Is there an intended method of installing to a ceiling that hides the wire hole and wire?
I’m used to having ceiling wire holes covered by equipment, but with the XV2-2X leaves the wire and hole surprisingly visible. I mounted the base as close to the hole as possible so it would be as tucked as possible - but it still shows rather significantly. Is there a cover I might be missing?
Here are two examples of the exposed wire and hole:
Thank you, Chris
how did the XV2-2X looks in the same mounting spot? It sounds like the cable did not show as much as with the XV2-21X is that the case?
seems the holes were made for XV2-2X and since XV2-21X is much smaller (155mm square vs. 195mm square) the mounting holes and cable feed through hole from ceiling are not quite centered for the XV2-21X size.
@jim these are XV2-2X APs. This is how revealed the cables are with an XV2-2X.
I do not have any XV2-21X APs to test yet.
I see. so the cable feedthru hole in the ceiling was not centered with the back of the AP device center?
Jim, I do not see any means to completely center the cable on the back of the AP. It appears the hole must be at the jack side of the radio, as close to the mount as possible. Am I not locating this correctly?
The hole location in the original post could have been centered side-to-side, but the 1" offset to the right does not increase exposure that I can tell. The hole location in the image in the original post is illustrated here:
Thank you, Chris
so as you say there is not an easy way to center the hole in the ceiling where the cable threads through and hide it completely. The hole should be made very small (small as possible) and would need to be near that end of the AP by the connector port
@jim getting too close puts the cable installation outside of minimum bend radius specifications. If you look closely at my installations, there is a sweep coming out the hole rather than a tight bend.
Can you share any pictures that show an installation with the intended hole location as designed? Was the hole expected to be visible in these installations?
I imagine a clip-in-place cover would shield this visual issue.
hole was meant to be close to the edge of the AP and near that Ethernet port so you are following that. We used to have clip on covers for some models but went away from that on new wifi 6 and wifi 6e AP’s because some customers did not like the look and it is an extra part to install and/or lose. I think the best option would be to use flat cabling with un-molded plastic ends so just really simple cables with minimum size and best bend radius.
@jim How do we propose a horizontal Cat6A run to be converted to flat cable ?
All our installations we use field termination techniques. As stated in my other post, their are two issues, one is the visibility of cable, anther is the very tight bend radius due to the position of the ethernet jack. In my opinion, the AP needs a better design after getting feedbacks from real installers like us!
if CAT6a then you are right no good option for a flat version as CAT6a is fairly rigid and the bend radius is not very tight as you say.
Most sites today we wire the APs with Cat6a.
There is an option to use a IDC joint connector (like the commscope C6A) where we can terminate the horizontal on one end of the IDC blocks, and terminate a flat or a higher AWG single ended patch cord at another end. But with this, now we have an extra connector to hide & service, resulting in a bigger ceiling cutout. With Unifi APs this works, as it completely conceals both the wire and the cutout.
But the cable bend radius can be completely solved if the ethernet port is positioned in the shorter ends of the cutout.
thanks for the feedback. since this is a different design than the UniFi which is round. We can consider moving the RJ45 connections to the shorter end of the cut-out area in the future but there is no way to change the existing products at this time.
Today I received a message from a customer:
"[The contractor] pointed out an issue that I said I’d ask you about regarding the wifi units mounted on the ceiling in the kitchen and the staff room of the new building. They are off center of the hole a little bit and in a way that reveals the hole. I think they were hoping that there was a way to mount the unit centered over the hole that would 1.) cover the hole, and 2.) center the unit with all the other ceiling fixtures.
…if we can’t cover the hole, then we will need to do something to fill it - maybe spray foam or plaster, but that also cements in the wire (for all the permanence of plaster)."
The benefit of the UniFi system [in this case] is not that it is round, but that it covers the hole. I’m trying to come up with a wiring cover to solve the design flaw for the Cambium APs, but I don’t have a lot of design time right now.
I can look at if we can design a plastic cover that could clip over the Ethernet are section. Would that be helpful?
I vote yes, that would be helpful.
it might not completely solve the issue if we have a cover design for the cable bay area. It will likely help but may not completely hide the hole as you show it. We are looking at the details now.
we have looked at designing a rubber cover for the cable bay area to help this problem that you show but it does not seem like it will solve the issue of the hole being visible.
What about looking at something like the link below to insert into the hole? Would this help?
https://www.amazon.com/Legrand-Wiremold-Grommet-Cables-Through/dp/B0047V0A1C
https://www.amazon.com/Sanwuta-Flexible-Organizer-Furniture-Management/dp/B091576CK3
@jim , thank you for taking this seriously and following through.
The cover will need to mask both the Ethernet port and the ceiling hole. In order to accomplish this, the cover cannot match the existing contours of the AP, there needs to be a variation in the shape of the cover relative to the AP base.
The grommets help hide the hole, but still leave exposed wire. I will think about them and try to show a mock-up cover design if I get a chance.
