Ultimate Home LAB Set Up With Sean Hogston

Sean Hogston shares his approach he’s used to create his ultimate home Lab.

Use a T-Bar horizontally for multiple AP mounting

Take a 1×2 piece of wood, route the back edge across so you can lay a t-bar horizontally on that 1×2 and then mount the whole thing on the wall. What you end up with is a row with an many APs as can fit.

Of course not all to be fired up at the same time, but this allows you to have easy access to test any AP at any given time.

For APs that are too heavy or don’t allow for T-Bar mounting you can add a 1×8 to the wall as a secondary mounting row.

Run everything to a single patch panel

From the mounting brackets all the APs run behind to a single 48 port patch panel, keeping all cables up off the floor and out of the way. This way everything is patched all the time to the patch panel and then you just patch down from the patch panel to some type of switching environment.

Don’t forget the wired side. Make sure that you’ve got a couple different examples of the switching sides so that you can account for different testing that you’re doing especially if you plan on installing multiple vendors equipment.

Reduce the chaos with totes & shelving

It’s important to keep things clean and out of the way – especially if you’re taking over any part of your house for your lab. Wired shelving to keep things open works great and see through totes is a must to be able to quickly and easily see and remember what you have stored where.

Run cables over the doors

If you have cables that have to pass by a door opening you can buy little hooks from the garage section at Lowe’s or Home Depot and put them on each side of the door. This allows the longer cables to actually droop up and over onto the other side of the door and keeps your cable much more organized.

Divide your rack for home and testing

You can divide your racks into two sides. Any equipment that stays on to run
the house Network is is on the left side. All test gear on goes on the right side. That way the test gear is on only when it’s needed.

Remote power is your friend

Finally, remember that remote power strips are your friend. Everything’s on a remote power strip so that you can turn it on and off from anywhere.

Watch Sean’s full presentation on his ultimate lab set up here