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Rack Project

T

The Grabulator

n00b
Joined
Feb 3, 2005
Messages
26
So first off I have been working on this for months and decided I was proud of it so I would put it on here. Because of this I don't have pictures of every step, but alot of them. Now for the prelude; I decided I wanted to clean up my servers and other computer equiptment and put it all in a rack cabinet. Not only would this make my setup neat and organized but it is also highly excessive and will look awesome when it's done. However I did not want to spend $1000+ on a nice rack cabinet so I set off to skycraft (a local random junk store that sells cool stuff) and bought a full sized rack cabinet for (after bartering) $55. It was rusted, a stupid blue color, and pretty much all around nastyness.

Pics of nastyness:
b1.jpg


b2.jpg


First things first, I sanded it down, got rid of the rust, primered it and painted it.

primer.jpg


After I painted the main piece:

painted.jpg
 
Now I have a non-rusted not-so-nasty rack skeleton to work with. Next step is the doors. I like to see whats going on inside this monster so windows are a must. Not only that but the side doors were not included (hey, no complaints considering it was $55) so I decided diamond plated sides would look cool on my rack (pics of that later). but first I had to cut big holes in the doors for the plexi-glass. I was fairly certain that my dremel was incapable of cutting such a large hole out of thick metal so I borrowed a jigsaw and got to work. Pics are limited at this point so I will just post the finished product. I cut the holes. rounded the corners with my trusty dremel. I got some plexi-glass and cut it to fit the doors, painted the doors, and mounted the plexi with some cool plastic fan fastners I found online.

Finished doors (I only took pics of the front door, the back door looks exactly the same.)

door1.jpg


door2.jpg


door3.jpg


Ok, with that out of the way I needed sides so I ordered some custom cut diamond plate to fit, yeah yeah I know im lazy but at this point I was sick of cutting metal. This is what the rack looks like with the doors and the diamond plate sides.

diamond.jpg
 
did you by any chance get this rack at a thrift store? I saw one just like this and was gonna buy it but the guy before me got it.
 
Now I have two other pieces that need to be finished. The top and the bottom. I decided the bottom should be the air intake because the sides are too close to the closet walls and I didnt want to make vents in the plexi I just worked so hard on. So I cut a hole in the bottom panel. I like to have clean air going to my servers and equiptment so I constructed a holder for an air filter and crammed some home air conditioning material in it. but before that I cut some mesh to cover the top so it would look nice.

bottom.jpg


Yeah I know the paint looks different, It isn't. Keeping in mind months have passed between each of these steps..hey I'm a college student and I work so I don't get alot of free time to work on this. The bottom of it is just dusty and dirty from the time it took to get the bottom piece built and installed.

Now I move to the top. Since my roomates room is right next to this closet I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate the sound of 6 120mm raging panaflos at full throttle. So I bought some thermaltake quiet 120mm fan monsters. But first things first. The piece of metal that fits in the top is a solid piece of metal with one big hole in the middle for one big fan. this wont do so I cut the top piece and leave about .5" border around the sides to mount plexi in. This will look nice and ensure a proper fit. So I cut and paint yet again. And then more plexi-glass cutting....and breaking. now I have this (with two fans mounted).

top1.jpg


Yes I know its cracked. When I was cutting it I had a few beers in me and I got annoyed and cracked the plexi. Why, you ask, would I crack a piece of plexi-glass when im slightly intoxicated? Whelll I was using a blade designed to cut metal in the jigsaw only to discover that after I cut the hole, the plexi-glass had already melted back togeather so I could not remove the piece that I just cut. So I got mad and hit it with a screw driver and broke it, silly me. I then grabbed a blade ment to cut wood, crammed it in the jigsaw, and cut the rest of the holes without a problem. Sooo heres the finished product.

Top view:
top2.jpg


Inside View
top3.jpg


Now I just hope that hole in the bottom is big enough to allow proper air flow for cooling, but we will just have to wait and see on that one. Below is a picture of how the rack is at the current moment. It's pretty much finished I just have to put all of my equiptment inside of it.

now.jpg


Yes, I know the molding around the closet is effed up....it will get fixed.
 
did you by any chance get this rack at a thrift store? I saw one just like this and was gonna buy it but the guy before me got it.
Click to expand...

