Types of Wall Plates

Wall Plates Overview

Wall plates that you see every day, in just about every room, but you think about them not very often. There is a good chance you are not aware of the sheer variety of options out there when it comes to customizing your wall plates. Everyone knows about the traditional electrical wall plate, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are telephone wall plates, gang wall plates, RJ45 face plate and keystone wall plates, among other A/V and data options. There are fiber optic wall plate and network face plate that are customizable in pretty much any way you can think of. This paper can give you a comprehensive understanding of wall plates. According to different applications, there are several types of wall plates shown as following.

Keystone Wall Plates
Keystone wall plates are used in commercial and industrial buildings to cleanly attach telecommunication cables etc. to a junction box, surface mount box, or a mud ring mounted in the drywall of a building. They are made to work with many different types of cabling solutions, including coaxial, twisted pair, HDMI, optical fiber, etc.

Keystone wall plates are made of plastic and have one to twelve ports to accommodate a variety of jacks and connectors for both single and double gang wall boxes. A keystone port is a hole in the wall plate which allows the insertion of a keystone module or other male or female cabling connectors. The most common colors of keystone wall plates are beige and white. Keystone wall plates are commonly made to be compatible with NEMA standard openings and boxes.

Keystone wall plate features anywhere from 1 to 6 small holes for keystone modules, which can be applied to a number of different multimedia applications. A "keystone module", for those who might be unaware, is a small snap-in package featuring a connection port for any number of purposes, including audio, video, data, networking and more. Like most types of outlet plates, these come in multiple different color types to help match in with the surrounding decoration or whatever mood you're in on any given day.

A/V Wall Plates
A/V wall plates are specially designed plates which are perfect for use with corresponding inserts to meet your audio and visual needs. They are ideal for home theater setups or entertainment systems. It eliminates visible holes and allows you to run multiple cables through a single opening.

Telephone Wall Plates
These wall plates are designed to provide an easy connection for telephones. For the under thirty set who are undoubtedly scratching their heads right now, a "phone" used to be something that actually needed to plug into the wall, not just a little computer box that fits in your pocket. These wall plates generally feature a single port, although multiple connections can be used. They are white in color, and are great for providing an easy installation of a phone system within businesses or homes.

Gang Wall Plates
"Gang" in this scenario refers not to a group of thugs, but to gangbox, which is a term in the electrical industry that refers to a box, usually metal, that houses installed electrical components. When it comes to wall plates, a "1 gang" houses a single component, like a switch for example, while a "2 gang" houses two components side by side, and so on in that fashion. Plates that house up to six gangs are available. These plates are designed to be installed over the top of electrical power points, or any other electrical based connection point to help create a flush appearance. They're available in all kinds of set-ups for whatever your electrical needs might be, and you can tell that emo kid up there that they have them in several colors and styles.

Fiberstore Wall Plates Solution

Fiber Optic Wall Plates
Fiber optic wall plate or fiber wall outlet is available for LC, FC, SC and ST adapters. An embedded section above the adapter entry port allows for clear labelling for ease of identification in a network. These wall plates are made from ABS plastic in white or ivory, with a detachable outer shell. They are supportive of both single mode and multimode networks.

Network Face Plates
Fiberstore supplies a variety of network face plates, such as AMP Face Plate BS Shuttered, RJ45 wall plate, RJ45 face plate, 86 type face plate, 118 type face plate. These face plates are available with 1 port, 2 ports, 4 ports, etc.

Reference Document: Wall Plates Tutorial