DIY A/V rack? - Page 2

actually no. but this welding was done by my brother that works at a welding shop.
he did a good job, i couldnt weld this nice and since some of the cage is visible, it was best left to the pros.

Heres the PDF that i followed written by Tom H. at mojo.cc
PDF on how to build rack. (scroll down to see the square tubing cage)
http://www.hauntedyards.com/images/b...ldinghowto.pdf

enjoy

I see that most of the racks even DIY are made of metal, but is there an advantage of using metal instead of all wood? I'm surprised that the metals pass the WAF, as one of my friend said to me, "why do you want a rack? don't you want it to look like a home and not a studio?" I did find it kind of funny and I do see his point as it starts to have a more commercial look if it is noticeable.

One of the main reasons why I was looking at making mine out of wood is I could do it for a lot cheaper and customize it more.

wood or metal you cant go wrong either way.
for me the winning factor was my concern about the weight of all my equipment.
I have a 400 disk DVD changer that fully loaded is very heavy.. im adding a second one eventually and it would take a really heavy duty wooden shelf or the shelf reinforced with a lot of brackets to hold it all.

BTW, latntekky, I love the layout of your website.

thanks!. I do webdesign on the side, this was a quicky. I used the same layout as my own homepage since I didnt want to reinvent the wheel.

I'll see if I can explain what I am envisioning here...

Is there any reason why I couldn't build an AV Rack frame out of 2x4's, in th end it would look something like the MA Slim 5, but be made out of 2x4's. The front of this rack would actually be incorporated into the framing of one of the walls. So the framed box (so to speak) would sit behind the wall...pretty much like a MA Slim rack would be framed into the wall.

Now, I would attach rack rail like this to the front and back 2x4's. Do I even need rack rail on the back 2x4's...I can't tell exactly, but it looks like any shelves or custom rack mounts only attach to the front rails.

Would having the rack rails attached to 2x4's be strong enough to hold my compenents?

here is ours, each shelf has a turntable mounted to it so the component will turn for access.

One of my favorite features of McCall's is that white thing in the foreground!

i was actually planning to do exacatly that. i just put a raxess swivel rack together for a client, and it had two extra rails in it. all i have to do is remove my old makeshift rack, and put this in. of course i will need the shelves at $30 each, but it would be worth it for the difference in the look.

i love yw84u's rack, but i don't have that kind of patience in my own home. i could do it for a customer, but between my wife, and two daughters under 5, i can barely find time to read this forum.

Thanks for the kinds words everyone!

I finished off the rack faceplates this weekend. After some consideration, I opted not to make a vented panel for the bottom, although I had picked up some steel mesh in anticipation.

Here is the final product:





I still may make a vented panel later on down the road, but I think I'll see what the temps and airflow are like for now. I thought just a blank panel left it 'cleaner' looking . I left the bottom one about 5" wide, although I think it may have looked a little better if I had broken up the space with two panels perhaps.

All in all, it took a little more work, but I think the process was fun and rewarding!

Cheers,

Tom, that is awesome work. I'm in the construction phase right now, but want something similar (love the clean lines) for my rack. If you ever need a place to stay in Minneapolis and feel like making some face plate while here, just let me know

Nice job!

What is everyone's thoughts on buying just the faceplates of the Middle Atlantic shelves? I do not have the tools or experience, nor do I trust myself fully to even make those cuts like YW84U has. I'm not even sure where I would get the aluminum unless Home Depot or Lowes has it. I am still very interested in this because even buying the plates @ $58 each for my 7 components ($406) would still be cheaper than the whole setup (slim rack and custom shelves) being over $1000. I would still be saving about $600 here...so what are people thoughts on building your own shelving/rack like mentioned in this thread, but buying the customs plates already made? Would they be able to attached in the same way?

That is kind of what I have been wondering...I know that between buying the rack rails and face plates...I could achieve the same MA look and this can be done for much less $$ than a MA Slim 5 rack. What I'm not sure about is the actual strength of a wood DIY rack when using rack rails and face plates. If I'm not mistaken, the MA face plates hold your equipment up by only attaching to the front rails (basically cantilevering them in place), I wonder how a 50 pound receiver will sit on a shelf or face plate attached to a rack rail that is essentially just bolted to a 2x4. The MA racks have 4 posts and are made out of metal...I'm sure this offes some weight bearing strength that racks bolted to 2x4's do not...maybe it's not that big of a deal.

A metal shelf does the cantilevering, with the faceplate acting solely as a cover.

As an opening, I'd naturally double up the 2x4" stud. It'll strengthen the opening, and offer a wide surface to nail trimwork to.

There's no reason just buying the faceplates won't work, with a shelf structure. The faceplates could even be secured by wood screws if there's a wood backer. The tricky part is making sure all gear resides at the correct height for the MA faceplate.

