The Medley's Neck Theater - Page 2

What are the on-wall options? I really mean in-column, so anything that is a only a couple of inches thick would work.


Thank you for the feedback.

I'm assuming that the left-center-right speakers I use will be about 12" deep, leaving me a few inches between speakers and the screen. I could bump the bottom of the false wall out a bit to accommodate larger subs. I'm thinking about the Centerstage XD screen material.

Thanks Spaceman, I'll look into some of those.

What do you think about GWCR's concern of seeing the AT screen weave from the front row?

Help me with my HVAC return

My current HVAC return duct has been bugging me lately. There is a huge "jumper" to tie a panned return duct for the ground first floor to a different panned joist bay that is above the air handler. Is there anything I can do about this?

It's outside of the theater area at least, but it would still require a huge weird soffit if left as is.

Here's the basement layout:


And here's the first floor floor plan (mostly correct), overlayed on the joist layout and ducts:


If I move the vertical duct and return register to the blue location, that would solve the problem, but may be low WAF boxing in a corner of the dining room.

I got a little sample square of the Centerstage fabric yesterday, and it doesn't seem like it should be a big issue, but I also don't have a projector to test it with. Looking forward to your feedback when you get it set up.

Updates

Not much in the way of theater-related updates... I got some new materials: romex, flex duct, pipe to reroute my furnace vents, some HDMI, speaker, CAT6 and related accessories from Monoprice.

I also built some new shelves in my garage to try to relocate the majority of the crap that was previously stored in the basement.
Old:


New:

Also, I'm getting very nervous as the time comes to start closing up the walls. I'm considering a room flip. Here are all of the options:
Option 1.


Option 2.


Option 3.



Some of my thoughts:
1- I'm concerned about the overflow light from the projector shining off of the beam (especially if zoomed for 2.35:1).

2 or 3- I think would solve this problem and maybe make the ceiling layout more architecturally pleasing. Ceiling height over the riser is reduced however.

2- I think I would prefer the door location in the front half of the room to stay out of the way of the columns and not swinging right up against the seats/riser, but the door opening would be out into a perpendicular hallway at this point, making it hard to bring long items into the theater.

3- The door would open into a straight hallway, but swings into the seating area. I moved the front column forward to enable the door to swing all the way open and lay flat against the wall.

Yeah, I think I would probably put the bar/stools up on the riser. I made those drawings prior to measuring some actual counters and stools around the house. The projector isn't picked out yet either. My big concern is figuring out where to locate it distance-wise and deal with the height placement based on projector zoom and correction features.

I also didn't work soffits, HVAC, or lighting into the drawing yet, but I plan on doing something similar to lots of the other theaters in the forum: perimeter soffit to hide HVAC ducts with a light tray to hold cans and rope light. Also a soffit or proscenium in front of the screen with screen wash lights.

What do you think about the room orientation? Now I'm leaning more toward the option 2 or 3 with the beam toward the back.

Some updates:

I am moving at a snails pace due to lack of time to commit to basement work, but I have gotten some things marked off the to do list-
- I relocated the air intake/exhuast for my furnace http://www.avsforum.com/t/1437135/furnace-vent-location. That frees up some space in the mess of pipes and ducts that cross the middle of the theater.
- I eliminated a few unneeded supply ducts- one redundant supply in the main floor bathroom, one that dumped into the unfinished plumbing closet in the basement.
- Continued framing, just about done with that
- Installed some of the IB-1 clips on the walls in the theater
- Ordered the channel, drywall, and insulation (to be delivered next week)
- I've also rethought the idea of a separate room for the exercise equipment and decided to convert the area that is obstructed by my return air vents into a closet. http://www.avsforum.com/t/1429098/the-medleys-neck-theater/30#post_22548637

I'm way behind on getting all of my HVAC and electrical roughed in so that I can start the drywall, but hopefully the big pile of materials that comes next week will be a motivation to speed things up.

