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Building Rackmount Cabinet for Home Use?
Timothy M. Schumann asks: "I am trying to build a small rack mount cabinet for my family to help with the clutter of our home network. I don't want to purchase a rack or cabinet pre-manufactured; I would like to build my own. However, I have been unable to find a list of physical specifications that racks and cabinets must conform to when built, so I was wondering if any Slashdot readers could help me find such information? Just for a frame of reference, I'm looking for something along the same detail level as the BTX form factor specs that can be found here. Any input on cost effective hardware choices for rack mountable UPSs, switches and/or cases is also welcome." This topic was originally discussed some two years ago, and while there was some useful information was presented, the basic question wasn't really answered. If you were going to try and build a custom rackmount enclosure for yourself (or someone else), how would you go about doing it?
In the music industry it is done all the time- just buy the rails and bolt them to the enclosure of your choosing. It aint rocket science!
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
Just build a wooden frame. Then use #10 wood screws.
Wrap with some nice finishing wood, stain, put on varathane, and you have a nice cutom cabinet.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
1.75 (1U) x 19.0 x 16.63/20.0
Our old office used a cupboard for rackmount hubs.
If you are not going to be taking anything out of the "cabinet" too often, you could probably get away with this, and just put 2 bits of wood 19" apart so you can screw your kit directly into these...
If you do want to take things out (as I would) it would be nice to find some metal sheets with the appropriate holes drilled - they must exist - dunno where you could buy them though...
Remember rear access (no pun) but I spend as much time behind my cabinet rewiring this and that as I do in front.
For some reason rack mount gear other than networking kit is usually about twice the price of its non rack mount equivalent - take switch boxes (KVM?) and UPS's in particular - even server rack mount kits tend to be a few hundred quid - and all you get is a few brackets and perhaps some rails...
Hence I tend to go eith shelves in my cabinets - the advantages of rack mount, but cheaper!
They sell the rails at various sizes, all you have to do is build the box and attach the rails. Pretty good prices too.
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http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&User
If you're just looking for screw specs, this ought to do it.
More on Google
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
...specifically sound guys. They've been putting effects and amps in home-made 19' cabinets for decades. You can make it out of wood yourself. (Shielding is for wussies - the units inside are in their own enclosures)
Find good, sturdy wood 1/2 to 1 inch thick, make 4 sides of a box: top, bottom and sides. Front and back should be open. The INSIDE distance between the sides should be just a bit over 19 inch. The box should be however deep as your biggest unit (of course) plus some extra for plugs and cables.
Now comes the trick: on the inside sides put two vertical bits of wood 2 inch wide, 1/2 to 1 inch thick, flat on the sides 1 inch recessed from the front running top to bottom. This is where you'll screw in your equipment. Make sure to use nylon washers so as not to scratch your euipment.
Done.
If you want a 19" rack, you can buy rails and build them into your own housing. Try Middle Atlantic products from your favorite video supply retailer, such as this one (no affiliation). Buy the screws there too, to make sure you get the right size.
There are a few primary concerns with building your own rackmount box.
1) Accessability - an area where many commercial rackmounts flop, let alone a home-build.
2) Temperature - when you pack 4 dual-processing Athlons into a small box, you have quite a room heater. Not only does the rackmount itself need to be ventilated, but the cooling needs of the room it's in need to be considered.
3) Appearance - is it going to sit in your living room? Or, is functionality the primary concern?
4) Power and bandwidth - How are you going to plug it all in? If appearance is an issue, what about all that ugly cat5 cabling?
5) Resources - what tools do you have? Are you like me, armed with a 1'x1'x3' toolbox filled with cheap handtools, a circular saw, and a drill, or do you have a garage full of table saws, lathes, and routers?
6) Cleanliness - I've seen a rackmounted system run 24x7 in a hosting facility for 2 years and at the end not have any noticable amount of dust. I've also seen my kids' computer downstairs accumulate over 1/2" of dust on the CPU heatsink. If the box will sit in your home, you have to account for any dust in the house. I'd recommend two boxes in your unit. A small one on the bottom, with a filter on the very bottom letting air in, and fans on the top pushing the filtered air up into the server cavity. Then, at the top of the server cavity, on the sides, have the ventilation holes that let the heated air out.
7) Dimensions - there are basically two kinds of racks. 19" used by servers, and a larger size (22'? 23'?) used for telecommunications. You can get brackets to convert the bigger to the smaller.
