Low voltage box in the garage
 

OK. I'm just trying to figure out what all is in the box in the garage and what, if anything I can do to clean it up. By "I" I mean who can help me out. I know the irrigation system is in in it and the phone stuff (I don't have a land line), the cable but I stream internet from comcast. There is some kind of battery set up too. The box is so full I can't even shut it properly. Any help out there from you wizards?

It looks like someone tried to clean everything up by putting it all on that box. The cable splitter could have been put in the attic or simply left outside in it's own box; the phone should be outside in the POTS box.

I have the same irrigation system and mine is on the wall by itself and the wiring is all hidden, so no idea what happened here. People DO get bored and try to fix something that isn't broken!

The battery is probably for the irrigation timer, although the number of times you lose power is very minimal.

The blue box in the middle is your Hunter irrigation system controller. The white box above it is a splitter with 7 cable tv connections, and, I think (?) the large box below the Hunter box is a cable tv booster. So, most of the space is being used by cable tv (Xfinity) equipment. The cable tv booster is probably not needed, and the 7 cable splitter could be significantly reduced in size, because, even someone with cable tv, probably doesn't need more than about 3 active outlets in the house. I would ask Xfinity if they will send someone out to reconfigure the equipment and determine if you really need a cable booster. If they won't, then you can hire a electrician like Lenhart Electric, to do it.

Not to mention the irrigation system has a 9volt battery (or should have) if you open the last door of the irrigation system which should hold settings in the event of a power loss.

The battery is not for the irrigation timer. The irrigation timer maintains the settings even when the power goes out, and the Hunter box has an optional 9 volt battery that an be used to change the settings when there is no power. The large battery box is more likely a booster for the cable tv system. I don't think Xfinity uses these boosters anymore.

I also see in the lower right, a white coax plugged into the splitter, which indicates there is possibly voltage being sent on the line as well, and could also indicate that there was a Satellite TV setup at one point.

Yes, there is a space for a 9 volt battery, but it is optional and is not needed to store the controller settings. The only purpose for the 9 volt battery is to allow the installer to set up the controller when there is no power to the house.

In the upper left is a phone block. If you aren’t using landline phones connected via that block then you can remove it. The next box looks like cable TV coax splitter. I assume you are using cable TV. The next lower box is your irrigation controller. You need that. The bottom box is a UPS. I am going to guess that at same point this home used CenturyLink for internet, their “landline phone”, and CenturyLink’s IPTV offering via fiber optic cable to the house. CenturyLink used to install a UPS to power the ONT box (on the outside of the house) in case of power failures so you would still have phone service. They no longer do this. If this is in fact true and you no longer have CenturyLink then you can remove the UPS box.

A post from some time ago said the UPS at the bottom is for a CenturyLink connection. I have the box but I don't have CenturyLink; I haven't turned it off yet to see if it affects anything.

The box at the top looks like a splitter/amplifier box for your cable connection. I would guess that one of the white cables carries the connection from the street and the other carries power from the transformer below the UPS at the bottom.

If you only use one cable connection in the house to connect to your comcast modem that provides internet then you could *probably* replace the splitter box at the top. You would need to determine which of the black cables connected to the one wall connection that you use and then install male-to-male adapter to connect the white wire from the street to the black wire to the wall outlet.

I don't have the box at the top. I have exactly one cable connection in my house that is usable, the others are just hanging loose within that low voltage box. If you are using more than one cable connection inside your house then that splitter/amplifier is needed and cannot be removed.

I agree, but you don't need a splitter with 7 connections. One with only 3 connections will be much smaller.

Determining what someone else...
 

needs or doesn't need seems a bit "I know better than you" statement.

Certainly not intended that way. The OP wants to clean up the panel box. Replacing or eliminating the large splitter and all of the unused and cluttered cables would free up a lot of space in the box.

Thanks. Good ideas all. Doubt Comcast will do it for free seeing as I ditched the tv.

That wires from that box at the bottom with the ni-cad battery go down. I have not figured out what it does. My first thought was power to the outside irrigation solenoids so they can be operated from the outside box? I do have an unused orange coax cable coming in could that be from Century Link?

