Satellite Speaker Points Slabbed Over!!!HELP!

bobtjustice

hello ladies and gents,

Need some advice on this. I'm totally brain dead when it comes to this stuff.
My house is wired up by smart homes for surround sound in my living room, (see picture). Unfortunately, the company are not interested in providing any service to me what so ever, seen as I'm not wanting to drop 2-3 grand on an in home system.
The problem is, while the house is wired for surround sound they (the builders) have slabbed over where the points for the satellite speakers should be. Unfortunately i can't locate where these cables are, no matter how hard I've tried. (Cable finders etc) and the builders have now bolted as the estate is finished, and sadly the management company for the estate are no help either.

From the picture can anyone tell me what those points actually do, i know theres one for broadband, cable tv, and phone. But the gold connectors are for sound right?
And, does anyone know anyway of finding where the points in the wall should be, or should I just hire an electrician to find and install for me?

I've managed to get a nice Samsung 40" Plasma and Yamaha AV63 reciever, which hooks up nicely to my Xbox 360 but would like to not have cables trailing all over my sitting room.

Cheers
Bob

Idleater

Is that photo taken at a source point or destination point? I.e. Is there only one of those clusters or are there several more with varying amounts of similar connectors placed throughout the house?
Secondly what service did you pay smarthomes for? Was it a one off 'dunno what i want yet- wire me up' kind of job or an all inclusive part of buying the house?

bobtjustice

nereid wrote: »

Is that photo taken at a source point or destination point? I.e. Is there only one of those clusters or are there several more with varying amounts of similar connectors placed throughout the house?
Secondly what service did you pay smarthomes for? Was it a one off 'dunno what i want yet- wire me up' kind of job or an all inclusive part of buying the house?

Its the source point, and there's only one of these in the house. Theres a smaller version over the fireplace but as far as I can see it only has a aerial connection, it looks like more connections could be put in this cluster but they are covered over if you get me.!? (like just a flat piece of plastic)

It was inclusive with buying the house, numerous attempts followed with the builders to get electrical plans of the house, e-mails back and fourth the managment company..etc. Eventully I got bored mailing them ( i suppose thats what they wanted) and gave up. I only got intrested in it again when I got my new set up.
Cheers

Idleater

okay, in that case you are going to have to get more persistent, or take a gamble on finding the locations yourself, or paying someone else to find them. You don't happen to have any house plans do you?

By the looks of the panel, the bottom row are speaker points, you wire RR, LR, FR, and FL speakers to these from your amplifier. The centre channel is not there as I presume they assume that your amplifier is going to be there or there abouts as is the tv screen.

Next, you have the co-axial tv, which appears to be connected. Is this working? The other one is possibly a tv out connection but I'm not sure.

The top row have a speaker level and two sets of RCA's for I'm guessing a zone 2 (powered) and 3&4 (line level) outputs.

Does any of this ring a bell with you when the designed system was shown to you?

Any vague ideas on where the points are supposed to be located should cut down on mess and extra labour involved in finding the remote points.

bobtjustice

nereid wrote: »

okay, in that case you are going to have to get more persistent, or take a gamble on finding the locations yourself, or paying someone else to find them. You don't happen to have any house plans do you?

By the looks of the panel, the bottom row are speaker points, you wire RR, LR, FR, and FL speakers to these from your amplifier. The centre channel is not there as I presume they assume that your amplifier is going to be there or there abouts as is the tv screen.

Next, you have the co-axial tv, which appears to be connected. Is this working? The other one is possibly a tv out connection but I'm not sure.

The top row have a speaker level and two sets of RCA's for I'm guessing a zone 2 (powered) and 3&4 (line level) outputs.

Does any of this ring a bell with you when the designed system was shown to you?

Any vague ideas on where the points are supposed to be located should cut down on mess and extra labour involved in finding the remote points.

Nope but I've just mailed the management company again...so the saga continues. Hopefully they can give me the house plans.

Thanks for that man. The coaxial is working fine.

It rings some bells yes. the cables themselves apparently are in the 4 "corners" of the rooms!, when I asked where you would put remote points for speakers. the foreman who in fairness was as helpful as he could be said "anywhere in the corners...LOL. He was to send the site electrician over to help me when we moved in originally, unfortunately that never happened and the half the site was let go with the slump in the market, eventually leading to every builder in the place disappearing..

But thanks for your help. I'll let ya know how I get on with the plans, hopefully the next post will be of everything set up!!!

Homer

Having had experience dealing with property developers with regards to the type of scenario you are explaining, I would not waste your time with the management company or the developers. Neither of them will have the drawings you are looking for.
The only people who realistically have the drawings which mark out the precise locations of cable runs would be smarthomes themselves.
You could, by using a cable oscillator, locate the ends of the cables fairly straight forward. If you don't know anybody that can do that for you then let us know and I'm sure we can help you out on that.
Whereabouts is the property? If its just the home cinema set up you are looking to complete that should be fairly simple once the cables are located using an oscillator.

bobtjustice

Homer wrote: »

You could, by using a cable oscillator, locate the ends of the cables fairly straight forward. If you don't know anybody that can do that for you then let us know and I'm sure we can help you out on that.
Whereabouts is the property? If its just the home cinema set up you are looking to complete that should be fairly simple once the cables are located using an oscillator.

Cool, well I'll give that a rip then (oscillator, local hardware store I'd assume for one of these guys?)
The house is in the new St Edmunds complex, officially Palmerstown (for marketing reasons) but technically Lucan, just off the fonthill roundabout on St Lomans Road.

It is just the home cinema bit im looking for. The fact that the cabling structure is there I'd just like to use it instead of having a cabling nightmare
.!

Thanks again.

Homer

Not sure if you'll get an oscillator in your local hardware store but if you can't let us know and i'll try sort you out with a loan of one. You should be able to bell out the cables in half an hour.

bobtjustice

Nice one thanks for that!

Prisoner6409

You may have thought of this but what about the neighbours or was your house the only one finished wired by smarthomes. Maybe one of the neighbours also had it done and if they did shell out the few grand the points might be visible. Worth a shot.

Idleater

Prisoner6409 wrote: »

Worth a shot.

Never thought of that. Good idea.

Flipper

bobtjustice, I have the same speaker ports in my apartment... What cables did you end up buying to fit into them? See my thread here

bobtjustice

Flipper wrote: »

bobtjustice, I have the same speaker ports in my apartment... What cables did you end up buying to fit into them? See my thread here

Honestly man i haven't got that far yet. I've got a guy coming round to pull the prewired cabling thru the wall and put up some ports (much like your set up.) As far as Im aware its just standard RCA cabling, this guy though will be able to shed more light on the subject, when I can pin him down to a time to actually come round, when he does I'll let you know what he does and what he used.!

Flipper

bobtjustice wrote: »

Honestly man i haven't got that far yet. I've got a guy coming round to pull the prewired cabling thru the wall and put up some ports (much like your set up.) As far as Im aware its just standard RCA cabling, this guy though will be able to shed more light on the subject, when I can pin him down to a time to actually come round, when he does I'll let you know what he does and what he used.!

I appreciate that. I'm just lost as to what kind of connectors will be needed on the ends of the speaker cable!

KeRbDoG

We use these in work to find 'lost' cables and wires - great bit of kit
https://www.tselectronic.com/fluke/mt820060a.html?tse_Session=cecc81ad1f44fcd55a49184324f94c3e