Show me your RACK - Page 46

Thanks for your responses again, damienbuckley.

Actually, after reading your posts about the heat issue I am serious going to consider putting my amp at the top. I currently have 5U of blanks planned for the top of the rack, so it's not in the prime access position anyway.

If I screw down the rack to the platform, then I won't have to worry about it possibly tipping over (and it won't have wheels, mostly out of this same safety concern).

I spaced everything out so that everything would have 2U in between components anyway, and I will have active ventilation (air in from the bottom 2U and also an air intake register below the rack and air out through a 1100 CFM whisper quiet fan at the top of the closet), but still, it probably wouldn't hurt to have the most likely hottest component at the top.

I may try stuff out first to see how hot they run, but does anyone know how hot an Emotiva XPA-5 runs?

I have one and it will go in the rack, but I haven't even opened it yet. It's been sitting in the box since I got it last Nov/Dec awaiting completion of the HT.

I find it helpful to use a couple of loops of zip-ties to act as guides to get the wires laid out where I want them. Then, once the setup is reasonably complete, I go back and put on the velcro straps. For me it's easier to have the various cables 'loose' in the zip-tie guides until everything is setup and working properly. Then I'll usually go back and cut off the zip-ties.

I also find it helpful to group different types of cables on different upright rails on the rack. This makes it easier to rearrange/replace them as needs change. For stuff like the really thin gauge IR emitter wires it's better (for me) to keep them separate to avoid damaging them.

It's also handy to use wire tie to keep individual cables bundled neatly (the IR emitter cables mentioned above). This usually works better than zip ties as I can just untwist them should things need to move, instead of having to cut and throw away a zip tie. Once bundled it's all held with the velcro straps.

Great. I'm no expert but glad I could help

Where did you find a quiet 1100 CFM fan? I don't think that much air could move through a 2U vent and the small space at the bottom of the rack. I cant imagine you would need anything close to 1100 CFM to cool a rack. The Emotivas are class D so they do not run very hot.

I have the same amp in the bottom of my rack: it runs cool

I have 1RU clearance above and below and never had an issue

Whoops, it's a 110 CFM fan, not 1100. Sorry, I mistyped that (a whisper quiet 1100 CFM fan would be something).

But it's a Panasonic FV 11VQ3. 110 CFM and 0.8 sones.

My HVAC contracter suggested this for this application and said that others with similar needs used it. I have also read about the Panasonic fans mentioned on these boards.

The air register below the rack is about 22" x 4" or something like that, plus the 2U vent for some air right on the rack.

Thanks, stockmonkey2000, for the info on the Emo amp. If they don't run too hot I may have to rethink the order of components again. I can ask my brother as well, he has an XPA-3.

Perhaps another component to consider is the receiver. I have an Onkyo 3009. While I haven't used it yet (it's just waiting for the HT to be finished), I did have an Onkyo 803 and now an 809. I know the 803 produced a fair amount of heat. I can check on the 809. I imagine the 3009 will be in the same vein, if not hotter.

Thanks, markrubin.

OK, since multiple people are telling me that the Emo amps run cool, I may keep that on the bottom of my rack (it will have a 2U vent + 1U blank right below and a 2U blank right above) and consider putting my AVR at the top, as that is likely to be the hottest component.

I will still probably have 5U of blanks above it, so it should still be accessible (the rack will be raised off the ground about 2').

That sounds more like it 1100 cfm is a monster fan. I have one of the panasonic whisper fans to pull air from my projector - it does run very quiet. For my equipment rack I used 3 120mm fans (50cfm each). They are controlled by the coolerguys fan controller. I have not got my equipment installed in my rack but expect that it should move enough air to keep everything cool.

LOL, yes, at 1100 CFM we are starting to talk about whole house attic fans for smaller houses!

I have 2 Panasonic whipser quiet fans, one for the AV closet and a separate smaller one (maybe 50 or 80 CFM?) for the PJ which is in its own PJ cabinet in the next closet over.

I'm glad to hear that they are quiet.

Looks like those velcro strips from Amazon are back in stock. I placed an order yesterday when they were temporarily out of stock, but just got an order update today that they will arrive by the end of this week.

Thought I'd share my rack as I just finished this contraption - well, the construction part at least as it is quite empty at the moment. So far the only equipment in there is the subwoofer system: dbx Driverack PX, Crown XLS402 and a t.amp proline 3000. The Crown amp is only temporary and will power some surrounds later on. That together with a receiver (Pioneer VSX-2021) is actually all the HT equipment I have at the moment as I didn't start on the HT/living room yet. I had to finish the equipment room/IB chamber first, because the IB is part of the ceiling downstairs and couldn't really start as long as the location wasn't finalized.