On my system, the only wires connected from the panel to the outside irrigation solenoid valves are from the Hunter controller box.

Diagonal box appears to be Comcast amplified distribution box, you can get rid of this IF you are not using Comcast. White box appears to be a fiber optic or satellite TV box, you may be able to get rid of this also if you are not using these services. Now a work of caution, if you are streaming from Comcast, you may not be able to remove their box even though you are not using the TV function. It would be necessary to test first.

If you don't remove the Comcast distribution box, doesn't it at least need to be repositioned so you can see the indicator lights on it? It looks like someone pushed that box out of the way to make room for the other box. I don't think Comcast uses these powered splitter boxes any longer. A neighbor of mine recently lost his cable tv service because that box failed.

By "white box", if you are referring to the lowest box then that is a UPS.

Why are you even bothering if everything seems to work good in the house? Just leave it all alone and do some gardening or fishing or golfing

Put the cover back on and pretend you never saw that box of spaghetti! You need only a Router in the house and should be streaming ! Cable is expensive and a dinosaur...

I believe you have a 5 way powered splitter. One of the white coax cables comes from a the little black box at the bottom of the cabinet. This box takes 110V in and outputs 12V through the coax. The other white coax is the signal source from the cable company. The cable company doesn't really need an amplified splitter but there may be a coax from the attic attached to an antenna which would need amplification.

If you turn the splitter over you can see which cables are input, power, and output.

This doesn't really help with your problem but at least you understand the purpose. You still need a splitter unless you only use one cable for your house.

CS16U48V-8 - Indoor FTTx Series - Product Details, Specs, Downloads | CyberPower

I don't know what service you have that needs this device. You can see if the output goes anywhere.

I’d recommend replacing that old irrigation controller with an Orbit B-Hyve controller that is mounted on the wall, outside the box. That’s easy to change out and wire, or you can pay someone to to it. The Orbit B-Hyve irrigation controller is a smart controller that knows about the weather forecasts and will automatically save you money on your water bill, paying for itself. After it pays for itself, they money you save on your water bill can be spent on something else. You can also program, control, and monitor the Orbit B-Hyve controller with your cellphone from anywhere. The smart irrigation controller has a WiFi connection, and needs to be located outside the metal shielded box, so it can use your WiFi. The Orbit B-Hyve irrigation controller is cheap, about $100 or less, depending on how many zones it has.

Most people that live in TV like to take care of their houses.

LV Battery
 

LV Box The Battery is for Centurylink which is probably not used for comcast you
can remove it and that will give you the extra room

So the wires coming out of the UPS run to the NID box outside?

Thanks all. Some great ideas. Just need to start with Comcast and see if they will do it. As I said before, I only have their internet now.

It has something to do with Century Link cable. I removed all of that when I bought the house!

Easy
 

Best option is to just close the door.

What are you going to do with the extra space???

Thanks for the helpful tips. I pulled the UPS out yesterday. The wires went down with the phone wires so they must lead to the outside NID. Couldn't find my security allen wrench so not positive. It's a shame that the guy I bought the house from never unplugged it after he got rid of Century Link.

It’s probably best to not ignore these things too long. There’s a battery inside the UPS unit. When the battery gets to old, it could start leaking battery acid. Leaking battery acid in your home is something you should try to avoid!

I agree. But, the guy should have never allowed Century Link to cram their equipment into the panel box in the first place. I would have made them remove the equipment and cancelled the service.

Also, you may want to verify the need for the powered Comcast splitter. It appears to be powered by a plug-in transformer at the bottom of the panel. If that transformer fails, you may lose all of your Comcast services. It happened to a neighbor of mine.

I'm not the OP, but was just thinking the home inspector could have mentioned something about the UPS. Especially since the house was vacant.

Low voltage Box
 

To quote a line from Jaws "You are going to need a bigger boat/box"

I had a second wiring cabinet put in for all the equipment to not be smashed together, and to have more heat dissipation capabilities. Being in the garage with no air conditioning, i opted for more air circulation

I think I posted a picture here, but the BHyve is smaller and easier to fit in than the hunter.

I had Galaxy put my second box in. .

technology guy