RF shielding effect of rack mounting

[The Jimmy]

Hello all,

I'm looking at a commercial low profile wall rack from Heckler, and I am wondering how well my wifi devices will still work after being mounted inside.
Here is a link to the product:

AV Credenza Mini | Video Meeting Furniture & System | Heckler

With Heckler AV Credenza Mini you can mass-deploy the latest video meeting gear to all of your small meeting spaces with style and ease. Learn more!

hecklerdesign.com

I'm thinking that electrical isolation of the front and back would help improve things a bit, but I'm very uncertain what to expect.
Thanks for any suggestions or expectations.

 

[mindless1]

Saw a video where it was not entirely, clearly stated, that behind the fabric on the cover plate, it is black or white powder coated metal.

If that is correct, then unless it's a very open metal frame cover that's mostly just holding the fabric stretched over it to the right shape, then otherwise a solid cover or with only tiny holes smaller than wifi wavelength is like a tomb for wifi devices, they may perform extremely poorly unless you have the ability to get their antennas outside of it.

You lost me at "electrical isolation of the front and back". What is this and what mechanism of benefit do you expect?

Why don't you contact them for clarification about the wifi blocking potential?

Maybe I'm not understanding what you are wanting to do. If you put that box over a wall socket for ethernet cable and this goes via ethernet cable to a wifi router inside, that only needs to communicate with a wifi smart box or similar that is also inside the Credenza Mini, then your smart box or other video source has HDMI/other video cable output to the TV instead of wifi, that might work fine.

Another option if the case cover is metal, is built your own wooden frame to put in its place, with fabric stretched over that - just pick up some nice looking fabric at the sewing or crafts store/etc and staple it on the back side of the frame. For that matter you could build your own entire storage box out of wood and do that too.

 

[sdifox]

Why would you mount your wifi inside a Faraday Cage?

 

[The Jimmy]

Saw a video where it was not entirely, clearly stated, that behind the fabric on the cover plate, it is black or white powder coated metal.

If that is correct, then unless it's a very open metal frame cover that's mostly just holding the fabric stretched over it to the right shape, then otherwise a solid cover or with only tiny holes smaller than wifi wavelength is like a tomb for wifi devices, they may perform extremely poorly unless you have the ability to get their antennas outside of it.

You lost me at "electrical isolation of the front and back". What is this and what mechanism of benefit do you expect?

Why don't you contact them for clarification about the wifi blocking potential?

Maybe I'm not understanding what you are wanting to do. If you put that box over a wall socket for ethernet cable and this goes via ethernet cable to a wifi router inside, that only needs to communicate with a wifi smart box or similar that is also inside the Credenza Mini, then your smart box or other video source has HDMI/other video cable output to the TV instead of wifi, that might work fine.

Another option if the case cover is metal, is built your own wooden frame to put in its place, with fabric stretched over that - just pick up some nice looking fabric at the sewing or crafts store/etc and staple it on the back side of the frame. For that matter you could build your own entire storage box out of wood and do that too.

Thanks for your thoughts, all worth consideration. It is for a location that requires some tamper resistance.
I was attempting to say I would electrically isolate the front from the rear as from what little I have read mere cracks larger than the wavelength of interest in the shielding structure should allow radio energy to pass. This might also be affected by polarization, topics of which I know little, but all of which I have enough awareness to ask questions and hopefully get intelligent answers, like yours.
Thanks again.

 

[mindless1]

Little cracks will help a little. Enough? Impossible to speculate without trying it and considering the wifi path and distance, signal strength in best situation before nearly strangling it with metal blocking most.

Is this tamper resistance only from children or random strangers too? For children I'd wonder about just mounting the gear higher up, out of reach even if that means it's not symmetrical with the TV mount location, or if in your own premises where you can do mods, if it or just a plain old shelf or pegboard/etc can be mounted on the other side of the wall, then a few holes behind the TV for HDMI cords to pass through. That might not be "ideal" for wifi either, depends on the site setup but bound to be better than in a metal box.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's pretty hard to block the signal completely but it will still block somewhat and not help. There's no real benefit to mounting the access point in there, I would just mount it on a ceiling somewhere. Even if it's just directly above. Run the wire through the wall then mount the AP on the wall itself above, that would be the easiest way of doing it.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Hello all,

I'm looking at a commercial low profile wall rack from Heckler, and I am wondering how well my wifi devices will still work after being mounted inside.
Here is a link to the product:

AV Credenza Mini | Video Meeting Furniture & System | Heckler

With Heckler AV Credenza Mini you can mass-deploy the latest video meeting gear to all of your small meeting spaces with style and ease. Learn more!

hecklerdesign.com

I'm thinking that electrical isolation of the front and back would help improve things a bit, but I'm very uncertain what to expect.
Thanks for any suggestions or expectations.

If it is possible :
The underside of the backplate you can make some holes there. Perhaps if the router has detachable antenna's , you can use an SMA cable and use a mountable SMA connector to connect the antenna on the folded plate on the bottom from the backplate.

I made some quick calculations for an internal solution :
If you drill holes like for example 2x 8 rows 8mm, in a nice symmetric manner, in the folded plate on the bottom from the backplate.
I am sure, enough signal will pass for reception in the room. And it is beyond visibility for a normal standing or sitting human.

I hope i am not wrong about the 1/4 wavelengths. This usually is used for antenna calculations but the holes in a case also matter.
These are rounded values for 1/4 wavelengths :
WIFI 2.5 = 3cm
WIFI 5 = 1.5 cm
WIFI 6 = 1.25 cm

I would assume that then enough signal can pass for a good reception. And therefore a good quality datatransmission.