Here it is: 2x30U



Yes, it's pretty much floating in mid air above the IB manifold only attached to the right-hand wall. Behind the false wall is actually a 14" (36cm) brick wall and the rack is attached with 6 wall anchors, each with a pull-out rating of over 400kg. I calculated it through and I could actually put a load of 1.4 metric tons (that's 3086 lbs) on the outer edge and it wouldn't budge, but I don't think the wall would survive that
The front and back frame are made from 7/8" (22mm) beech plywood. Pretty strong stuff and really hard (my jig saw hates it with a passion). I think you could cut a thread into it - I accidentally did that actually when trying to get one of those 1/2" (M12) bolts through it.
The vertical panels with the cutouts for weight reduction are 5/8" (15mm) birch plywood. The rack rails are Adam Hall 6162 Sliding Rack Strips. I prefer those over the steel rails with cage nuts.

The left side will house most of the A/V equipment (everyting I don't have to access very often) and the right side mostly network, servers and the music distribution system for the house, but I think some of the A/V stuff might spill over.

The two panels in the wall will house the switch system for the power amps as I can't turn them all on at the same time or the breaker will trip, the temperature control for the room and the automation for the light in the living room/HT.



Here's the back side of things. The bottom part is hollow to catch any excess wiring and in the front there is actually a channel to transport cold air to the front of the equipment. The false wall itself has rectangular holes as those are wiring channels leading to conduits which in return go through the rest of the house. I will close those off with panels once I finish all the wiring. (It's only a false wall anyway.

Also in the picture is the beginning of the color coded power outlets. Yellow will have some delay added, blue is just switched on with the receiver. Red (UPS), white (standard) and green (network) will follow. All in all I have 6 16A/230V lines going into this room. The outlets will be completed as I assemble the rest of the equipment.

Here is how the rack went together:



This is the wall connection. The rack bolts to the vertical boards (7/8" beech plywood again) which are anchored to brick wall. Two orange 4" conduits, left to other conduits to the rest of the house, right straight down into the living room. The metal pipe is a 5" cold air return and vents in front of the equipment through slots in the bottom of the rack.
The inline fan visible in this picture is calculated to replace the air in the room 12 times per hour, which should be enough to keep the equipment cool, considering the room is kinda large and will otherwise only be used for storage.



I prefeabricated the whole rack in the workshop. The two Ls of each frame were then glued and bolted together in place.



It actually surprised me a bit how strong it was at this point already. Standing on the frame was no problem.

But to be honest, although I calculated everything several times and designed and constructed the damn thing - seeing it hanging there in mid-air freaks me out a little. I might actually add some sort of support on the left side or at least a safety steel cable to the roof beams (4x10s) in the ceiling. Those little beams visible in the pictures don't hold anything at all, they're just fake beams, because I wanted to test something - and what is better suitable for that than a storage area, right?

But for now, this has to do:



That way I can check whether it moves or not. The black iron angles visible in the picture are actually not holding anything. They were just added to hold everything together during construction and I'm far too lazy to pull them out

I built the rack that way, because I wanted to save space. While my place is rather big (for one person at least), this is the only real storage area and because of the slope not really usable at that (I might add some steps later on)

So that's some sort of angled up floor beneath it? Following a vaulted ceiling below? You've essentially got the rack mounted below a sloped roofline, but above a sloped ceiling below it, right? I couldn't figure out the angles of it all just from those pix.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Here is a picture right after I put the carpet in:



The door is rather tiny, because this was originally an unfinished attic space.

The construction of this part of my house is rather weird. The supporting structure below the "floor" of the equipment room is constructed like a roof, because it actually extends into a real roof behind the back wall.

I think this rendering explains it best (though the HT part is outdated)



Here you can see that the living room is wider than the room above. The brick wall in the back of the equipment-room is actually sitting on top of a diagonally running I-beam. Took me a while to figure out how this house is built. xD

Ok that makes it clearer thanks, I thought my eyes were going funny

So pull the permits issued for it, that ought to give you some insights as to what was planned (which isn't always the same as what got done).

Thanks for clarifying, that rendering made it perfectly clear.

That looks AWSM. Love the Rotel gear

You have more details on build and pictures? Looks nice!

