NEW Studio, NEW Network! Mandic Lab 1.0 Begins!

[@PetiteVerd0t]

For the air duct, you are required to use plenum related cable, which is designed specifically for that purpose. It does not give off toxic gas if the cables do ever catch on fire. Riser rated cable is not the same. It is designed to run outside of ductwork but in vertical spaces between floors. Grey electrical conduit would have created two issues so glad you did not go that route. First, it will give off toxic gasses if it catches on fire, which is a real potential if you have a garage fire and the pipe extended into that area. Second you are disrupting the airflow to the rest of the house which may or may not create other issues.

[@Killa_Prints]

Cool to see projects related to setting up the new studio. Nice addition of a little 3d printing as well

[@MandicReally]

Thought for sure there wouldn’t be any printing, but a solid use came in.

[@Eric_In_SF]

But please, if you’re setting up a network do not follow with this guy says. I really really really like him and his videos but he’s no IT guy. This is what it looks like when you hack and bodega your way through a project.

[@EvoSteveIX]

Glad you're getting set up and settled! And NEVER apologize for longer format videos! This was a great watch and I love it! GIVE US MOAR Also- I've had a small Unifi deployment for a while and cannot agree more, the features you mentioned (AP & ip locking) are such a convenient IOT quality of life upgrade that I cannot live without.

[@mrjackson2k]

You actually want plenum rated (if it catches fire, the smoke won't kill you instantly) cable when running through an air supply area.

[@MandicReally]

Riser is also rated to not release a lot of toxic fumes, but maybe less so than Plenum? It is pretty unclear in my limited research. The info was conflicting when I tried looking. Some said one way, some the other. It’s off book, so I went with what I had. If it was plain cable not at all rated, then it would have been a total no go. I’ll continue to explore other options. Know of a flexible conduit that isn’t terrible?

[@AaronSchmidt52]

First and foremost, a very useful tool for in wall cable pulls is the MAGNEPULL. It would have not solved the blocking issue you ran into, just thought I'd share. Second, in most cases you are required to run plenum rated cable in airspaces where the air will be used by heating and cooling system or building ventilation. I completely understand that situation here. However, this could be a potential health/safety issue, so I wanted to share the information. Third, if you have several long cables runs, running single mode fiber and dropping a second switch could be easier. If you have the room for it of course. Thanks for making the video and sharing, Glad to hear you are settling in and can't wait to see more videos on the build out of the new shop space.

[@n00blike]

Next printing project, under stairs hiding spot with a bookcase access door!

[@MandicReally]

Wouldn’t be my first bookcase door… hmmmm

[@philsowers]

What a ride, from vehicle fab, to 3d printing, to the cult of UniFi; Welcome to the sickness!

[@MandicReally]

Glad to be here. 🤣😅

[@philsowers]

@@MandicReally How tall is the new garage/lab? I've had my eye on a garage loft build in my garage for more storage. Seeing real world examples isn't super common.

[@RBallarddesigns]

Glad the move was a success. Can’t wait to see what’s next

[@deannaatkinson3004]

Welcome to Portland, Mandic.

[@3dmedicvince449]

I can honestly say that I enjoy watching and listening to your videos. You have a great voice, and the audio is pleasant to listen to. I think you could narrate an installation guide and make it sound like an interesting project. All that said, keep up the great work.

[@fadefromdark]

Excited to see what is next for the studio! Congrats on the safe move.

[@sliverbaer]

I love Ubiquity gear. I am still running a USG, which I should replace. A US8, USW Lite 16 POE, and two AC Pros. I wish their life was longer but such is tech. Setting up the VLANs is great for segregating that IoT traffic so it can't talk to the main network. Just great equipment. Glad they hooked you up. Saves some $$ for sure.

[@thomasmcgravie6932]

Nice to see all the behind the scenes stuff that you need to run Mandic Lab 1.0, critical and time consuming but good to see and hear your thinking and problem solving. Good luck setting up you new space , look forward to the videos as it progresses!😁👍

[@IamNinetyFour]

VERY hype to see this happen and definitely gonna chat you up more if I ever get time to stop by a livestreram. looking good dude!

