A few more photos... The first shows my 14" ELK can. Nothing too exciting, but I tried hard to keep the clutter to a minimum in this can, through extensive use of wire management channel. I use a 25 pair telco style cable to connect the zone inputs over to the BIX punchdown blocks. It's easy to keep track of the pairs once you learn the color code. I use a short ribbon cable with male and female IDC DB-9 connectors to extend the serial port connection over to a DB-9 to RJ45 adapter. I run a lot of my serial stuff over RJ45 cables as it's easier to manage and route around the closet (and house) with the myriad of patch panels and wall jacks.
The second photo shows an overall shot of the can to the left of the 14" ELK can. It's an OnQ 28" can, and it has a BIX frame at the top. The punchdowns are organized by color. The orange sections represent my inputs from sensors around the house. The red section in the middle is a VAUX distribution strip that I set up, so if any of the inputs to the ELK need 12V (e.g. motion sensors, etc.), I simply punch the orange pair to the corresponding VAUX terminals. The turquoise section represents ELK I/O - the data bus, telco interface, zone inputs, etc. Also in turqoise at the bottom is the connection to my ELK data bus items -- just one keypad and one M1XSP for now.
Cross-connecting is accomplished simply by punching a jumper from the house sensor section at the top to an ELK input near the bottom.
The very bottom of the BIX frame holds a custom barrier distribution strip that I made that fits into the standard BIX frame. It's set up for distributing VAUX as well as the speaker and siren outputs. I'm not thrilled with this so I'll probably end up using more traditional Euro style barrier strips, but I needed to throw something together from my parts bin while I was wiring and this is what I came up with.
For the time being I have some of my other automation stuff located in this can (USB hub, Insteon USB PLC and Insteon serial PLM). I will probably move this stuff out eventually and install some additional ELK boards in this can, like an input expander and an output expander. The I/O for those items will be routed up to the BIX frame.
The last photo is of my leftmost can, which is another 28" OnQ. I have another BIX frame located in this can, which is one of the larger frames I literally cut in half with a hack saw. You can buy them smaller, but since I got my BIX stuff for free salvaged from an office, I improvised. This can has little to do with the ELK per se, but it's where my house telephones terminate and are patched. Also in the can in the upper right are my rather minimal coaxial cable feed distribution and satellite feed distribution. There's a USB UIRT hanging out in this can for the time being as well, but I will likely move all of that PC based automation stuff somewhere else soon. Sitting in the bottom of the can (waiting to be reconnected) is a little bit of prototype board which contains a simple circuit I made to allow me to activate an ELK input from the 12V trigger output of my projector upstairs in the theater. Since I have no serial control over the projector, I blast it with the USB-UIRT and monitor power status with the ELK and that circuit. Crude but functional enough for now.