Another reason I was looking to do it this way too was that I would not have to knock out a wall and move a stud over to accomodate the MA Slim 5 rack. I have enough room between the studs as is to fit the widest components I have. I would be able to just cut the sheetrock to have just the components come though and just have to screw the faceplates to the studs/drywall anchors (if need be) and then just put a simple/small wood frame around it. Is there a reason why screwing the plate into drywall anchors if a stud isn't available wouldn't work? The plates can't weight too much I wouldn't think....just a thought. Like I said, I am looking to avoid having to knockout the whole wall to move/add studs.

Just another question: What brand rack rails did you guys use to hold up the components? I just want to make sure it will hold the weight of the receiver individually (41 pounds) and the weight of the all componets together.

Not sure what brand everyone uses for Rack Rails, but here is a place where you can order MA rack rails...
http://www.milestek.com/search1.asp?...C&color=4F438B

You can also order rack rails from here... http://www.zzounds.com/item--RAXRKRL

Not MA brand, but I believe they are suppose to be standard.

This is a good article on using rack rails.

http://www.avrev.com/equip/rackmounting/index.html

YW84U,

Outstanding work on the Av cabinet! Did you have the metal shop cut the aluminum to the proper width or did you do it yourself?

Hope you don't mind but I am going to borrow (read: steal) your idea for my AV cabinet. Plan to sit it back about a 2.0 - 2.5 inches though from the face of the drywall to account for a frosted glass door that I plan on installing. Due to layout constraints my AV cabinet is in the front of the room and I don't want to see the lights when the movie is going on.

Good heavens - steal away!!! That's the reason I posted, to at least make myself feel better about all of the other ideas I've 'gleaned' from AVS'ers!! . I think I owe a lot more if I'm ever to break even!

I had some PM's in regards to the shelf brackets, and thought I'd share it here as well -

I found one of the brackets I didn't install, and luckily the tag was still on it:





I think the manufacturer is "IKV", but Google turned up nothing of value....I tried the SKU number - also to no avail. I imagine HD or Lowes should have something comparable. I have no idea what the max load may be, but they sure seem darn strong for what they are!

I'd never realized where they were manufactured before - cool! Now I can say that my rack was made in "Italy"........

When using these brackets, I should also mention that once the equipment is on the shelf, they will 'tip' forwards about 1/32 of an inch, as the weight will sit a little forward of the actual bracket and there is a little play. The double tangs do prevent any movement once the component is in place and there is nothing to fret over.

Driving_Hamster - The sheet metal comes in panels 4 feet by 8 feet - Metals Supermarkets will sell pieces 4 ft wide by whatever - so I just grabbed a 4 ft x 2 ft chunk, and cut the panels down to 19" with some leftovers. With a jigsaw, it is not very hard to slice them up on my own. They did offer to cut them for me free, but I didn't take them up on it.

Tedd makes a great point - one could use the MA faces, but I think it would be very hard to get them to line up. You would likely have to put some components on blocks to line up with the face and/or have to fashion up slim 'filler' faceplates to go between what doesn't fit. That's why in my case I worked from top-down, to allow for the variances in my spacings. I know at some point I'll upgrade something, but whenever that is, I'll remove the affected component, create another blank and cutout the new profile. I'm hoping I've left enough room between shelves to accommodate most common sizes

As for the vented panels - here is the steel mesh I picked up originally for the vented design:



I'm still happy with the clean look of the blank panels. Maybe I'll save it for some other project

Cheers,

Tom

I'm new to this site and have been looking around at all the GREAT ideas people have on here. I'm in the planning stages of my own HT room and this forum has some pretty serious fanatics. With that being said, I have to say that this is a VERY nice looking AV rack Tom. I would never have been able to tell it apart from a 'store bought'. I believe I will try to 'borrow' from your design myself. Great Job!!

Btw, I searched your KV shelves. I found them here if anyone is interested.

Mike

*Edit*

Apparently I need to have 3 posts to add a URL... two more to come

Post # 2 coming up.

Post # 3... Damn spammers, This is silly.

And finally, here is the link guys:

http://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Shelf-Br...396570&sr=1-17

Sorry for all the posts.

Link doesn't seem to want to work. Here is the description off of Amazon.

KV Heavy Duty Shelf Bracket Decorative 12 1/2" White
(just google it)

Tom,

I used your idea for the panels, and I will tell you it really changes the look for the A/V Rack. I will try and post some pictures of my rack tonight with the panels. I was working frantically on them this week. I was hosting a HT meet this last Sunday and wanted to have them done for the party. Definitely time consuming!