I assume that you have a server or two, or you wouldn't be bringing it up. Really, I wouldn't consider making my own unless I enjoyed making wooden-ish boxes or had some special need or decor to match up with. You can get a decent half-size rack on ebay for a few hundred.
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Good article on building racks. It's musical equipment oriented, but all the same principles apply:Shavano music - constructing a rack
This space for rent.
The relevant standard he's looking for is
IEC 60297-1 Ed. 3.0, 1986. You may have to
pay a nominal fee to get it though.
Gil
-- Where ever you go, don't complain, you went there!
It wasn't for computer equipment but for audio equipment. It's all standard 19" equipment though. I bought my 19" rack rails at Musician's Friend and then built a plywood box around them to house the equipment. They are quite sturdy and should perform to what you need. In our rack, we had about 100-150 pounds of equipment in our 8U rack and it holds up great! Good luck!
ikeya
---- Move SIG...For great justice!
One U is an inch and 7/8 ths. The width is 19 inches (483mm) I cann't remember the distance from mounting hole to mounting hole but is easy enough to measure. As mentioned in a previous post get hold of some steel racking strip. This is a steel strip folded into an S profile but with right angle corners and punched out with square holes at the right pitch. Most major electronic / electrical suppliers will carry M6 (in Europe 1/4 inch in the US ???) captive nuts that will mate with the square holes in the strip and let you mount your hardware, assuming its got mounting ears. If it hasn't rack mount shelves are available. If the hardware is heavy think about building support at the back. Remember to think about access to the back and ventilation. To get hold of the rack strip try a professional audio supplier or a flight case manufacturer.
if you build in enough room to have 2U spaces near heat-sensitive items, there are rackmount fans available that are great for getting air to the whole rack. I can't find them now, but check with a large audio vendor like Full Compass. other than the specs posted above, it doesn't seem that there is that much more to know. For computers, in the interest of further airflow support, it would be very wise to port the sides of the cabinet (assuming you are using some solid material) or even use an iron mesh instead. I think that would be reasonably attractive, surrounded by wood frame.
This doesn't work, half the time- for one thing, if the equipment is too heavy/long, you'll damage the case/rack by mounting it incorrectly(and few cases have provisions for mounting near the center of gravity).
This is especially dangerous with aluminum relay racks- you can strip the screws out just trying to get the stuff mounted; the second the guy in back lets go, the bottom screws go "BBRT!" and the bottom slams to the ground, while the tops of the rack ears are now horribly deformed.
Relay racks are only for patch panels, wire management, and SHORT depth equipment(like routers, switches, hubs).
This is a good question to ask before you buy colo space- "are my servers going to be in enclosures, or relay racks?" If they say "relay racks", run away, don't come back- clowns at work. Almost all servers need proper support- ie, front AND back mounting. Preferably with rails.
Please help metamoderate.
Head over to http://www.hammondmfg.com/ and find a product like what you want (the rack, the case, a shelf, whatever).
Then get the diagram for it, includes all the dimensions you need. Then just build your case according to that...
Theres not enough air flow in a closet to keep your equipment cool. Enclosed racks need to have big fans to keep the air moving.
I hate those damned things, too.
/etc/default/kbd.conf or somethng like that under Solaris.
Pick up a surplus terminal server like a WTI CMS-16 or Computer PowerRack off eBay. They are almost free these days. Then configure all your equipement to use serial consoles (particularly easy if you are using Sun or DEC Alpha, equipment, not too bad for LILO-loading systems either).
Just remember to enable the alternate break sequence if you are running Sun hardware and using the Computone product (or any other concentrator which isn't "break safe"). I think it's in
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I just completed my own homebrew rack, and although it wasn't exactly done cheaply I did research most of the Diy options. The most promising solution I found was using bedframe rails to rack your equipment. They're strong, cheap and readily available in custom lengths at places like Home Depot. They can be mounted to a number of framing materials. ITU standard holes are fairly easy to drill, but threading can be a problem. fortunately you can just drill oversized holes and use cheap clip-on racknuts to mount all of your equipment.
Good luck!
Put a nice quiet 100 cfm bathroom fan in the closet ceiling, exhaust any heat into your attic. For around $80.00-100.00 your heat is problem solved.
I found an NICE roller equiped HD rack mount system from a surplus auction. Thing weighs about 120 lbs, but is smooth as glass on the wheels. I've got all my ham equipment in it now, but plan on using it for a computer system (cluster of cheap rackmounted stuff) sometime.