It's kindof a thrift store. It's called skycraft (I live in Florida) and they had like 10 of these racks. This store is so hard to describe...it's like a radio shack went crazy and collided with a computer warehouse.
 
Lookin amazing. Can't wait to see the finished product. :D
 
The Grabulator said:
It's kindof a thrift store. It's called skycraft (I live in Florida) and they had like 10 of these racks. This store is so hard to describe...it's like a radio shack went crazy and collided with a computer warehouse.
Click to expand...

don't worry...mine that i saw was in colorado.

that store souds cool.

are those fans the 130mm ones in 120 frames?
 
ye...they're advertized as 130mm fans on newegg, but they supposedly fit in 120 holes, which doesn't make any sense to me imo..
 
It's the same as the 92mm fan blades in 80mm mounts. The advantage is you get a larger fan blade size without having to cut a larger hole... the disadvantage is if you already have mounts for two fans close together, they won't work, because the frame extends too far past the mounting holes. Neat idea though.
 
top2.jpg


haha thats some uber plexi cuting skills lol i can see the one you cut with the metal blade pretty easily dont worry i break all kinds of things while intoxicated it can be a problem
 
yea, its not to bad, anyways you wont be able to see it that much =)
 
The Grabulator said:
It's kindof a thrift store. It's called skycraft (I live in Florida) and they had like 10 of these racks. This store is so hard to describe...it's like a radio shack went crazy and collided with a computer warehouse.
Click to expand...

i live in orlando, and ide like to know where this 'collision' of stores is...

EDIT: HAH, i see your AV sticker on the back of your jeep, i go to UCF too.
 
You hsould have used some sort of guass for the front, your not letting in any airflow this way. Also, I'd replace those fans for a more potent one :)
 
Ockie said:
You hsould have used some sort of guass for the front, your not letting in any airflow this way. Also, I'd replace those fans for a more potent one :)
Click to expand...
Rack airflow is actually engineered. You don't see very many commercial cabinets with perforated fronts for a reason ;)
Air flows from bottom to top, like a chimney. Letting air in the sides can actually mess up the airflow.
 
One question: Don't you need a few more holes for wiring and such? Looks pretty good sealed and all, but I think it would look even cooler with functional networking parts in it. :D
 
For those of you asking about skycraft, http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/ and its located on Fairbanks in Winter Park, And the Jeep isnt mine, It's a friend's because the rack wouldn't fit in my Mustang lol, but I do go to UCF as well. Yeah...I wish it had functioning network equiptment in it too, all of that is on my bedroom floor waiting to be mounted. I have a fan control idea that im going to post about in a day or so, and I need to finish that before I can mount equiptment.
 
Wow, I love how its coming along. I wish you posted the pice from start to finish. It takes a lot of hard work to get that ugly blue monster to this beauty. The diamond plate looks very good as well. Keep the pics coming, great project.
 
penguin said:
Rack airflow is actually engineered. You don't see very many commercial cabinets with perforated fronts for a reason ;)
Air flows from bottom to top, like a chimney. Letting air in the sides can actually mess up the airflow.
Click to expand...



I work in a data center with over 300 racks.... it depends on the configuration but what this one seems like it has been sealed up more than its intended.
 
Ockie said:
I work in a data center with over 300 racks.... it depends on the configuration but what this one seems like it has been sealed up more than its intended.
Click to expand...

Seconded, our SAN's main airflow is bottom to top, with a few slats in the front. Where as our server racks use mesh front and rear to make use of the servers in built cooling solutions. IE airlfow from front to back.

This ends up in onewalk way being aircon in, the next one being aircon out. Oh and about a 10 degreeC difference :eek:
 
Yeah, It's probably going to over heat. I have my hopes up that it wont though. I dont feel like making any more holes...
 
skycraft is the shit, ive never been there but i send all our customers who need crazy old legacy ass shit there (i work at compusa)..go ucf! this semester is sucking.
 
Something I meant to ask but forgot about...

The lower intake, does the rack have a large cavity underneath it to allow for decent airflow to get into the rack? I cant remember if it had feet or casters on it or not. Also, the mesh used to cover the intake, is the filter under that and then another portion of mesh below it or is it held in place some other way?

