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DIY equipment rack - tips?

M

MarkLaRoi

Hi all, and thanks in advance for any advice you offer.

I'm going to put together my own instrument racks for my home studio, and I wonder if there's anything in particular I should remember when putting it together, or any tips that might make things better.

I do work at a station so I have the general idea, but thought I'd ask just in case. Should it be all metal, metal and wood, I was thinking if I did all metal I didn't know what I could hang as dust protection, is there a best kind of wood or synthetic, stuff like that.
 
Middle Atlantic sells just the rack rails--just about any length you want, from 2 space to 45 space (78 inches). Here's the link: http://www.middleatlantic.com/rackac/rail/rail.htm

What I did when we rebuilt our control rooms is to buy 24" kitchen cabinet bases from Lowe's--the ones with the single drawer above the open bottom (where you put the pots and pans ;-) ---).

A 2X4 (painted black) shimmed in the opening just enough to provide a 19" opening for mounting the rack rails. If my memory serves me, this gets you 11 or 12 rack spaces. Buy 2 and then you can have your local kitchen cabinet folks make you a nice Formica top for a work area--you can either runs the cables out the back or get the plastic holes (Lowe's has those, too) and run cables through the top directly into the cabinet.

If you have equipment that produces a fair amount of heat, pull the drawer out and mount a vented rack panel in its place. I re-used the extra drawer by mounting it in the bottom of the cabinet for my EAS printer.
 
Thanks Tom, that'll be really helpful!

I found rails which seem appropriate at Busy Beaver last week but I will check out the link you provided too. I'm at Lowe's pretty often so I'll take a look at those cabinet bases. Right now I just need to house my amp, CD, MD, cassette, record player and mixing board (all but the board are 2 spaces tall) and I don't foresee adding much more in the future. I mostly just do post production stuff and commercials.

Thanks again!
 
It's easy to move the drawer rails in those cabinets. You could pull the drawer, and mount it in the lower opening as a convenient place for the turntable (if it isn't too wide). That way you can slide the tower closed to protect the turntable and tone arm when you are not using it.
 
I remember seeing at least one article (perhaps in Radio World) where they did this. I would love to find a copy of the article as it had some good pictures depicting this, too.
 
Mark,
I built mine with a couple of Middle Atlantic 35" black racks as pedestals for a Home Depot counter top. It looks great, holds the computers, ect, and is very sturdy. This approach may give you a little more flexibility on equipment location over a standard kitchen cabinet set but at a comparable price. On top I got a smaller oak finished rack for the CD players ect. Of course at 35" plus the table thickness I have a stand up console, but you can get shorter ones. Pix available if you want to PM me.
Good Luck
 
I would strongly recommend that you use the "universal style" rack rails. Not only will it be easier as you cut them up for installation, it will also ensure that all EIA/TIA compliant equipment will fit.

For example, you may not know that for a 2RU rack the "preferred" placement of the holes is NOT at the corners, rather it is2 holes further inward. The standard marks these as "preferred" though it does have a footnote pointing out that these are only compliant with the universal rails.

The first time I ran across this was in the field and had to drill holes and tap them with the screws (worked remarkably well).

A word to the wise...
 
Those inexpensive black Middle Atlantic racks are nice, but you may need a little bit more support for the countertop. They are only made of thin composite--perfectly adequate to support the equipment, but probably not the lateral forces from a countertop. I have slipped one inside a kitchen cabinet base, which required some hacking on the inside of the base but worked well.

Of course, the short metal rack would easily support a countertop. More expensive, and somewhat "industrial" looking, but definitely sturdier.
 
Mark,

I want to doubly amplify something TomT said: Be sure your rack is well ventilated! (Whether you think your equipment generates much heat or not, do it. How do you know what you will put in that rack a year from now?)

A station I was doing contract work for built a new building. Like you, the GM "had an idea"about racks, and he pretty much designed the entire building, including the studio furniture, which was built by an excellent local cabinet guy, who happened to be the hubby of the midday chick.

They really went the extra mile with the laminates, building it with curved surfaces. It looked really cool. It was not cool.

It had no holes anyplace. "Well, all we're putting in it is cart machines." It was a disaster!

Equipment needs air. Be sure you give it some!
 
Yes, in my control room, one of the cabinets has the console power supply, monitor amp and a satellite receiver. All put out a fair amount of heat. So the bottom panel is a 5 ru Middle Atlantic fan panel (with one of their quiet fans pulling in air), while the drawer up top was pulled out and replaced with a Middle Atlantic vent panel (perforated black steel). A couple of stained 1X2 pieces shimmed in the opening to 18".

The drawer went in the bottom of my other cabinet for a dot matrix printer for the EAS. Makes it easy to pull off the tests and message print outs, as well as for reloading the fan fold paper. I left the drawer in top of that cabinet, but all that's in that rack (above the printer) is the EAS and an XDS receiver. Still, if they turn off the air, I can feel that drawer get a little warm.
 
Thanks everybody!

I'm saving your advice for when I plunge in. I was hoping to do it this weekend but it looks like I'll have to push back until next week. The cooling issue is another going point. We had some of our station cabinets built with cooling fans in the bottom, others without and in following our engineer's placement example I think I'll just make sure the whole rack is well-ventilated. None of it to this point gets hot enough to require a draw, but I'll leave room in case I find a need to add that option in the future.

I was surfing for ideas and came across one rack that was literally nothing more than rails! I briefly considered that but I want dust protection. :)
 
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