[@madcatusa]

Welcome back Alan!

[@TommyHoughton]

It's always exciting seeing the first steps in a new studio! It's a dream of mine to get to the same stage, so it's fun seeing it a reality through others. I can't wait to see how it evolves! Cheers

[@leemerie3d]

Very nice setup and nice to see you getting back up amd running! That trip out there seemed like a fun one! Excited to see the completed studio 🎉

[@MandicReally]

Thank you very much! I’m excited to see it done too. 😅😅 Wish I didn’t have to build it.

[@stuartfisher4210]

Great video. I love seeing stuff like this. I also installed Ubiquiti APs, U6+'s, starting last year. They've been rock solid but do't really push them too hard. Regarding the blank wall-plates: I'd be tempted to install one or two network jacks in case you need a hard-wired connection there in the future. Alternatively, could you use it for some physical control of smart-home devices? Like a Pi with touchscreen to control music or lights?

[@MandicReally]

Oh that is a plan for the future around the house. Maybe one of those wall plates can factor in, we shall see, hadn't considered that.

[@Papajin68]

I was kinda wondering if a right angle drill attachment might have worked to drill through the blocking... hard part would be getting the drill bit in there, but if you could source the right length flexible bit, it could have worked depending on how far up the wall the blocking was. Nice to see I'm not the only one that gets a bit ummm creative when doing this sort of thing and running into issues! I had similar issues when trying to get cables up from my basement to the 2nd floor and ended up hacking up the 2nd floor wall pretty good to get access, but you can't tell anything happened there now, so I'd say it was a success!

[@jeffbradley2501]

Great to see you back and can’t wait for the next instalment

[@Walnut3D]

Now THIS is epic

[@star_rose_three]

You're inspiring me that I need to have a better setup. I find wifi sucks on all the PCs I built for my husband and kids and I'm spoiled with the wifi on my Macs. I ran a cable to a switch and ran cables to the kid's computers and it bugs me every day! Thank you for the video cause it's giving me ideas! I love videos like this cause it shows you that things don't always go to plan and it's not just a perfect KZbin setup. Wish me luck with my 1950s house and the setup headaches I have! lol

[@aaro_n]

Excited for the video thank you for sharing your journey!!

[@davideldridge5852]

Always got to check with the Missus first 😂 I did a UniFi set up when we built a few years ago, been rock solid the whole time!

[@danieldeslandes2479]

Your new location seems to have a lot of potential and I can't wait to see what happens next..Take care

[@garthhowe297]

Good video, exciting project. Where I live, I have only seen wood stud walls with blocking, so I assume it is code.

[@herrboot]

Lookin awesome! And I LOVE Portland Oregon! So much win. I too am building a server rack at home, and would love if you do custom server rack modifications and share the files!

[@MandicReally]

I’m sure I’ll expand on the rack as I go. Will be a project at some point. And I’ll definitely release the parts when I do.

[@herrboot]

@@MandicReally awesome! I look forward to seeing what you make of your new space!

[@MartinEwald]

Love to see the new studio

[@DodgeChrgr440]

Maybe this will be the motivation I need to update my Ubiquiti setup. I used Carlon Flex-Plus ENT for my low voltage runs. Not sure if its plenum rated though.

[@eslmatt811]

I don't know your building codes, but i thought you only need an wall plate if you splice the wire. I think you can patch and paint the drywall. Might be something to look into.

[@MandicReally]

It didn’t even cross my mind to mention my reasoning for the plates. You are right, I could just patch and call it done. I like to leave them so I can change a cable or repair if necessary. I’ve had more than one cable be bad over time. (Bad crimps most likely, one damaged cable by someone else in the basement.) This lets me access later. Who knows CAT8 cable could be around the corner. If it isn’t an eyesore, I don’t mind them. The double ones? A bit less so but whatever.

[@caedis_]

So I heard you had some fun on the trip there

[@MandicReally]

It was a real Oregon Trail adventure 😅

[@critter42]

@@MandicReally Who died of dysentery?

