Ask Slashdot: Recommendations For Beautiful Network Cable Trays?

First time accepted submitter murpht2 writes "My company prides itself on an office environment that follows a modern design aesthetic: open floor plan, bold colors on the walls, cool lamps in the corners. We're now engaged in a significant upgrade to our IT systems and we have a clash: the IT team leader wants to run network cable in trays hanging from the ceiling so all the client computers have high-speed access to the new servers; the guy in charge of the office design wants to keep things looking clean and the cable trays don't fit the bill. We're in a building made entirely of bricks and concrete, so we lack some of the between-the-wall spaces that are used in other settings. Any suggestions for beautiful cable trays or other alternatives?"

Comments

Lucky you

[TWiTfan]

My company prides itself on an office environment that follows a modern design aesthetic: open floor plan, bold colors on the walls, cool lamps in the corners.

My lame company only prides itself on stupid shit like making good products and pleasing its customers.

Re:Lucky you

[tlhIngan]

My lame company only prides itself on stupid shit like making good products and pleasing its customers.

Submitter never said what his company actually does.

Perhaps having a "nice office aesthetic" is a requirement in the field they work in - perhaps it's even ... design! Last thing most customers looking for design work want to do is walk into a butt-ugly office that's full of drab (but functional) office furniture.

And there are many fields where yes, the office aesthetic does matter, especially in creative industries. And customers expect it, nay, demand it - they want to see what sort of creative "product" the company has, and office design is one of them that's visible, beyond existing products on the market.

Apple has shown that form is important - if not as important, as function. Having function is necessary, but so is form, as function without form is a complex mess no user desires. Though of course, sometimes they lean too far towards the "form" part at times.

And sometimes, it's actually GOOD to work in an environment that's not just beige cubes in a beige office with beige tables and beige equipment.

Re:Lucky you

[mythosaz]

I spent the last decade in a job with a nice Herman Miller Aeron chair.

I now work a job with your run of the mill crappy cubicle chair.

While I make the same amount of money in the new job, it's considerably less satisfying spending my 8+ hours a day in this back-breaker.\

Happy employees stay longer, work longer, and refer other good potential employees.

Unhappy employees leave and work where it's nice.

Re:Lucky you

[swillden]

My company prides itself on an office environment that follows a modern design aesthetic: open floor plan, bold colors on the walls, cool lamps in the corners.

My lame company only prides itself on stupid shit like making good products and pleasing its customers.

The two aren't in opposition to one another.

Buy plain, decorate

[PktLoss]

I might not bother trying to find beautiful trays, but instead find regular ones, then decorate!

Take something like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AU3HG6?ie=UTF8&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=B003AU3HG6&linkCode=shr&tag=preinheimerco-20&qid=1386087250&sr=8-5&keywords=wire+tray

Then put these underneath: http://www.whatisblik.com/shop/explore?theme=77

Turn your office ceiling into a pacman arena!

Re:use wifi

[PktLoss]

Wifi is.. nice, but I wouldn't use it in a full office environment for everyday access. It's a big brick room, lots of computers, lots of interference. Not only is WiFi slower, but you end up with less throughput as interference requires random packets to be retransmitted.

Re:3D Print

[H0p313ss]

Buy typical cable trays, and 3D print some sort of fancy colorful casings for them. You can use a variety of designs and colors for aesthetic appeal. Plus even if it doesn't look all that great it will still be "cutting edge" technology in use, which will likely appeal to your business folks. Plus you can throw a 3D printer in your budget...

Interesting idea, but given that it takes the average 3D printer hours to create something only a few inches across it's not terribly practical.

It would be more practical to hire a basket weaver... ooh... woven trays...

Contrasting rattle can colors

[xtal]

Use brightly colored cables, get metal cable tray and rattle can spray paint it a contrasting color. I've seen it done very well, and it does add a near technical feel to a space.

Any interior designer could help you; if you're going for image, then that's probably not a bad idea anyway.

If you're not going for image.. drop tile. :)

Look at rain gutters...

[mspohr]

Some years ago when I moved my company into a new office and wanted to keep the cost down, I installed rain gutters (and occasional downspout) on the walls inside to run telephone and ethernet. It was inexpensive compared to official cable trays and hid the wiring nicely.
Gutters are standard architectural details and since they are very visible you can find nice looking designs and colors.

Industrial look get industrial looking cable trays

[Que_Ball]

You can get really nice industrial cable trays.  Mount them high enough that they aren't immediately noticeable but they maintain that industrial and exposed look.

The good ones are powder coated so you can get a colour of your choice to match the office.

Use a tool called a cable comb when you are running the cables to put the cables into very straight and neat bundles.

Here is the manufacturer of a good quality system for cable trays:
http://wiremaidusa.com/
(they have many resellers.  Your cabling contractor likely deals with a supplier who can get this)

Here is the cable comb tool for making straightened bundles of cables that look neat in they tray:
http://www.acomtools.com/

If you want something more enclosed then you can go to full conduit installation using metal pipes.  The pipes can then be painted to match your ceiling colour.

Re:802.11ac

[spire3661]

NO NO NO NO NO. Wifi is not a direct replacement for wire, its just not. Wifi should be supplemental to the network, not the basis for the network. If you are choosing wifi for aesthetics in a business setting, you are in the wrong line of work.

Cableporn ?

[alexhs]

You might want to get some inspiration from reddit / imgur cableporn sections.

Re:use wifi

[pete-classic]

The bigger problem is that having many nodes means having many collisions. The aggregate capacity of the WiFi channel goes down as the number of nodes increases. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSMA/CA

Re:Sure

[dskoll]

And after you set up Ethernet over power lines, you can set up Power over Ethernet equipment thereby eliminating all cables without needing to use WiFi!