[HH] DIY wire grid wiring ducts

[Tom Metro]

Jack Coats wrote:
> But getting some hardware cloth, half inch square grid, galvanized,
> but can be different grid sizes, can be easily bent and cut with wire
> cutters or tin snips.

That's a good idea.

My biggest concern would be whether you could maintain adequate
structural integrity. Obviously hardware cloth is pretty flexible.
Bending it into a U-channel will certainly help. But it's yet to be seen
whether that would be enough to avoid having to put supports closer than
3 feet apart. Worth a try.

A minor concern is that you'd likely end up with sharp edges with this
approach. (Same problem with a thicker wire grids, but less problematic
with fewer exposed cut wire ends.) This perhaps can be adequately
addressed by using the plastic trim strips that fit onto the edge of
panel board (1/8 ~ 1/4" u-shaped plastic channel).

I would choose a grid spacing larger than 1/2". The coarser stuff made
for fencing might do the job.

And you'd still likely need a brake to make even bends, but with the
thinner wire you could get by with a makeshift brake made from wood.


Ben Eisenbraun wrote:
> Another downsides to the PVC routes is that you can't see what's in
> them without getting up on a ladder. With the wire trays you can often 
> trace a cable while still standing on the floor.

Excellent point.


> Home Depot has Closet Maid wire shelves that might work for the
> bending-your-own route:

Yes, but I think they are more expensive (per square foot) than the ones
I referenced.

(The circuitous way I ran across the commercial wire cable trays is that
I was looking for raw wire grid stock to use as decking in some shelving
I recently setup. I bought the industrial shelving components at Lowes
on clearance (they're discontinuing the product line in the retail
stores) where most of the parts were near "scrap metal" prices. The wire
decking was marked down to $2 per 30" x 24" panel, and I bought all they
had, which ran short for what I needed. Special order they charge $7
each and take a month to be delivered. So I looked at the Closet Maid
products (at Lowes) as an option. And shelf decking at Global
Industrial. In the end, I couldn't find anything that I could get
faster/cheaper, and instead will just make use of some plywood I already
have.)

The closet shelving - even the coarse stuff - has a more dense wiring
spacing than the display wall grid material I referenced, which could
make bending challenging.


> They're vinyl-wrapped, and I suspect the coating could withstand a
> gentle bending. :-)

True. And they'd probably look better than any of these other options.
(The display wall grids I referenced come in white or black finish. Not
sure if that's paint, powder coating, or vinyl.)


Bill Bogstad wrote:
> If you flip it upside down, it would have a small...lip on one side.

Yes, they have a strengthening rail spaced vertically about 1 ~ 1.5"
down from the edge. (The manufacture pitches it as a clothes hanger rod.)


> If you ran it against a wall, you should only need that one lip. 
> In other situations, you could live with a single lip or maybe nest 
> two of them to together to get a lip on both sides...

The minimum width of these shelves is 12", so unless you are wiring the
trunk raceway to a data center, you probably don't need something that
big. If you could get them 3" to 6" wide, they'd be perfect.

I see they have an offset rod spaced 3" or so in from the outer edge, so
if you could find an efficient way of trimming off the other side (a big
enough shear) it would maintain structural integrity. You could mount
the cut edge up against the wall and have a pretty neat solution.

But too big doesn't stop you from using them, and applying them without
cutting or bending is obviously the least effort. One could envision a
computer room in which you might run a grid pattern of these below the
ceiling and just make use of some wire ties to keep the cables from
sliding around on the 12" wide shelves.

Thanks for the ideas.

 -Tom