Low voltage box in the garage

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Old 04-09-2021, 06:20 AM
Viperguy Viperguy is offline
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Default 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?
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Old 04-09-2021, 06:37 AM
Tmarkwald Tmarkwald is offline
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Originally Posted by Viperguy View Post
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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 06:47 AM
retiredguy123 retiredguy123 is offline
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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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 06:49 AM
DAIII
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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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 06:55 AM
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Originally Posted by Tmarkwald View Post
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 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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 06:56 AM
Tmarkwald Tmarkwald is offline
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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?
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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 06:59 AM
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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.
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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 07:03 AM
tuccillo tuccillo is offline
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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.




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Originally Posted by Viperguy View Post
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?
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Old 04-09-2021, 07:05 AM
Bill14564 Bill14564 is offline
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Originally Posted by Viperguy View Post
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?
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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 07:11 AM
retiredguy123 retiredguy123 is offline
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Originally Posted by Bill14564 View Post
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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 08:44 AM
Mortal1 Mortal1 is offline
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I agree, but you don't need a splitter with 7 connections. One with only 3 connections will be much smaller.
needs or doesn't need seems a bit "I know better than you" statement.
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Old 04-09-2021, 09:10 AM
retiredguy123 retiredguy123 is offline
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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.
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Old 04-09-2021, 09:26 AM
Viperguy Viperguy is offline
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Originally Posted by retiredguy123 View Post
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.
Thanks. Good ideas all. Doubt Comcast will do it for free seeing as I ditched the tv.
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Old 04-09-2021, 12:25 PM
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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?
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Old 04-09-2021, 01:13 PM
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Originally Posted by Bilyclub View Post
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.
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