killswtch.netA geek’s thoughts on various stuff

I’ve had quite a lot of requests now for the plans for the rack. It has always been my intention to share the designs, but they are hand drawn and I don’t currently have the ability to scan them. I am hoping that I can digitise them manually (draw them in something like Inkscape) and upload them to here. As with everything though, it will depend on me sitting down and doing it and not getting distracted by another idea!

One thing that has been lacking since the first build of the rack is ventilation. With both sets of doors closed, the inside can get quite warm, especially when iron is turned on. Not any more though, having just completed the installation of 2 active ventilation zones, lighting and a low voltage power supply system complete with rack-mount control panel.

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I’ve finally gotten around to fixing the top to the rack cabinet. It’s made from the door of an old storage-only cabinet, which was actually a fridge/freezer cabinet from Ikea. The top has been cut into the correct proportions for a while, but has just sat cluttering my floor until now.

To allow the many cables to enter the cabinet a notch of approx 8cm square was cut out of one of the panels. These two panels could then be slid together without the need to disconnect any cabling already in place.

Unfortunately I’ve discovered that the top of the cabinet isn’t exactly square – it’s slightly warped, as the photo below shows when the top had been fixed. I’m not happy with this so at some point I’ll have to put some effort into correcting it. Next time I build a rack I’ll make the top and bottom in more of a similar manner, with a known square-angled piece on which to fit the timber supports.

The top currently has no ventilation, but that will change soon thanks to a lovely huge ‘Big Boy’ fan.

This project started off as being a cheap way to have a 19″ rack in which to mount my growing amount of equipment and future projects. It turned out to not be as cheap as I’d hoped, and it’s taken several months of intermittent work to (almost) complete, but I’m pleased with the results.

There are still a few finishing touches to be done, such as adding the top, adding the lock to the rear, mounting the new bolts to the front door, cutting out the bottom ventilation hole and adding some fans. Future modifications could include adding lighting and environmental monitoring/control.

Below is a photo log showing how it was done.

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