Reducing the equipment room size?

I've visited many shop units converted into bird houses. The equipment room is typically at entrance on the ground floor to house the sound system and CCTV; sometimes even with a desk & chair or cabinet for whatever reasons. Worse are designs with a passage leading to equipment room to the rear. Shop units are about 4M wide generally, a passage way would reduce the nesting room width for the birds' comfortable turning radius of 2M - simply poor utilization of space!

On another note, how often (or long) should one be in there anyway? A cubicle shape has a corner protruding into the birds' turning space too. Besides I don't like the space it takes up anyway. If I need to monitor some cameras installed, I would rather use a wireless hub and possibly connect it up via internet someday! So I won't need space for it.

With all considerations in mind, I decide on a minimal design for the equipment room when I renovated a shop-unit birdhouse recently. The drawing illustrates a view from inside with a light curtain made of black plastic material.











External view where the steel entrance is located.











Won't it be too tight for the sound system racks?
Well, my solution is to have them housed vertically in a wall-mounted steel cabinet. Two fans (one 220V/AC & one 12VDC) are mounted below to cool the electronics continually. Power amplifiers and CD/SD player are vertically mounted such that warm air rise vertically towards exhausts at the top. Exhaust vents serves as cable inlets too.



















Switch-mode power supply is chosen to minimize heat generated within. It's voltage is adjusted to charge 2 sealed-maintainence free batteries that takes care in event of power supply interruption.



















2 fans sucks air in from external (through 2x10cm diameter wall inlets).



















P'Moo lended a hand in cutting out the 10cm fan holes.



















View of the completed set-up. Silicon rubber was used to seal any gaps along the air intake path.



















Pretty neat huh? (Only if the wirings are tided up nicely)



















There is still enough (standing) room for service of course. I'll install a service light next.