Hi Guys,

Trying to finish my rack - thanks for all the helps BTW.

I need to use a 8 port gigabit switch - unfortunately, I can't find one with the outlet in the back - I have custom face for all the components - the only way to do this would be to run wires in the front which would take away from the clean look.

Help

Why bother needing to see the switch? Just put it on a shelf and put a faceplate over the space. It's not like you need to see it. That and the blinking lights are likely to be more distracting than would be desirable. It's one thing to have some lights showing, it's another to have a chaotic amount of network LEDs blinking all the time. The steady light of a component wouldn't draw your eye, lots of flashing network traffic would.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing against the idea. Just that it might be a lot more cost effective to use a plain old switch on a shelf and a faceplate. All of the other equipment in the rack has rear facing connectors, so why shouldn't a switch be set up the same way?

Is there some scenario where you'd need to be plugging/unplugging things in this switch that wouldn't also apply to the rest of the gear in the rack? If that's the case then perhaps having a different plan for the switch connections should be considered. I have found it very useful to have all of my media devices that use a lot of network bandwidth on their own switch, separate from the rest of the network. This allows the Tivo's, HDHR tuners, MCE PC and various streamers to saturate their own segment of the network without disrupting any of the other traffic.

So if I want to deal with having free ports available for other devices I don't have to interfere with the media device's network at all. Bear in mind, when you fiddle with cabling it's very likely something else will get disrupted. Yes, it's always good to be careful about it, but you never know. When you keep the "fixed, appliance-like" devices separate you avoid introducing unexpected problems.

Agree completely with this.

I have mine mounted with the patch panel at the back of my rack, behind blanks as others have mentioned

Issue discussed here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1368918

Same here, I just velcro-pad stuck my 8-port switch to the underside of an existing shelf, and filled with a blank faceplate. If there's a big, low-heat-producing item (DVD player) with no top venting, just setting the switch on top of another product also works...

Since my rack pulls out for service, I mounted the switch sideways, so the plugs/LEDs are visible from the sides instead of the back.

Jeff

All great points - thanks guys.

I'll going with a switch on a shelf in the back with blank plate in the front for a cleaner look. Was thinking about a patch panel - any thoughts?

Yeah...I have 2 switches in my rack. They're rack mount switches, but I have them mounted in the back. It would drive me crazy having all those wires and blinking lights on the front.

RE: patch panel...I don't use one. I didn't see the point.

Patch panels are nice but unless you know you're going to be moving stuff around they're not really 'needed'. What you REALLY want to avoid is having anything moving cables that come directly out of the wall. If your cables coming out of the wall can be rigidly secured to something and NEVER moved then you could skip a patch panel. I offer this warning because you don't want to have an in-wall cable get damaged. It's one thing to replace a broken patch cable, or maybe just an end connector. But if you have a wire coming out of the wall and it gets damaged you're going to have to replace it... all the way to the other end. For non-network stuff like phones you could splice it, and some folks feel the same way about 10/100 network traffic (not me). For gigE you're pushing your luck trying to splice things.

So using a patch panel or a wall plate with plugs is usually a better way to deal with terminating in-wall cables. A little more money, but a LOT cheaper than the long term hassles of replacing broken wires, right?

I don't use a patch panel either. I just have everything run into the top of my rack into a Switch in the back of my rack. All my modems and networking stuff is hiden away behind everything. No one goes wow that a cool looking switch lol More like please for the love of God turn off the blinky lights lol

Does anyone have any knowledge of a Hoffman E19SWM20U20 rack? I have one that I acquired free but I don't know if it's worth much or if other rack components (shelfs, plates,etc) will even work with it.

Anyone have any experience with this rack?

Hoffman is a manufacturer. If it's for servers, then it is very deep, and large.

If it will be out of sight, in a mechanical room, and you have room, then it's perfect.

If have a HP server rack that I use. I'm replacing it, because it's too large for the small mechanical room. Otherwise, it's wonderful.

I like the square slots for cage nuts. Some server racks use cage nuts, rather than threaded screw holes like AV racks. No stripped screw problems.

Find the rack instructions/user manual, online. Might be helpful.

The depth is useful to mount stuff on the back, and for cable management. I added a third pair of vertical rack rails, between the front and back (toward the rear) for more flexible cable management.

Sides, top, and doors are useful, as are casters. I took the sides, doors, and top off when I got it, and I haven't put them on yet. They may be useful to manage heat.