[@MandicReally]

@@critter42 my trailer 🤣

[@LesFishingMoreCatching]

Nice. I just updated to the Pro Max 24 and 16 switches. So much more Poe power available and connected the 2.5gbe ports to the new 2.5gbe WiFi7 AP. Connected the 24 to 16 using fiber. I opted to put a switch in my upstairs bedroom closet which makes it easier to add connections to the upstairs rooms.

[@brycejeannotte7699]

Since you shop a Lowes you might have wanted to look at their 2-inch Black Non-Metallic Flexible Liquid Tight Electrical Conduit. That could be pulled through your duct just like you pulled your wires through and would have given you the ability to add more wires later as you intended originally. Looks like you have some very nice network equipment.

[@Aron3DP]

I feel your pain with ISP. I have 1Gig down but only 40Mbps up.

[@MandicReally]

Uploading this video took so much longer than I’m Philly. 😅

[@optimisticaboutautism2967]

Happy late birthday!!!!!!!!! (21:40 mark)

[@mr_voron]

Glad your Oregon Trail journey went well. Welcome to the left coast! Enjoy the weather.

[@MandicReally]

Loving the weather so far. The Oregon Trail was not great but no one died of dysentery, so here we are! Thanks!

[@Autonate_42]

See the cat was already liking the new place when you where talking about setting up network in the living room, Overall from what you showed it is a very good looking place.

[@buhizkewl7105]

That server cabinet badge is just screaming to be replaced by something bespoke and worthy of the new McMan(dic)sion!

[@delsydsoftware]

Welcome to the PNW :)

[@MandicReally]

Thank you very much. Loving it so far.

[@Neura99]

in the old dining room area I would have not put an access point so high, it may interfere with the one in the upstairs hallway and you may experience access point jumping on the mesh network and create a problem zone., you would have been better with a in-wall access point at the first hole closer to the floor. Generally when I install APs for customers I use an app on my phone and create a heat map to figure out how many access points and where to put them. too many access points can be a bad thing or too little since it looks like you may have gotten Long Range Access Points. like other have said riser cable in the duct work is a good thing, and running a single mode fiber or dual mode fiber and putting another switch up on the second floor would be better in this instance then running lots of cables back down to the garage. (I am currently doing this myself). since you ran cat 7 shielded, it is a solid cable a patch panel on the wall and run cables to that would be better with a full 42u cabinet, and then use stranded cables to the tor (top of rack switch) . we do it this way in datacenters and offices because if you don't leave enough cable when you terminate them in the rack, moving the rack around or pulling it out becomes a nightmare. ubiquiti is a decent setup for home/home office/small business, not exactly enterprise grade even though they call it that. If they sent you a doorbell camera for free I would use that, if they didn't look at a ReoLink better value for the dollar. Ubiquiti cameras are a bit overpriced for what you get as well. better options out there with full color night vision for the dollar. but you got some for free, so use them. Look into Home Assistant and Blue Iris to run the cameras and forget the Ubiquiti NVR and record to plain old nas storage. you will be much happier. the Ubiquiti protect system locks you into it and you can't display on anything but the ubiquiti app/eco system.

[@coreymartin9630]

I do low-voltage, I only have one note on your install. When cutting wall boxes, start with the horizontal cuts. Even though you checked with a stud finder, you never know what kind of surprises you might run in to. If you hit something, you can just swap directions and keep it at the same height

[@MandicReally]

That’s a great tip. Thank you 🙏🏻

[@coreymartin9630]

@@MandicReally Learned that one the hard way lol

[@twoheadedpanthr]

Create a VLAN just for your 3D printers, never hurts to isolate machines with questionable security.

[@MandicReally]

Yep, that is part of the plan. Same for IOT / Smart Home devices.