It came with a reel to reel rig, and several 8 incher floppie drives as part of a data aquisition system. The original cabnet was built in '68 and then upgraded over the years. I stripped all the fans out of the components so cooling will be a breeze later. Also saved the cases for the components to build my own rack cases.
Cool part was, one of the cases is perfect for verticlally mounting ITX/flex ATX boards. The whole thing slides in and out with a hindged front for easy axis. I can't wait to start on that project.
The case for the reel to reel drive is almost perfect for 12" atx boards vertically, so I'm thinking two seperate clusters.
I'll add a rackable SMC 10 gigE switch at the top and gigabit all the nodes through it.
Okay, now back to reality: You can get rack rails from a local music/midi shop for about $30 for a desktop set for 4-6 2U. Then build a case around it. (Includes hardware for setting stuff on a tabletop and holding the rack together. Perfect for kkeeping spacing. )
Surplus is your friend for premade racks.
-=fshalor
... what exactly is it that you are trying to mount. The advice in the posts so far speak about heat and power concerns as well as industry standard dimensions. Whoa! You said "home".
So let's say (old gear scenario) a hub/switch, old PC as server, cable modem, T5 cable (you said "clutter" so one assumes no wifi); typical to home needs. Negligible heat, negligible power. So what the heck do you need even a "small rack" for?
Think: a cabinet rack must necessarily have a larger footprint than the existing gear it encloses. A cabinet will have all the same wiring clutter leading in and out of it. So it's unclear what you hope to gain.
If you want to make things look nice, mount the gear out of sight (closet, furnace room (my own set up)) or stick it in a piece of furniture (as many of the posts here suggest). Total cost can be zero.
Industry went to racks primarily to make use of vertical space for the large number of units typical of an industrial set up. Clutter is addressed with trunking, bundling, and raised flooring.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
http://mojo.servehttp.com:8282/guides/rack_cabinet /rackmount_cabinet.asp
guide for building rack
Well the cheap solution is to use 2 realy racks placed so things that need 4 posts can be screwed in to all the racks.
Here's a page that I used once to help me put together a cabinet to rack mount my musical gear.
It's easy to follow and gives a list of stuff to pick up at your local hardware store.
In the music industry it is done all the time- just buy the rails and bolt them to the enclosure of your choosing. It aint rocket science!
That's right! Buy some rack rails. They should be available at large scrap metal yards, one can get used ones inexpensively.
Buy some tools. Absolutely required:
Measure, cut, drill. Use the mitre box and a level to make sure everything is straight, bolt the pieces together.
To make your own computer cases and rack-mount shelves, use sheet steel and/or sheet aluminum, and lots of small #6-32 machine screws and nuts to hold it all together. Buy a small sheet metal brake if you don't have one ($20-$40) so that you can make neat 90 degree bends. Pop rivets can be handy for stuff like holding the side braces onto your own shelves. I usually like to build things with machine screws and nuts. Once I've got all the sheet metal done, I either weld the seams or pop-rivet them, depending on what I need. Welds are very tough to cut, and pop-rivets have to be drilled out. Machine screws let you play with the design a little bit before making it final.
Sheet metal is dangerous to work with - it's sharp and little filings will get all over the place. A pair of good leather sheetmetal gloves will protect your hands.
Also, sheet steel comes coated with cosmolene or similar anti-corrosion coatings. You will need to wipe it off (a rag with rubbing alcohol usually works) before you spray-paint your finished cabinets. You need to paint the sheet steel (Tremclad is good for this) or else it will flash-rust in time.
If you're working with salvaged scrap steel (which I usually do), you will probably need to clean it. An angle grinder with a suitably-rated cup brush will do wonders. Remember to wear the safety glasses!
Measure twice, cut once! Take your time! This is no more difficult than carpentry.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I built myself a rack cabinet for my music gear about a year and a half ago. I built it out of 1/2" Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF), which is a pretty good, reasonably strong, all-purpose, cheap, and very consistent (because it's made out of sawdust glued together, basically ). My boss, who is a former contractor, uses it all the time to make shelves at work. You can get 3/4", and sometimes even 1", if you are concerned about strength.
Then all you need to build the cabinet are: a circluar saw (table mount is best if you can get to one), some wood screws, and a drill. Plus, I guess, a tape measure.
There are really only three crucial issues: securing the corners somehow so the whole cabinet doesn't wobble back and forth, making sure the screws don't crack the MDF (which can happen very easily), and making sure the two sides are as close to parallel as possible, so that your equipment will fit in correctly all the way up and down the cabinet.
