When installing presentation systems adhering to fire standards is an important component. It’s an obstacle many installers have to deal with in an industrial setting. In the educational environment where I work in it is even harder because much of our installation work is outsourced and the installers that are contracted are not often up to date with advances in products that will speed the job up.
There were a couple of products that we came across at InfoComm 2008 that would help one work at a quicker pace while staying well within various fire and electrical codes. Nigel B. Design was showing their plenum rated equipment boxes that have been cleared for containing electronics (including electrical connections) in plenum areas. We have raised floors in many of our classrooms and where the floors are being used to circulate air one has to be sure that anything put in the floor is plenum rated.
The Wiremold Company was showing the new generation of TopGuard poke-through boxes that allow one to poke through fire sealed concrete floors and maintain the fire rating. This is something that we increasingly need to do in our 20 year old building where room use is constantly changing. These boxes even seal where the wire exits the enclosure, cutting off water created by the floor cleaning staff, from entering the box.
Gennum was on-site at InfoComm 2008 with a new look to their corporate logo. I wasn’t aware that Gennum had sold off the companies VXP® image processing business to Sigma Designs in January. That was the division that I was most aware of. With the selloff Gennum has gone in a new direction and it was showing a new corporate logo. So instead of the advanced IC chip designs and a product or two that contained Gennum’s IC’s, the company was showing a number of new products. The one that caught my eye was its ActiveConnect solution that supports HDMI 1.3 up to distances of 100 meters.
Kiss-Box originally started as a company that put show control protocols on Ethernet. At InfoComm they were showing their kiss-box series that would allow for control of various devices over Ethernet. What made their product unique was they had created IO3 and IO8 Card Cages that could hold cards of differing protocols. It allowed one to mix and match different protocols in the same I/O box that included serial, time code I/O and DMX.
Another similar product that did not employ Ethernet as the the interconnect but quite useful for media and presentation systems was VISION and their Techconnect system. It’s nice because it allows for customization of components at a wall box.
Even though there were lots of customization products, integration was a big buzzword at InfoComm this year. There was a big push in products that provided the ability to quickly deploy presentation systems and wire it with maximum control using Cat 5 cable. Calypso Control Systems was showing this integrated system that placed all of a typical projectors interfaces in a small cage that installs above the projector. Once the projector is attached to the ceiling mounted cage, the projectors video, audio and control I/O are connected to the Calypso technology inside the cage. Cat 5 cables are then run from the projection location to wall-plates so users can control and operate the projector.
Other Products
Industrial/Embedded Computers
BOSER Technology – http://www.boser.com.tw
Ibase Technology Inc – http://www.ibase-usa.com
Quanmax Inc. – http://www.quanmax.com
Other
ALTINEX Under Table 8×4 Matrix Switcher – http://www.altinex.com/Products/Matrix_Switchers/UT250-101/UT250-101.htm
Avlex Wire Connecting Box – www.avlex.com
Atlona – http://www.atlona.com
Lex Products – http://www.lexproducts.com
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: ActiveConnect, ALTINEX, Atlona, Avlex, BOSER Technology, Calypso Control Systems, Gennum, Ibase Technology Inc, KissBox, Lex Products, Nigel B. Design, plenum, poke-through, Quanmax, Techconnect, TopGuard, VISION, Wiremold Company