[@exen900]

@@MandicReallyjust keep in mind that AirPlay/Google Cast and that stuff is not designed to go through a „real“ network and is completely Multicast based. Never got mDNS working satisfactory when I was running the UniFi USG, if you encounter any issues with smartphone on different VLAN than AppleTV and stuff, that is probably the issue

[@Rainmotorsports]

It seems like at least one other person has already gotten to you on this but running through ventilation you want plenum rated cable not riser. It unfortunately is more expensive but in the event of a fire the outer jacket won't create a whole bunch of smoke that will then be circulated through the house.

[@GMichaelBridge]

I would think you'd want to use plenum rated cable for the duct run, since its running through an air handling space (plenum rated releases less toxic gas when/if it burns than riser rated). inside the walls & such riser rated is fine.

[@MandicReally]

The info I got was pretty conflicting on the subject. Plenum is meant for return ducts not feed ducts. But riser isn’t expressly for that either. Riser is also anti-toxic time but maybe to a lesser degree? It’s unclean. Im definitely off script here.

[@GMichaelBridge]

@@MandicReally most of the stuff you may have read about returns is because i don't think code allows low voltage in the feed side, only the 'return' side, but yeah, plenum is air handling space (look at wikipedia) feed or return. you can use riser above a drop ceiling if the returns are ducted, otherwise it has to be plenum.

[@MandicReally]

@@GMichaelBridge know of any flexible conduit that is rated? It’s either that or head outside and conduit up the wall. Really wanted to avoid that though…

[@GMichaelBridge]

i think it'd be cheaper to just get a small spool of plenum rated from monoprice & replace the duct runs. you could probably attach the new runs to the existing to use as pull cords.

[@Dragonited]

I would not have gone through the ducting like you did. I would have made a hole in the ceiling to the attic and used a fire rated conduit through the celing. You will have to fill it up with fire sealing foam though after but it would have been a bit cleaner than to run it through the duct. For the thing in the wall, you could have used a longer drill from the crawl space since it looked to be rather much room there to drill through the floor and the blocks that the stairs attach to.

[@gouichichefarouk2329]

you rack is mounted near water flood hazard to you need to lifted up using any kind of stand to protect it ,and also leave some spcae for you to do maintenace to those heater or thank or whever it;s

[@HeyItsRich]

I'd turn that space under the stairs in to a secret room lol

[@MandicReally]

Oh, discussion has begun…

[@R0b0t0v3rl0rd]

Welcome back!

[@MandicReally]

Good to be back!!

[@DanRaines]

Interesting video, reminds me of a my networking projects over the years. Watching this has me thinking I probably need to redo my current setup. Gland to see your need studio area. It looks full of very cool possibilities!

[@trippinonaduck1379]

I would have cut the whole bottom square to make a "secret" door to get into that space under the stairs.

[@TheButchersbLock]

Super cool video mate, very interesting and entertaining 👍🇦🇺😊

[@thatguymakesthings]

Hope it goes well for you :)

[@AaronFlaming]

Nice work. Unify OS looks amazing.

[@CaptainOmNoms224]

When you fish cables you should add a fish line to the cable too in case you ever need to fish another cable down the line. Also why put a blank plate all over? Once the cable is where it needs to go you can just drywall back over the hole you made.

[@vojtahavelka]

I would use pipe in the straight line and then flex tube in the turn.

[@TheDarkPreacher65]

Are you gonna be using Home Assistant for any of your home automation?

[@MandicReally]

Most likely yep. Definitely have some ideas for what we can do with it.

[@Strange.stephen.3d]

We’ll miss you in Philly man…

[@MandicReally]

And I will miss Philly. Dearly I’m sure. For now I’ll take the nice weather. Until the rain begins. 🤣

[@XWiFFMaNX]

So why did you move to Portland Oregon? I live across the bridge in Washington, it would be cool to run into you at proto-pasta like I did with filament stories, she was really nice

[@martythestines]

You already have one of his CPU Pillows and you're much closer to Vancouver now. You should ask Linus or one of his goons to come help you out. I says goons with love btw. 💻💘

[@MandicReally]

I may have a contact or two and they are only 6 hours away. Maybe someday that can happen.