I solved the first by simply screwing a big piece of scrap MDF to the back bottom half of the cabinet. There are much more elegant ways to do it, and I am sure you can figure them out.
The second simply means that you have to drill all your screw holes before you put the screws in.
The third is the most difficult; I dealt with it by using corner clamps, and got lucky. Using a square in each corner would help, or you might be able to work something out using a level, if you have one.
Rack rails are available at big music stores (Guitar Center, e.g.); small ones should be able to order them. I'm sure Fry's has them, and MicroCenter too, but I've never actually looked.
The best way (I think) to attach the rails is with carriage bolts, and I didn't find that I needed washers (since there are so many bolts all the way down the rail). Rack screws are #10-32 machine screws (at least, that's what I use), and it's best to get short brass ones -- they go in easier.
Good luck!
I bought a couple inexpensive racks like mucicians use that only had the fronts with no support for the back. These are great because I could bolt them into the concrete floor, and they're perfectly parallel, and they screws and spacing are the same as for computer gear. For my UPS, switches, and other small gear I just bolt in the front and I'm good to go. For servers with rails, I have some 2x4's at the back where I can use drywall screws to attach them. I do need to drill my own holes in the rails to make them fit, but it is cheap.
I made my office next to my storage room so the servers are in the storage room with nice heavy smoked glass doors in front of the racks. I ran mouse, keyboard, VGA Printer and a pile of cat5 cables through the wall when I built it so that I could run a KVM to control the servers from the office. Now I only have to worry about that stuff changing to USB or something before I have to run more cables. The storage room has a window in it, so when it is hot I just open the window and put a fan in the window... Cooling problem solved. I have about 8 servers, 2 switches, 2 routers, 1 large UPS and the KVM running in there with room to spare.
I built myself a rack cabinet for my music gear about a year and a half ago. I built it out of 1/2" Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF), which is a pretty good, reasonably strong, all-purpose, cheap, and very consistent (because it's made out of sawdust glued together, basically )
Oh yeah, it's a great material, except that it's flammable.
(One can, of course, make that same argument about iron and steel - ever light steel wool on fire?)
The chances of my computers catching fire are minimal, but sh*t does happen, and I kinda like having a roof over my head.
Besides, if you're going to the trouble of building the thing, you may as well do it in metal. If you've got the tools, it's really no more effort.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Oooh.. don't exhaust heat into the atic. That's bad. Always cut it through to the roof. That air in your closet is going to be quite warm. As we learned in science back in middle school, warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. That is to say, when the warm moist closet air cools in your atic it's going to provide you with moisture problems. This is especially true with bathroom-mounted bathroom fans (since the air is likely at 100% humidity from the shower) but I'd definately run the closet fan through the ceiling, too, just to be on the safe side.
My first encounter with rackmount was when I bought a 1950's ex-Navy radio (Hammarlund SP600JX) with an attached Collins SSB decoder. The two were nicely held together by a couple of pieces of railing.
.... all hidden by full-length curtains (I am not kidding) or solid plywood sides (no diags needed then)
I later got a super-basic rackmount that I built as follows:
- 2 x 6-foot railings, vertical, parallel
- top and bottom wooden horizontal "beams", held with wood screws, that kept the railings at the standard 19-inch distance
- two more horizontal beams, perhaps 3 feet deep, screwed on the top "across" beam through L-shaped metal strips, and to the house wall with more screws and metal strips.
- more L-strips held the railings in place with only two screws into the floor.
In practice, wall and floor made two sides of the "cabinet", all the rest was open.
I considered adding a beam in diagonal position across the top, but never did it because the structure held up alright as it was.
Warnings:
1) for this structure to hold up well, you HAVE to have a few pieces of equipment mounted at all times
2) not good for low height units, as there is NO SUPPORT OTHER THAN THE FRONT PANEL SCREWS (with my 1950's gear, this was not a problem, as it was all at least 10 inch high), and high units also help with sidewasy stability
3) I had neither kids, nor animals, nor cleaning people around the house that could get imperiled or challenge the stability of this.
Having said that, I think it's a low cost idea that could easily be improved upon, e.g with
- mounting with one wall on a side as well, i.e. using a corner of the room for 3-D stability
- diagonal braces on the sides, going from the beam-railing joint down to the wall-floor corner
-
- perhaps a solid top, with a few fans
- perhaps a number of metal sheet covers to be left in place where there's no equipment.
