I am looking to basically build/construct a rackmount inside of a wood cabinet that could sit in a room and not be obvious that it contains the rack.

The idea is for the entire enclosure to stand about 3-4 feet tall and contain a short rack. The metal rack would be inside the closure and the cabinet would allow enough space for ventilation (there would need to be air slots) and sound dampening materials.

Any ideas? Anyone done something like this? Know of any resources for information/raw materials?

Thanks!

1/28/2007 7:42:24 PM

they make rackmount rails that you can mount in a cabinet. typically they are sold pertaining to music/dj equipment.

other than that you'll need wood a screws as your raw materials. maybe glass if you want glass doors, and of course hinges.

1/28/2007 8:36:11 PM

If you're going to put computers in it you'll need either a very cold room or active ventalation.

1/28/2007 9:15:21 PM

Quote :

"other than that you'll need wood a screws as your raw materials. maybe glass if you want glass doors, and of course hinges"

haha, yeah

I am wondering about the rack I will need inside. Google returns a number of hits but only a few are questionably applicable to what I am trying to do.

Quote :

"If you're going to put computers in it you'll need either a very cold room or active ventalation."

The machines I am planning to rack are mini-ITX with low power VIA processors. The heat production should be fairly low but even still ventilation is something I am giving a lot of thought to.

1/28/2007 9:56:19 PM

Heat kills hardware like nothing else and wood in a fairly good insulator. I'd consider something more like a wood front. At least you're not throwing 12 xeons and a 30 drive NAS rack in there.

1/28/2007 9:58:59 PM

^ yeah. It will be a stack of 1U cases with mini-ITX boards.

I am thinking about ways that I can effectively design it so that I can pull air from the floor, through the cases then exhaust it out the top. I would expect to design it so that there is solid airflow at all times. But I think this project isn't going to be very easy.

1/28/2007 10:07:45 PM

you could make a basic casing out of wood, no bottom or back (neither of those will be visible so why not leave them open for ventilation). You could also but a a few fans on it, an IN and an Exhaust (if you left the back and bottom off you wouldn't really need the exhaust fans. You could also put slots in the sides or top in combination with fans.

if you can find the rack mounts they can certainly be modified to fasten to a wood cabinet.

^ make a cabinet with a fan on the bottom and a fan on the top to pull the air out.

[Edited on January 28, 2007 at 10:17 PM. Reason : ^]

1/28/2007 10:15:18 PM

if you want to make it out of wood, just give it a few holes in the top for passive ventilation, it will do fine.

1/28/2007 11:15:11 PM

http://tinyurl.com/2j8umv

1/29/2007 8:49:05 AM

http://foobar.wykehamist.com/index.php?id=5
http://rack.modzone.dk/

1/29/2007 8:55:51 AM