CMonster Condo HT
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D
Deleted member 133
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They look great Chuck (and Angela!)
My only caution, from an engineer's point of view, is that such a design can be weak in torsion (imagine the shelves turning themselves into a spiral staircase and then collapsing), and if you ever plan to put anything relatively heavy on them, to consider some form of cross-bracing - especially with the three-shelf unit (where I would cross-brace the centre section).
CDs etc: no problem.
Gear: be careful.
Again, my caution is about the design in general - and not specifically what you have done / are using it for.
Jeff
My only caution, from an engineer's point of view, is that such a design can be weak in torsion (imagine the shelves turning themselves into a spiral staircase and then collapsing), and if you ever plan to put anything relatively heavy on them, to consider some form of cross-bracing - especially with the three-shelf unit (where I would cross-brace the centre section).
CDs etc: no problem.
Gear: be careful.
Again, my caution is about the design in general - and not specifically what you have done / are using it for.
Jeff
D
Deleted member 133
Guest
Across the back. "X" shape. Attached to upper and lower shelves. Pinned in the middle.
Without a lot of searching or thought I see some aluminum bar stock at Home Despot.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt...at-Bar-with-1-8-in-Thickness-802577/204273946
Cut it to length. Drill holes at each end to screw into back of shelf. Smooth off exposed edge. Join in centre where the two pieces will cross with a short carriage bolt, nut, and washer.
Any similar material will do. Remember that what will add the rigidity with a cross brace is the fact that one member will be in tension when things start to twist, so the material need not be super great in compression.
Here's an old pic of the back of my gear racks (to illustrate the point). Pardon the clutter, but if you look closely, you will see a cross brace attached to each of the four sections. In my case, even with all the heavy gear, it's overkill since each shelf does a good job of bracing the one beside it - and because the shelves attach to mutual vertical columns etc. But the braces came with the shelves (and with a turntable on top of one shelf, any extra rigidity is a good thing) so I used them. (I've done the same with tall open-back bookcases that are much more similar in design to Chuck's shelves. With closed-back shelves, the backing becomes the cross brace.)
With a little searching I could probably find other sources of suitable material to use for the bracing, but I think the aluminum bar stock would look good, and would certainly be effective - not to mention relatively inexpensive at the price shown in the above link.
Hope that answers the question.
Jeff
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D
Deleted member 133
Guest
By the by, the way such a structure will fail is if the "load" (whatever that might be), is not perfectly distributed over a given shelf, and heavy enough to cause a moment about any of the vertical members. Think of it this way... if you place your hands on the top shelf, spread apart, and push down perfectly equally with each, those thin vertical posts will carry the compression (downward) load. But as soon as you start pushing down harder with one hand compared to the other, especially of the pushing is also more to the front or back of a shelf, what happens? You'll start to feel the whole thing twist. That's because the load is no longer being transmitted perfectly downwards along a given column, but off the column's centre line. That's the moment I'm talking about. It's directly proportional to the distance between the effective point of application of the load and the centerline of the column. And once it starts to bend, the moment increases, which causes more bending which increases the moment which... and failure (collapse) occurs.
So while you might get away with filling the top shelf with volumes of an encyclopedia that are heavy, put a heavy power amp, where most of the mass is in the power supply which is in one corner of the amp, and this might present that uneven load that causes the collapse.
As I said above, it does not look like it will be a concern for Chuck given the pics he's shown and what he's putting on the shelves, but if he were to stack four amps, each with the same eccentric load, on the four-shelf unit, without cross bracing, I'd be concerned.
My caution is about such a design in general.
Jeff
So while you might get away with filling the top shelf with volumes of an encyclopedia that are heavy, put a heavy power amp, where most of the mass is in the power supply which is in one corner of the amp, and this might present that uneven load that causes the collapse.
As I said above, it does not look like it will be a concern for Chuck given the pics he's shown and what he's putting on the shelves, but if he were to stack four amps, each with the same eccentric load, on the four-shelf unit, without cross bracing, I'd be concerned.
My caution is about such a design in general.
Jeff
CMonster
Well-Known Member
For the large bookshelf in the back of the HT, we (read: the wife) started looking for a bunch of random shit to fill it. In her search she stumbled across a robot and suddenly we had a theme! We zeroed in on an artist in Massachusetts who makes robots out of stuff he finds in junk yards, flea markets, etc. Here's the first batch:
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mcad64
Well-Known Member
Jeff,
When you fire up your system , do the lights on the Parliament buildings dim???
mcad64
Well-Known Member
CMonster,
The whole freaking place you have looks beautiful and the HT looks kick ass.
One question, back on the last page, you mentioned a technical difficulty with the JVC. I own the older one and will probably get another down the road so naturally my curiosity was peaked when you mentioned it!! Whats up with the PJ?
Mike
The whole freaking place you have looks beautiful and the HT looks kick ass.
One question, back on the last page, you mentioned a technical difficulty with the JVC. I own the older one and will probably get another down the road so naturally my curiosity was peaked when you mentioned it!! Whats up with the PJ?Mike
CMonster
Well-Known Member
CMonster,
The whole freaking place you have looks beautiful and the HT looks kick ass.
Mike
Thanks! The projector had a bad DD Board, whatever that is. When I powered it on, the lens cover opened but after about 20 seconds it'd close again and two warning light would start to blink. I posted about it on AVS Forum and no one else chimed in as having a similar issue. I attribute it to the last three digits of its serial number being 666.
You don't know what the DD Board is????
Gheez, and I thought you were an enthusiast!!! PFFFTTTT!!!
yromj
Well-Known Member
Last night I was afforded the opportunity to visit these gracious people's home (AGAIN! You think they'd get tired of me but they keep asking me back...). This time I got to see the theater and my comments above are still in effect. This is simply an awesome space!!! Everything from the look of the room when you walk in to the way it performs is superb.
We watched the first part of Deadpool and the picture and sound were both better than a theater. The seating is very comfortable (and the center armrest raises so you can sit in the sweetspot while listening to music) and the screen is set at just the right height and distance so the image fills your vision without making you feel like you have to pan your head to see everything. The sound was very engaging and enveloping. I came away impressed with two things especially: the ceiling atmos speakers were used quite a bit more than I expected and did add to the experience; the center behind the screen was very nice (don't do it Jeff, I just did it for you...).
Angela and @CMonster have done a spectacular job on this room and it really made me jealous. I have got to get one of those...soon.
John
We watched the first part of Deadpool and the picture and sound were both better than a theater. The seating is very comfortable (and the center armrest raises so you can sit in the sweetspot while listening to music) and the screen is set at just the right height and distance so the image fills your vision without making you feel like you have to pan your head to see everything. The sound was very engaging and enveloping. I came away impressed with two things especially: the ceiling atmos speakers were used quite a bit more than I expected and did add to the experience; the center behind the screen was very nice (don't do it Jeff, I just did it for you...).
Angela and @CMonster have done a spectacular job on this room and it really made me jealous. I have got to get one of those...soon.
John