[@jonfernandez4933]

Upgrade that AC-LR to a U7 or U6-LR the AC-LR is pretty old now and do a G4 pro door bell

[@Speedgaming802]

happy birthday

[@Speedgaming802]

cool lab

[@MyMGBJourney]

3D print a life size human for Ruby to “tattoo”!

[@mitchellmnr]

I am not sure if I missed it - but you really dont want to be taking cabling/conduit through active ducting (if its dead then you can discard this comment) But if its working ... then there could be some legalities in your country with regards to this - just check it out to be sure ... A fire or smoke in the ducting can spread extremely quickly

[@NickNick2024]

Welcome to Portland Oregon. Sorry you didn't get a place with gigabit fiber. That was one of our search criteria when buying a house here. Worth it if you can get it. 😁

[@MandicReally]

Yeaaaa. I was hoping we’d find a place with Ziply. 2g fiber sure would have been nice. Sadly garage was the number 1 criteria. Thanks!

[@NickNick2024]

@@MandicReally I've got CenturyLink fiber here. Crappy company but the fiber is fast and reliable. Like you, I'm running a ubiquity to connect everything.

[@kerrigreen2626]

Great vid, so jealous of American houses there so easy to work on I'd love to be able to run cables like that. Lol

[@MrZombietoes]

First like and first comment!

[@MandicReally]

Second! Thanks for so early!

[@joshhardin666]

first off, adorable kitty :D - secondly, I'm curious why you decided to go with 2.5g instead of 10g which is now becoming pretty much standard. 10g enables fast access to a NAS (which is great for editing, etc.) that can live right there in your rack. I get that your wan connection isn't nearly that fast, but when fiber DOES become available in your area, you'll be ready, and your UDM pro already has some 10g sfp+ connections (which are optionally adaptable to 10g base-t if you need to). you could go with something like the EnterpriseXG 24 perhaps (given the rest of your network gear is in the ubiquiti ecosystem.

[@MandicReally]

Cost of upgrading all my equipment. My motherboard on my pc has 2.5gb and my NASes have 2.5gb cards. Would mean replacing all of those on top of the rest of the project. Currently my NASes are hard drive units. They simply cannot move data at 2.5g speeds let alone saturate 10g. Someday I’ll get around to it. I’d like to have a Flash storage NAS to edit videos off of, but that’s not today.

[@joshhardin666]

@@MandicReally that's totally fair. also, just so you're aware, you can TOTALLY saturate 10g with hard drives (you just need enough of them), but more over, if your nas has enough ram, it will provide caching which can also significantly help (especially when serving lots of smaller files repeatedly), and depending on the configuration of the nas, you could also use mirrors of (used?) enterprise class ssd's for additional read and write caching. It's important to remember that 10gb/s is only 1.24GB/s (which at the end of the day isn't really all that fast). but of course, you're the best judge of your needs. Thanks for sharing your setup though! I'm curious to see your other upcoming build logs :D

[@MemelordSupreme]

Totally unrelated but I was wondering what kind of boots do you wear? Been looking for some vegan friendly boots but can't find anything worth much. Thanks!

[@MandicReally]

I wear STC Footwear boots. They make Vegan and Non-vegan boots. If you search vegan on their site you’ll find them though, they are clearly labeled. They are the most comfortable, low break in, and solid workboot I’ve found that’s also vegan. I dealt with leather for years until I found them. They are a Canadian company and I don’t think have US retailers. When I got my first pair I had to have a Canadian friend send them to me, now they ship to the US at least. Thanks for asking. I’ve debated talking about them cause I too struggled with that issue for a long time.

[@MemelordSupreme]

@@MandicReally Thank you so much for the info I really appreciate it! It's definitely a struggle finding non-leather boots that can hold up!

