Control Board Cabinets

Oshanickreef · Aug 17, 2023

Hey everyone,

I am planning out a new system and part of it involves coming up with a way to neatly hide all my wires. My control board location is next to the display and on the wall. My plan is to hang it on the wall and have my 3 Neptune EB832, all Neptune Modules, powerhead controllers, return controllers, heater controllers, etc. then im going to have all 3 of my Neptune DOS hanging on a piece of wood on the wall to the right of the cabinet. The reason i want to do a cabinet is because the control board is so close to the display that i want a layer of protection between me spraying water everywhere and my expensive electrical equipment.

I am thinking of using a premade wooden cabinet on amazon but would love to see what other people are using. This is a very big system with a 240 gallon display and 100 gallon frag tank. The sump goes under the 240 and will be close to the control board. I am thinking of putting up 2x4s on the wall to mount the cabinet to. That way i will be able to hide excess wires behind the cabinet.

Again, would love to see what other "cabinet style" control boards people have built to get more ideas.

thanks in advance!

Nick

TranceLvr · Aug 17, 2023

My system is only 70 gallons, so I have less equipment, but I wanted the same as you. I purchased a cheap cabinet from Amazon and created a false back to mount equipment on and leave room behind for wires, power supplies, etc. I am very pleased with the results.

Oshanickreef · Aug 17, 2023

TranceLvr said:
My system is only 70 gallons, so I have less equipment, but I wanted the same as you. I purchased a cheap cabinet from Amazon and created a false back to mount equipment on and leave room behind for wires, power supplies, etc. I am very pleased with the results.

Wow that looks really nice! I definitely want to do something like this. How did you secure the false back? Also, I'm curious how deep the cabinet is and how much space you have behind the false back and how much space you have in front of it?

TranceLvr · Aug 18, 2023

Oshanickreef said:
Wow that looks really nice! I definitely want to do something like this. How did you secure the false back? Also, I'm curious how deep the cabinet is and how much space you have behind the false back and how much space you have in front of it?

Thanks! I used hot glue to secure 1/2" square dowels to the cabinet and then used tee nuts and bolts to secure the face board to the dowels. It is very secure. On the top, there is 2.5" in front and 8" in back. On the bottom, there is 4.5" in front and 6" in back. If I were to do it over, I would make sure there was 6" in front on the bottom to make more room for plugs/wall warts. I used 1" flat plug extension cords for some plugs/wall warts because they didn't fit in the front.