One of the panels that I made for my receiver has a vent panel above it. I ended up using screen mesh since I couldn't find a small hole steel panel like you have pictured above. I was able to attach the mesh on the back and then I spray painted it while painting the panel. I think it turned out half way decent. My Onkyo Receiver gets pretty hot so I wanted to make sure I had an opening on both sides of the rack.

Again, Thanks for the idea!
Cheers,
JJ

I’ve ordered a few rack fames yesterday for next-day delivery oh, well it hasn’t turned up yet maybe tomorrow.

x2 24U frame for 19” rack mounting along with a few bags of nuts washers and plastic washers for rack isolation and screws. What I hope to achieve is to build with timbre framing as the support then cover it with a thin layer of MDF sheeting around this area that I have marked out in the image, shouldn’t take more than a day and bit, because the rack farming needs to be precise for framing. I’ll also order at a later date rack tracks to place.

Pioneer laserdisc player CLD-1750 and CLD-2950 also additional rack trays for Sony DVD player Pioneer DVD player and Cello DVD-RW player and recorder.

There should be room to support Kenwood KRF-X9050D THX select with additional Dolby decoding processing Yamaha DSR-70Pro and Yamaha DSP-100

DCX2496 loudspeaker management crossover system at least three will be installed by the end of installation, while only one is being used at present time.

DEQ2496 multiplex of x5 will be packed into the rack if I feel the need to remove one or two items from the rack when installing the equipment, as this is my first time using professional rack mounting techniques but I catch on fast.

AVR is mealy used as decider to support Dolby digital dts and additional inputs and outputs to laserdisc and DVD.
Whilst placed in bedroom will house the amplifiers Alesis RA300 two are now in present use while I need x4 more and x1 Alesis RA500 this isn’t all going to happen over-night this is going to take months of building it together.



If you care to notice that there is a chimney breast in the room so the rest of the wall will be sorted, not a huge issue just minor cosmetic design to make it look as if its all one sidewall in the end, hopefully.


Oh, there's just one other thing.

I forget to mention you see the computer, well there is a power mains point behind it. Also I’ll drill into the wall or lower skirting board which is only about 5” rule of thumb. I’ll then place plastic pipe in the various holes cut to size, then I can feed the cables from the DCX2496 though the hole to the Alesis RA300-RA500 on the other side with loudspeaker cable coming though a different hole in bundles then tracking-off into different locations around the room.

Something like 300 feet that I have calculated for the 15 feet length room by 10 feet around the width area, this will all be hidden in cable trunking placed around the room with easy to get to means.

Cable for LF and HF LCR fronts
Cable for sub bass extension
Cable for LFE.1 only!
Cable for sidewall surround arrays
Cable for rear back surround arrays
Cable for matrix height surround arrays

And that’s that.

The company that made the shelf brackets is Knape & Vogt. http://www.knapeandvogt.com/ They make a wide variety of millwork and shelving items but do not sell direct. I think those or similar brackets are available at Home Depot and Lowes. I know lots of cabinet supply houses sell them also.

And no offense to anyone else, as all the racks here are good, but Tom, yours is the nicest looking DIY rack I have ever seen.

For mine, I started with spaghetti:



I used split loom tubing (automotive store), running the outside perimeter of the rack This way, I could loom the wires from one shelf to the next inside the tube, and direct them out to whichever shelf I liked. I combined both the power cables and some of the input feeds (except optical):



I started along the bottom, secured it to the lowest shelf with zip ties or cable mount clips, and then ran it up one side of the rack.



This way, everything is relatively tidy, and can be removed/changed if necessary. Perhaps this is not as grandiose as some of the commercial solutions, but I figured for about $20 and a day's effort, it just makes things a little nicer to work with.

I used heat shrink tubing for some of the cable ends to finish the split loom in some places - here's a pic of the wall plate terminations (I used $0.99 banana plugs with heat shrink tube and a dyno label, and heat shrink to cover the exposed copper speaker wire as well):



And a shot of the rear of the components that kind of show where my cables go



By no means a commercial cable management system, but I've only monkeyed with one cable in there over the last year, so for me it's been effective. As for looks, I never go back there much (neither do guests, really), so it's not an issue

Hope that helps!

I have a converted 2 post computer rack installed in an av closet. I bought open slot wiring duct to use for cabling. I bought three 6' runs to separate the 120v power chords in one, and the rest of the cabling in two other wiring ducts.

http://cableorganizer.com/wire-duct/

YW84U,

That is an awesome job ! I don't think I have that talent, but you have inspired me to do something creative.

How wide did you make your opening in the front? The panel edges are very well proportioned.

The opening is a standard 19 inches (from moulding edge to moulding edge), with 3/4 inch of reveal in behind to allow for the screws. I based it on the original premise I would use computer rack panels / blanks - before I threw caution to the wind and opted to make my own

Cheers,