[@thatguymakesthings]

Also happy birthday 🎉

[@MandicReally]

That you muchly 🙏🏻

[@thatguymakesthings]

@@MandicReally least I can do :)

[@DarioEspina]

I'm concern about the PVC releasing harmful chemical when the furnace is in use

[@MandicReally]

Riser cable isn’t sleeved with PVC. The conduit though may have been a concern. Though it was rated to 90C metal would probably be best by snaking it through is the issue. Maybe a flexible metal

[@alexanderkhalilieh7862]

I'm assuming you purchased this house? Super jealous of this setup and all the hard work you put into it.

[@MandicReally]

Nopeeee. We stay in places quite a while and I just don’t care. I do work better than some contractors and clean up when we leave. Heck the last place I upgraded so much the landlord thanked me. Got to live life (and can’t afford to buy sadly).

[@alexanderkhalilieh7862]

@@MandicReally Oh wow! At least the house upgrades make for good content :)

[@infowolfe]

by the way, that lav mic has a lot of static

[@MandicReally]

@@infowolfe the audio in this is wayyyyy more processed than I typically do. Sorry for that. New space, tons of reverb to combat. May be a bit of the mic, probably a lot of the post processing. I didn’t hear anything egregious, but my hearing isn’t 100%.

[@infowolfe]

@@MandicReally It's not the processing that I'm picking up on, it's like there's some signal noise specifically on the lav mic only. If you take a look at a spectrum analyzer at >12khz you should see some small peaks when you're on the lav mic.

[@williamelewis464]

You don't want the rack cooled inside? I know it's the PNW, but it still has 100+ degree days during the summer and a lot of moisture during the rest of the year

[@MandicReally]

Studio will be climate controlled. And it’s been 70-80s in the garage as it’s half under grade. There isn’t really a good place in the house. My office is on the second floor and that isn’t well air conditioned unfortunately.

[@jeffthorson625]

in the ducked you tried to use a hard pipe there is a pipe called a Smurf tube i thank that is because it is blue and i thank you can buy it in 8 foot sticks and you can get it up to 500 foot coils and i have also seen it in gray

[@MandicReally]

I tried looking for a flexible conduit but couldn’t find any local that came in less than hundreds of feet ($$$). That Smurf tube also seems to be rated for lower temps than the bear wire is itself.

[@fuzzytomatohead]

which idiots disliked the video? be glad we get a whole studio build video (or more than one) instead of the tour, five months of nothing, then alan popping up with a new studio and no one has any idea where it came from.

[@therick0996]

17:50 weird flex but ok

[@MandicReally]

🤣🤣🤣

[@Eric_In_SF]

I’m sorry, friend, I can’t even watch this :-) working on IT everything from the wrong type of rack to the wrong placement of your gear in the rack to the air vent. Just makes me wanna pull my eyeballs out. I’m not gonna get into specifics but with that rack, you really want one that’s two sided for the very minimum has pull out spaces. Not to mention, you should be setting up the rack, so it has front to back airflow, not stuffed up against the wall. Etc. etc. etc..

[@MandicReally]

I’ll be dust filtering an putting in active airflow for the rack eventually. It won’t be against the wall but it also isn’t feeding a data center. Nothing in it will get be loaded to the max with our household/ workload.

[@jonathanzj620]

This seems like the most difficult possible way of doing this coupled with not using plenum rated - you're probably going to want to seap those out. If you're drilling anyway and already have straight attic access in the garage why not drill/run the pvc through the roof into the attic? Much more complicated than it needed to be.

[@MandicReally]

There is no direct attic access from the garage unless you go outside. That was the entire point. There is living space separating the garage from the attic entirely. It would have to run outside to come in through the “roof”. So across the shop, through a wall, snake around the building (the garage protrudes off the side) and then up the side of the house, into an eave (where it’s hard to access in the attic), and then disperse to the space. It would require twice the length of cable runs, a lot more conduit, and be a pipe on the outside of the building that has to be planned and made to look as good as I can. Along with requiring 90s that aren’t fun to pull cable through.

[@jonathanzj620]

​@@MandicReallyGotcha. Camera work made it look like the pipe ran straight upwards to the plenum so I misunderstood. Still might be easier to drill through the wall plates and fish a 10/25/100G home run line between the garage and another place in the house with a second switch that you can access easier.