Computer Rack Ideas

[ARKeller]

Just want to start out that I am somewhat new here. I have following you all since I bought my new house in July. I am soooo glad I discovered you all, you all have been a great source of knowledge.

Here is my issue, I have a 3 car garage and two of them are mine. As long as the wife can park the minivan (er manvan) in the their she does not care. About a month ago my company was going to throw away a computer rack because they did not need it any more. Well I took it and 10 power strips to my garage. Well I am trying to figure out what best I can use it for. I spend my time doing wood working and rebuilding motorcycles. Thanks to you all, I know how to layout my garage and what tools I need. Just what can I do with this? I can use it for shelving since I can access it from both sides and it does lock. Ideas please.

 

[Mattlt]

I have two that I used to hold steel pieces. One with shelves to hold shorter pieces and the other open to hold longer pieces (vertically). The space between the two could hold even longer pieces.

 

[daveroy]

Too be totally honest... craigslist or ebay... then use the money to buy stuff!

 

[ket-tek]

Too be totally honest... craigslist or ebay... then use the money to buy stuff!

Really not a bad idea to try first, these are a couple grand new and may net you a few hundred bucks used.

 

[gc11090]

Put some slide out shelves in it, you could hold tons of stuff in there

 

[ARKeller]

I thought about selling it, but I figured I could find some use out of it some how. I will agree they are not cheap and could get some money for it. I want to expolore someother options first before going down that route.

 

[Falcon67]

That's an easy $2K worth of relay rack. I'd start buying heavy duty drawer glides from HD or Lowes and start building various sized drawers. Since it locks, you could store all kinds of stuff in there. As long as you use the existing rack mount holes, you can always strip it down and resell.

 

[babzog]

Maybe your company will get rid of some rackmount servers as well? Then you can rack in all of your hubs and switches, media and storage servers for your home network. I'd love a rack like that to get my wiring and server area under the basement stairs cleaned up. I need a second 24 port patch panel and switch to complete the home wired network.

 

[ihredo4]

What about putting your cordless power tools inside? You could have a separate shelf for each tool. And have the charger for that tool on the same shelf.

 

[stilinsm]

I got one ... use it to store all of the kids sports equipement... balls bats gloves..

 

[mrb]

try to find a good deal on a whole bunch of rackmount drawers

 

[rwhite692]

The perforated metal doors found on most server racks can be real handy. I used one that I picked up for $10 to quickly fab up a belt guard for a 250 gallon air compressor I built from scrounged parts:

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42474

 

[AgentZ]

THose are HP rack enclosures arent they? $$$ I see you have some rail kits as well. They can take a lot weight on them. It seems there is still some kit in there, what extras did you score? Also you may find there is a power dist. boards down one side (the side the drawers dont open out to). That is a bit of money there as well!

 

[ADaughen]

THose are HP rack enclosures arent they? $$$ I see you have some rail kits as well. They can take a lot weight on them. It seems there is still some kit in there, what extras did you score? Also you may find there is a power dist. boards down one side (the side the drawers dont open out to). That is a bit of money there as well!

Yeah, from what I can see, he has $2000-3000 rack and he wants to re-purpose it.

If it was a junky one, I would say go ahead, turn it into a locking cabinet for parts. Shelves are easy to build for them and a 96U gives you plenty of spacing options. But in a good condition... I could find a lot better uses for $2000.

I bought a repossessed server rack for $250 (not as nice as that and didn't have anything inside), I have had offers up to $800 for it, but I keep a bunch of PCs in it.

 

[Keep]

Would you ship one of those KVM switches to Ontario?

Sell the rack, I would love to get my hands on one, the little 24u 2 post I have is about full!

 

[kbs2244]

I like that belt guard.

Those racks are real heavy duty.
But I doubt you can sell them for much.
They are pretty common on craigslist.

I vote for the HD sliding shelf idea.