I updated my plans for the theater area, to include a rough idea for lighting and soffits. I'm planning to run a circuit to the future Grafik Eye location, which I plan to mount in a column next to the room entrance. From there, I plan to run all of the in-room lighting circuits in columns/soffits, so I should have flexibility after getting the initial drywall shell done.
I'm planning to buy a 6 zone Grafik Eye:
Zone 1 - Screen wash lights (red)
Zone 2 - Side soffit recessed lights (orange)
Zone 3 - Rear soffit/bar recessed lights (green)
Zone 4 - Rope light in soffit trays
Zone 5 - Possible behind screen lights
Zone 6 - Possible something else if I need it


I may up the quantity on some of those soffit lights depending on how they project onto walls and columns, but again I will have flexibility on that post-drywall.

The theater lighting seems easy compared to the rest of the basement. I'd like to set up a bunch of cans in the general basement area in a few zones.
Zone 1 - Family/Play area
Zone 2 - Exercise/Family room #2
Zone 3 - Hallways
Zone 4 - Bar area


I'm looking at using a Lutron Maestro dimmer and companion dimmer(s) for each zone. That way I could do a 3-way type dimmer setup for each zone with a control location at both the walkout door and at the bottom of the stairs. For the exercise area I would possibly add a second companion dimmer to allow control of that zone from somewhere on the wall outside of the storage room as well. The Maestro dimmers seem like a more cost effective solution than another Grafik Eye + wall stations since I don't really need the preset scene capabilities.

What's kicking my ass is figuring out how to plan for the spacing and layout of recessed lights in the big open living areas. Anyone have some good advice?

Insulation, hat channel, and a crapload of drywall came today.



Now I just need to do the million things that need to be done before I can hang said drywall...

Thanks for the feedback Paul!

Right now I'm planning for two 6" round ducts off the main trunk dumping into the soffit behind the screen. Convert to flex there and run within the soffit to vents along the side soffits. I think I can bring an 8" round return from the main return plenum over to the theater area. As a plan B, I will plan to add additional dead vents from the theater to the general basement area, hiding the muffler high on the wall in the unfinished storage room.

I need to add a few more supplies in the large finished basement area. Right now there is only 1 6"? (maybe 5") supply.

HVAC diagram:

Sometimes I feel like I'm the slowest theater builder in the forum! It's amazing how much some of you seem to get done in short periods of time.

Some updates:
I've got most of the clips and some of the channel hung throughout the basement. I started hanging a few sheets of drywall in the storage area just to get a feel for the drywall gun.


I picked up a drywall lift from fellow local AVSer fax6202.. Big thanks to you, Dave, that thing will be a huge help.


In the theater, I ran HDMI + 4 Cat6 + power from my equipment rack to the projector location. I got a half sheet of OSB up on the ceiling to test out the lift. I have about half of the ceiling insulated in the theater also.


I have a good portion of the electrical roughed in everywhere. I've decided on 5 x 4" recessed lights in the smaller workout area of the living space, arranged in a "dice" pattern. The bigger part of the living area will probably get about 10-12 of the same, but I haven't worked out their locations 100%. I cut a bunch of OSB down to size to build backer boxes for all of the recessed lights. I bought some cement backer board to line them with that I also need to get cut up and assembled.


I picked up a 6 zone Grafik Eye off of eBay for $300. I just picked it up from the post office today. It looks good, but I need to hook it up temporarily to test it out.

D'oh!

I hooked up my Grafik Eye from eBay. No LEDs, no output to loads, and it seems to be unresponsive to button presses.

I have it wired per page 5 http://www.lutron.com/TechnicalDocumentLibrary/032188a.pdf.

The label on the front lists it as a GRX-MX-6, which from what I can tell should be the same as a GRX-3106 and should work with the first diagram on page 5. Anybody know any dumb things I might be overlooking?

Yep, tried it with loads, and with just the hot/neutral/gnd from the panel. Same thing. A light only hooked to the panel source works fine, and I can verify 120V from H-G and H-N, 0V from N-G with a meter.

My only hope at first was that it was set in button disable mode or something, but holding Scene1+Off doesn't get into the programming mode. I contacted the eBay seller, and I'll try to call Lutron too. What a PITA.

Yep, I used the the neutral and the hot on the opposite side.




I also checked for 12VDC on the low voltage pin 2, which I would think should be there when power is applied.

No such thing as a stupid question I appreciate the help. Hopefully this won't be a disaster dealing with eBay and the seller.