Surface Mounting a Keypad

The Napco Gemini RP1CAe2 is a great keypad. On board expansion. Easy to read. Nice looking. It has one problem. Its a pain in the wazoo to surface mount on a hard wall. On a hollow wall you can cut a hole in the wall. On a prewire you have a box for it. On a brick wall you are screwed. Sure you can bring the wire down nice and neat in a wire mold, but because the connector sticks out the back of the keypad you can't just slap the keypad on the wall at the end of the wire mold. A low profile three gang box would be ideal... If somebody made one.

Only had to deal with this a couple times, but... what do you do?

Reply to
Bob La Londe
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I don't know if you'll find this an acceptable solution, but here it goes... You'll be able to conceal the wiring behind Napco's GEM-RPB5 Junction Box Mounting Kit attached to a Double Gang Box (painted to match the decor)... Use the GEM-RPB5 to add strength and alignment stability to the RP1CAe2........ Regards, Russ

Reply to
Russell Brill

Doesn't Napco make a metal surface mount backbox for their keypads?

Reply to
Crash Gordon

Bob,

With some minor modifications, you can mount the keypad to a doublegang wiremold extension box. I believe it fits a thin one; it sits offcenter on the box, but it looks ok.

Or, you can blow nice big hole > The Napco Gemini RP1CAe2 is a great keypad. On board expansion. Easy to

Reply to
jewellfish

Hi Bob,

I haven't had to do this but once or twice but I think it's Wiremold, that makes a metal shallow double gang box. I got it at a local electrical supply house or anyone who sells the Wiremold line. Also, as mentioned by another poster, Napco used to have a plastic back box, but I don't recall if it will fit the new keypads or not. I'd imagine it would because the foot print is about the same.

If I had to improvise, I simply screw two vertical pieces of wood lath (small enough not to be visible from behind the keypad) That would space the keypad far enough away from the wall to accomodate the connector and splices and leave the top ( or bottom) open for the wire mold (or what ever) to go behind the keypad, to keep the wire out of sight. That would only be for a pretty crude install. If it had to be nicer looking, I go get the Wiremold back box.

I just thought of something else. I've never had to use them but you might be able to improvise something out of the "extensions" that they sell for extending electrical boxes. I think I remember seeing both plastic and metal extensions at Home Depot. If you could screw one of them to the wall, the keypad would fit right over it. You'd have to give it a look. I wasn't thinking about this application when I saw them.

Reply to
Jim

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