I'm getting ready to install a network enclosure in a coat closet on the first floor (between the attic and the basement). I'm planning on running 3/4" Flex ENT conduit from the service (2 CAT6, 1 Coax) to the enclosure through the attic. The enclosure has 2" knockouts. I'm planning on running 2" rigid conduit from the box to the attic and to the basement ceiling joist bay below the box. What I don't know how to do is connect the 3/4" Flex ENT to the 2" rigid. I suppose I could install a junction box in the attic at the end of the 2" rigid and pipe the ENT into that as well.
The enclosure comes with little grommets to use in the 2" knockouts, but they invariably let debris and insulation fall into the box and running new cable is hard through the stud bay and top plate, I think the 2" conduit is a better plan.
I'm bouncing around all over the place with the seemingly endless options and having a difficult time homing in on a good solution. So, those of you in the know, what have you done?
Wireless. No, I'm serious. My house is completely wired with CAT-5. Never use it. I think the first owner paid thousands extra to have it installed. They even dropped fiber into every room. I've got one wireless router and it covers the whole house. When family comes, I just tell them the the wireless password. Mostly they bring iPads and there's no connector on them for wire anyway.
And running TV signals wireless is just around the corner. Maybe already here. Check into it.
Wireless isn't sufficient in this case. I have some rather demanding networking requirements stemming from my job and hobbies being around Linux kernel development, the media streaming I run in the home, and my regular backup routines. All my TV is over gigabit links (no Coax) and I routinely share multi-gigabyte images between machines. The house is also large enough and constructed in such a way that a single access point cannot cover the entire home. However, I have cut back the number of CAT6 ports I'll be installing in this home over the last (where I dropped it to every room). Part of this project involves installing three enterprise managed access points for basic internet usage and light traffic which eliminates the need for it in the bedrooms for example. I'm still running it to my office, the networking cabinet, the NAS, and the media centers. Regardless, there is still the need to get the service from the FiOS in the garage to the router, whether I use wireless or not, that has to get done.
So, from your description I'm having difficulty understanding if the question is how to convert from 2" conduit to 3/4" in the attic, (I like the box idea) or if you are considering running 2" all the way. Or is it just the difficulty of pulling the wire around the corner and feeding it down to the closet and you want to make use of a rounded corner conduit?
Do you really need conduit in the attic? Not for code. Only to protect the wire, and you're not running fiber – which would be capable of higher bandwidth. Why not? Sounds like a first class operation.
Linux User: Ubuntu 13.04, IT Professional 30+ years.
The question was originally around how to get from smaller runs in the attic to the 2" knockouts in the networking enclosure in the wall. However, I'm starting to think that running new conduit in an old house doesn't make much sense unless you are opening the walls for something else (like doing a finished basement theater or something). I'm starting to think along the lines of fishing the 2 CAT6 + 1 COAX from the garage to the attic to the enclosure and only running conduit in the wall above and below the enclosure to make it easy to add new lines in and out of the box. I won't be running new lines to/from the service in the garage as that is fairly static. This appears consistent with your question about why would I need conduit in the attic.
As for fiber. I never really considered it I guess. 100 Mbps is plenty for most applications, including multiple HD MPEG2 streams. 1 Gbps comes in handy for large backups (photos and videos) and passing large OS images around the network. CAT6 would allow me to upgrade all the way to 10 Gbps, so I've got some room to grow without branching too far out of "pro-sumer" level networking equipment where it starts to get expensive really fast.
I'll be using Ubiquiti UniFi, Edge, and Switches by the way. My G+ posts on the equipment. Fantastic stuff.
In case anyone is interested, I ended up putting an in-wall network enclosure in the coat closet and ran 2" conduit to the attic and to the joist bays in the basement ceiling. I ran the main service feed up through the existing stud bays and along the attic knee walls through bridle rings threaded into the studs. My conclusion was that conduit made sense where the the wall was already open, but really should be left empty as it's major use is running additional lines after the walls are closed. I used the 2" conduit from the panel as I knew I would be running additional feeds over the years. So far, I'm happy with the choice.