote be able to handle dimmer option?

V.

Pending items:
1. A lot of lights
2. Remote control panel for lights control and dimmer