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Searching for Quailty A/V Carts?
Tyrson asks: "I work at a university and we are looking to purchase new A/V carts. At the moment we have the plain and simple shelves-on-wheels and the nicer multimedia display carts. The simple carts are sturdy yet insecure and lack useful features. The display carts are secure and useful yet built from weaker materials that only last a few semesters. We are looking for A/V carts with useful features preferably built from metal or plastics. After googling it and making some phone calls I had found several good carts that were sadly upwards of $1,200 apiece. I don't expect them to be cheap, but $1,200 was a little to steep. Does Slashdot have some suggestions for us?"
Not sure exactly what you are looking for, but try this category at Long's AV. Also search for 'cart' to see more. $100 to $600.
In our university complex (and I suspect in many) we have machine shops that are well equipped enough to build nearly anything you have the imagination for, and plenty of classes where students are taught and trained to do the building. Why not take your request to the professors of these classes and have them build some for you? It would be an excellent practical project for the students and you could save a boatload of money on parts/labour for a system that could be custom built to fit your needs.
An example of a similar project happened a few years ago when the university needed a new retaining wall built for a pretty high and nasty hill next to the road. The old wall was basically a big slab of concrete and it had a very pronounced lean towards the road and was in danger of collapsing, so instead of hiring someone to design a new one they gave the project to the senior engineering students who designed a new wall for their school. That part of campus that was once an eyesore is now a beautiful piece of landscaping.
I guess they've changed their name to metro, but they have modular commercial shelf systems capable of carrying 800 lbs. per shelf. To turn them into a cart just requires modular parts like big beefy wheels. I put together my entertainment center from their parts and had my fat ass relatives sit on them to test the weight claim. I'm very happy with them and I can always turn them into something else. They're chromed steel so I don't have worries of scratching them or corrosion. I did put solid wood panels on the shelves for looks and a more stable surface for my electronics but you might prefer the ventilation.
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
Anthro Corporation has some of the best components to make A/V and general computer carts around. You can make a pretty pricey cart, but you can also get by with a reasonably priced cart. The best part is that you can configure the cart exactly the way that you need it. The carts are extremely sturdy and well built.
Look out for their sales. The April sale was 35% off on phone orders
We've used the lectern/podium units from SMARTdesks. They cost $1000+, but were lockable and had lots of nice features and custom options (we had custom cut-outs for VCR's in the front doors).
My main beef with them is that, though sturdier than some, they did still tend to break down (broken hinges, etc.) over time.
One annoyance that we've had to deal with is that in order for these to be relatively movable in a classroom, we have to tether them to a wall panel with a sizable cable bundle (power, vga, VCR a/v, ethernet, etc.). Of course, now we would go with wi-fi instead of wired ethernet, but still can't get around the other cables. I sure would like to find a better way...
This isn't a dumb question at all. A couple of months ago I was planning one of these out. I wanted a rackmounted computer/sound system for my church on a cart, so that I could move it anywhere in or out of the building, and still be setup quickly. I wanted to keep it closed, for better security. I also wanted to have a ventilation system, complete with a a temperature-controlled switch to turn on extra fans if the equipment gets too hot. I wanted to have a KVM so that someone could plug in a laptop if they needed to run the projector without having to know how everything in it works. Unfortunately, I lacked funding, so I never got to find out how my design would work.