I would just IM you but figured it'd be good info for the post.

~Kris
 
Yeah, the rack has wheels and is about 2.5" off the groud so it has plenty of air to suck up. Actually I suspended the filters using a custom hurricane tie assembly lmao. It actually came out nice, when I find my digicam I will post some pics of it.
 
That looks really good, but you should know that pics are what counts around here. More pics are needed or people start to get off topic.

My company's server room is a kick ass vault that is about 10c @ all times and it just packed from floor to ceiling with rack servers that look just like yours; Clear plexy fronts.
 
Ok, I think its time I owe you guys an explination of my fan controlling idea. I have lots of pics this time... I work at a pretty cool place and I get alot of random computer junk for free. They recently replaced all the old food service terminals with new ones so I got dibs on some old nasty touchscreen food service terminals.

javelin1s.jpg


javelinback.jpg


There isn't alot you can do with these because here are the specs;

AMD socket 3 CPU @133mhz
Max memory is 64mb so I stuck a 64mb 72pin simm in there
Hard drive is whatever I put in (6gb)
Elo touchscreen and Sharp LCD behind it.

But since these are touchscreens I figured there was something cool I could do with them. Here is my plan. I bought a Sunbeamtech Theta TP-101 USB fan controller to control the fans (these things are really neat BTW). Since the javelin terminals dont have USB because their really effing old, im going to put the Theta in one of the servers and run a RDP client on the javelin terminal to display the fan control software on the touchscreen. (Im just glad these little monsters have ethernet built into them). I'm going to mount the terminal to a piece of left over door metal, then mount this into the rack. This way I can be strolling by the rack and see what the temps are like without opening the door, and If I want to make changes to the fan speed I can open the door and use the touchscreen. So let the modding begin. First the LCD's in these turds are about 10 years old so the CCFLs in them are garbage. I went to LCDpart.com and ordered a new CCFL so the screen would be nice and bright again. I also cleaned and painted the case and cleaned out the food service nasties from the insides.

Half finished javelin terminal awaiting CCFL:
javelin2.jpg

Sunbeamtech Theta:
theta.jpg


I formatted and installed a fresh copy of winblows 98 on it, (It wouldn't take any form of NT for some reason, I think the bios is too old). I haven't gotten the CCFL installed yet, actually this is my second CCFL, the first one I ruined because I soldered the wires directly to the ends of the tube. It worked great for a week, then all the gas leaked out because I melted the ends of the tube....so learned from my mistake, I'm going to get a better soldering iron and solder out on the leads a bit instead of right against it. I will post pics of that project as it happens.

Here is what I cut out of the door scrap

front:
blankpanel1.jpg

Back:
blankpanel2.jpg

Piece of door scrap with garbage lol:
crappanel.jpg


This is far from finished, I will post as each piece progresses.
 
If you need any parts for that LC I can help you out there. ;) I have a few of the touchscreens laying at home also.

Also, if you need to know anything about them, I can answer most any question about them.
 
Damn, I'm jealous. I'm working on a Home Automation project, and a bunch of touchscreen PC/Controllers would be *very* nice :(
 
Very nice. BTW have you powered up those fans yet? How loud is one?
Click to expand...

I have powered up one of them, they are extremely quiet. I just hope they will produce enough air flow. I think I mentioned it earlier but I had some monsterous panaflos going in there. My roomates bedroom is right next to the closet where the rack is, I don't think he would be able to sleep with 6 panaflos. I might end up doing a combination of the quiet thermaltakes with a few panaflos. That way the fan controller can keep the panaflos quiet when their not needed. I will have to see what the temps are like when I get it all togeather.
 
The Grabulator said:
I have powered up one of them, they are extremely quiet. I just hope they will produce enough air flow. I think I mentioned it earlier but I had some monsterous panaflos going in there. My roomates bedroom is right next to the closet where the rack is, I don't think he would be able to sleep with 6 panaflos. I might end up doing a combination of the quiet thermaltakes with a few panaflos. That way the fan controller can keep the panaflos quiet when their not needed. I will have to see what the temps are like when I get it all togeather.
Click to expand...


A simpler solution would be to leave the door off ;) Or open most of the time. Another solution would be to change the plexiglass to a fine mesh.
 
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