RapidRun Technology and Overview

Pre-wiring your home for multi-media can be one of the most difficult challenges you will face. Heck it’s even tough for professional installers to get it right; and many times we don’t. Think for a moment about the following example. You want to be able to view DVD and satellite in your bedroom. You instruct your installer to pre-wire the room. He runs RG-6 to your room and up goes the sheetrock.

Now, you’re all comfy in your room but decide you want HDTV or to be able to use the system downstairs to view content. Uh oh, Houston, we have a problem! There are no component video cables or digital connections in the bedroom. What if you want dual displays in the bedroom; one for you and one for your significant other?

We see this situation all the time! In the past, I’ve always instructed the homeowner to put un-terminated cables in the wall just in case they need it later. Even in the best of circumstances, we have run into shortfalls because of changes or upgrades in the system’s ability.

Impact Acoustics recently introduced an ingenious system that solves many of the problems associated with pre-wire. They take most of the guesswork out of the process and create a near foolproof way to pre-wire your home for multi-media called RapidRun.

Your Job, Your Choice of Runners

The system consists of two different breakaway main wire runners: PC/Video or Home Theater. Basically, the main wire runner is installed in the framework of your home. Then later you choose the termination module and break out cable that you want to screw onto the wire runner.

The choice of termination modules and break out cable configurations are vast. However, you must make the correct runner selection, when doing the initial pre-wire installation. The HT runner consists of five mini coax cables. Popular terminations include but are not limited to: Component and S-Video simultaneously, Component and SPDIF, S-Video and Analog, Composite and Analog or SPDIF and Component or a multitude of other variations.

The PC Runner cable will allow UXGA graphics. Popular terminations include YUV, YCbCr, YPbPr or YIQ, S-video or composite HD-15 or HD-15 on one end and 5 BNC on the other. This cable would be the perfect solution for PC workstations or computer-based multimedia entertainment systems.

Many other termination variations are possible with the PC runner or the HT runner.

The PC/Video Runner consists of three mini coax with impedance values of 75ohms. The mini coax cables use 28 AWG stranded copper center conductor with a foil and minimum 85% copper braid shield. There are also three 24AWG copper twisted pairs.

Build Quality

The Runner cables used for evaluation are 50 feet in length. The build quality of the cable is impressive. The HT runner consists of five mini coax cables with an impedance value of 75 ohms. The coax cables are a 28AWG stranded copper center conductor with foil and minimum 85% copper braided shield. The 100% Aluminum Mylar foil and 85% copper braided shield provides the cable with outstanding RF rejection capabilities beyond the typical inexpensive cabling you may find installed by builders looking to spend as little as possible.

For the purpose of this review we will limit the evaluation to component video and SPDIF simultaneously, S-video, stereo analog termination and a HD-15VGA termination.

The connectors have a screw on cap with a pull ring that has pull strength of 15lbs. We can attest to the strength of the pull ring because we broke our pull chain before the ring gave out.

The Runner cable can be installed in new construction or retro installations. We built a mock up wall and added an active 115-volt outlet for the evaluation. The runner cable will fit through a 3/4-inch paddle bit hole as shown below. We normally recommend routing all low voltage audio/video cables away from high voltage Romex runs to prevent RF ingress. However, we realize that many do not have this option. So, we decided to see what would happen if we installed the cables directly beside an active 115 volt Romex run and through the same blocking hole.

We were very surprised that we were unable to detect any anomaly or signal degradation in the image when we installed the cable this way. This indicates that the cable has significant shielding properties. While we don’t recommend this type of installation, we feel you would be relatively safe installing the cable in close proximity to a high voltage Romex run.

A more conventional way to route the runner in the same framing bay would be to use Romex staples and keep the runner on the opposite side of the bay for the entire run. This will yield safe 14-inches of separation between the 115 volt Romex run and the cable runner.

The best way to route the runner would be to use conduit. We realize that this is only practical in new construction homes. Both the HT runner and the PC/Video runner will fit and pull easily through ¾-inch flex conduit with 90 degree sweep bends.

One thing we did note during the installation process is that if you use open back low voltage boxes you must choose them carefully. We had problems trying to fit the termination module into the box because the pig tale exits the module from the bottom. We also found that the mounting screw holes were slightly misaligned from the box making it difficult to secure the termination module to the low voltage box.