I think I might build one such soon, as I am prolly getting a few excellent rackmount radios (HRO, Collins...) from an elderly neighbour who abandoned his radio hobby. If I do, a future rackmount computing device will have a home ready for it too! - I hope this helps...
Keep in mind, there are two "families" of rack mounting, each with its own history and traditions.
The telco industry has been mounting equipment in "relay racks" for almost a century. You don't find many relays in them now, but back when the Western Electric Company (WECo) was making all the equipment, most of what they made were relays. Telco racks are 23 inches wide and built open, so the rack channels stand vertically and you can reach around them on all sides. They have screw holes on 1-inch centers, tapped for 12-24 screws.
Equipment mounted in "telco" racks is almost always middle-mounted. The mounting ears or flanges are located about halfway back on the chassis, meaning that the center of gravity is almost in the same plane as the rack face. This means the only force on the screws is shear load, against which they're tremendously strong. You can stand on telco gear when it's rack-mounted.
Some time after the telco industry had all this worked out, the wheel got reinvented. Deejays like to mount their mixers and effects processors in racks to manage the mess, and despite a lot of commonality between old telco gear*, they settled on racks that were 19 inches wide instead of 23. Along came the EIA to standardize this, specifying a screw thread of 10-32 and a staggered hole spacing of 1 1/4" alternating with 1/2". This gives us the "1U" size of 1 3/4". Many EIA racks don't even have threaded holes, instead they have square punchings into which you insert a "cage nut", which is easily replaced if you manage to strip the threads.
(* Many patch panels used in audio production are set up with the "longframe" or "bantam" plugs, which originated as WECo plugs on switchboards and are still used today in DS-1 patching applications.)
Mounting 19" equipment in a 23" rack would be simple enough with adapter ears. They can even compensate for the fact that most 19" equipment expects EIA hole spacing, and 23" racks invariably have WECo hole spacing. The damning difference is mid-mounting versus flush-mounting. Deejays want all their buttons and knobs to form one seamless control panel, so all their equipment has mounting ears right up at the front, with the face of the equipment. This works really well for audio gear, which is usually fairly light and doesn't stick more than a few inches behind the face of the rack.
When you try to mount a server or a UPS flush with the face of the rack, you quickly discover the mechanical limits of the screws. Because most co-lo outfits charge per vertical unit of rack space, there's a lot of pressure to make your equipment as flat as possible. This moves the center of gravity farther and farther back, while shortening the amount of rack flange over which the force will be distributed. If you get that UPS to hang there, don't even breathe on it, much less use the back edge as a stepstool while climbing into the cable tray superstructure.
When the option is available, flush-mounted equipment should always have a rear support too. This is the case with many rackmount servers, which include sliding rails for mounting. The back end of the rail must be screwed into a second rack flange, which means your cabinet needs two sets of upright channels.
For mounting deejay equipment, 19" flushmount makes sense. For mounting huge switching equipment, 23" midmount is clearly a better idea. For anything in between, it mostly depends on what options your equipment gives you. I vastly prefer mid-mounting when it's available, because it makes for a much stronger setup when all is said and done.
There are plenty of other differences between telco equipment and datacomm equipment, despite the superficial similarities. I won't get into the details of DC power, grounding, redundancy and reliability, heat dissipation, alarming, or any of the myriad "requirements" that equipment must satisfy before being located in a telco office. Suffice it to say: Datacomm equipment is happy on a desk but sometimes gets bolted into a rack. Telco equipment was designed for it.
Well I happen to be doing the exact same thing. I decided to use an open relay rack with casters for space/ease of use purposes. Unfortunately this has not been assembled yet (physical presence issue, out of country, should have it assembled/pics by the 1st of Jan).
Relay rack 38U steel, with base (should fit under a doorway with casters)
129.00 - Rack
111.00 - Base x2 (Freestanding Application)
40.00 - Casters
Rackmount Computer Case
130.00 - Computer Case
30.00 - Power Supply (300 Watt)
15.00 - Center Mount Brackets
LCD / KVM Switch / Mounting (need to make custom rack mount for LCD Swivel)
999.00 - LCD Monitor (20")
41.49 - LCD Swivel
109.95 - Rack Mount KVM (8 Port)
18.99 - KVM Cables
Rack Mount UPS
249.99 - UPS 1500VA (free shipping from BestBuy, easy to return if problems, not cheapest price)
Hope that helps,
Jad