[time-nuts] Excellent equipment rack

[John Ackermann. N8UR]

Star Case (https:www.starcase.com) is  U.S. company (in Indiana)  that sells similar open-frame rack kits for very reasonable prices.  I have several and have been very pleased.  They are available whatever height you want, with depths of 20 to 30 inches.  They have lots of accessories to trick out your rack.

As Perry ssid, they are quite wobbly but they have various cross braces available that will stiffen them up.  I have hundreds of pounds in a 6 foot one and it's rock-stable.

They ship broken down in a flat box plus tall cardboard tube for the vertical.  Assembly is bssically like an Erector Set.

On Jun 11, 2019, 7:00 AM, at 7:00 AM, Perry Sandeen via time-nuts <time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:
>Yo Bubba Dudes!,
>Needing to go vertical with my test equipment I went bottom feeding for
>an equipment cabinet on ebay.
>To make a long search story short: they were way too expensive, too
>heavy to ship and too far away for pickup.
>So I kept searching and finally came across what was listed as *42U
>Four Post Open Frame Server Data Rack 19 inches.  Adjustable depth 23
>to 32 inches.ebay number 152319524877.Sold by Raising Electronics for
>US $188 and free shipping.
>I was unsure what a *U* height meant put it seemed tall enough so I
>bought one.
>I was a little apprehensive about this being a Chinese metal product. 
>I was very pleasantly proven very wrong.
>Although it only comes with a picture of an assembled unit it has been
>engine ed so there is no way you can assemble improperly. The four
>posts are all equal and can be installed with any end up or down and
>the top and bottom brackets will fit.  It comes with the exact 50 M6-20
>head bolts and nuts needed for assembly.  The nearest SAE equivalent
>bolt size is 1/4 20 x 1/2L which I purchased to hold L shelf brackets
>to the frame.
>I set the depth of mine to 26 inches so my 5370's fit well and I had
>space for both power and BNC cables to be inside the frame.
>
>This rack is designed to be bolted to the floor.  Wanting to be able to
>move it, I cut a piece of 3/4 inch plywood a little longer and wider
>then the base footprint and installed 4 inch tall Harbor Freight swivel
>casters on the four corners for ease of movement in any direction, even
>on floor carpeting.  After assembly it was 6 ft 9 inches tall. 
>
>Now this being a bolted together *skeleton frame* it is prone to
>twisting and or becoming a parallelogram sideways.  To prevent
>twisting, I fitted a plywood board on the top bolted to the top front
>and rear angle pieces.  To prevent a side-to-side movement required an
>8 inch wide piece of scrap aluminum plate bolted to the rear vertical
>posts.  This is easy to do as there are a plethora of precision spaced
>holes available.
>There was some very serious thought given to the vertical post design. 
>It has six 90 degree folds done in such a way that the inner edge on
>each outer side gives a 19 inch opening.
> However behind it is as inner fold where one can install recessed L
>shaped brackets. Now the inner fold is about and inch narrower than the
>outside edge.This allows making a wider shelf that can *float* on top
>the brackets but can't slide out either end.
>This was very useful when configuring the instrument arrangement.
>I also found that with the bottom shelf being just 6 inches above the
>floor I was able to install more equipment in the same vertical space
>than in my previous normal sized equipment cabinet.
>Another bonus with this type of configuration is that it's easier to
>keep the equipment cool and it's much lighter.
>Regards,
>Perrier
>
> 
>
>
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