Expert: Wayne Tapia - 10/10/2008

Question
The Setup:
Hi, i have a 14 x 22 family room and I have mounted a front projector on a wooden stud about 15 ft back. The projector is securely screwed using 4 long screws. It's not moving.  So far so good.

I live in a 2 story house and have no access to the crawl-space between the floors.  Now, I need to wire power and signal to the projector.  I want to power it from the output of a UPS supply.

The Question:
I am going to pop a hole in the ceiling directly behind the wall holding the screen, because my wife does not want the ceiling "holed" up in the family room. I think I can fish a wire to that hole and then down that wall.  I would like to keep that "port" available for wiring up 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system.  Do you know of a ceiling drywall port that can be put in place to access the wires and route additional wires later?  I can't find such a thing on the web.

Also, where i have the projector mounted is a tight squeeze for an junction box to connect the projector power code to the romex.  Don't know if can get a small one in there to make a connection.  Any ideas as to how to connect?  The mount is a hidden channel mount with the HDMI and power going up the middle of the extension pipe.  

It should look clean and professional when done. I just don't know how to do a couple of things.

Thanks,
joe

Answer
I'm not totally clear on what you are trying to do. Are you talking about wall plates for the speaker wire? You can get those at any Home Depot type store, or try Parts Express (http://www.partsexpress.com/wall-plates.cfm) They have a pretty good selection.

One thing to note, you do NOT want to run your power and audio/video lines together. That is a huge no-no, unless you enjoy a lot of interference. Try to keep them separate. I guarantee, you will have image / sound issues if they run together.