 

[mdbeck1]

One of the IT guys at work had one and ended up just giving it away. I was first in line. Right now it's just holding some old PC's and odds and ends from around my shop. If it's one of the deep ones you might get a nice chunk of money for it.

Anyway. If you don't sell it I'd make some shelves attached to those CPU slides and make some slide out storage for different stuff. the slides will make it a whole lot easier to get to stuff.

You might want to put your shop stereo and/or TV in the top bay.

 

[Grigg]

A little different kind of electronics rack, but here's what a few of them turned into:

Found just the 3" aluminum channel on craiglsist for something like $5 per seven foot length.

Grigg

 

[Falcon67]

I need a second 24 port patch panel and switch to complete the home wired network.

You got a heck of a home net if you're working on a second patch panel. I have whole building closets with less.

 

[babzog]

You got a heck of a home net if you're working on a second patch panel. I have whole building closets with less.

Not all ports are used at once, obviously, but there's one port in the the MBR, one in my son's room, two in my daughter's room (was my office when I bought the house), kitchen (1 - currently used for the wireless router, gives me the best coverage across the house), living room (2), 14 in the new office (made sure it was well wired for whatever I need), buried line to the shop for net (1) and phone. I need 2 more ports in the living room - two for the kid's computer which I'll be setting up soon-ish (and a network printer in the same location) and possibly a third for the entertainment center - everything is network connected these days! Haven't got the wire into the basement yet - need at least three drops down there - bedroom, woodstove area and entertainment center.

Given how I ran the wires originally, two were placed for expansion in the former office but, while those plans are long changed, the wires at the wiring center are still in place and are either cut to fit (that one was accidental - it was supposed to have remained coiled up and untouched) a currently vacant spot on the panel or are actually punched down and are just waiting for a jack in the room. I'll probably re-purpose those for two of the basement drops. So, I'll need to run three more wires in total, requiring a new patch panel to complete it.. probably just get a 12 port panel to finish it off.

 

[ADaughen]

babzog, I have two extra 18 port(? - I'll have to verify when I get home) patch panels I bought a lot of 5 off ebay a few years ago and split the purchase with a co-worker. IIRC, it was $30 shipped for all five. LMK if you still need one.

 

[tool whore]

I have to go with the IT guys on here. It seems you have a new cadillac that was gifted to you by your employer (yeah, I know...) but you want to cut the back half off of it and weld on a tongue and use it as a firewood hauler. It would make a nice one.

For the money you could get on the black market (anyone use black market anymore?) you could easily sell it and buy yourself one of those new HF toolboxes. Easily! Also, you would be re-purposing it. If you break it and decide to throw it out, what do you have? I agree they are in the multi-k prices when new, but I doubt you'll get that used. I do think you could swing $500 though. The slide kits are heinous **** when it comes to pricing. Think about the cadillac though.

 

[JC23]

rwhite,

Nice setup! How do you keep it from scooting about with those wheels on it?

 

[willy3486]

I would suggest to sale it as well,It may bring in enough to buy a ready made used cabinet and put some in the bank.That is if where you work at would not frown at you doing that. Ifyou fix it up you have a lot of options. There are rails you can get,which are just sliding rails like on a drawer. The other option is rack mount trays. Thats just a tray that mounts in a cabinet like this to hold monitors or other stuff. You could also make our own stuff by engineering something . You can do a search on the internet for "surplus computer rails" and see what pops up. One thing to look for is the UPS rackmount power supplies. I have worked with people and they don't use the rails that come with them. The rails bolt right in a cabinet and you could make a drawer for them. I work on computers so from time to time I snag stuff. I got a metal printer stand that was a box with wheels. I made sides,back, and shelves for it. Its now about 6 feet tall and I store tools in it. I snagged a really nice copier cart. it had two shelves under it with a closing door. It was a perfect size to put my scroll saw on. I like to find stuff like this and then figure new ways to use it. Do a search on ebay as well. Check this place out. I saw one used for about 800. http://www.computerstructures.com/used_cabinets.htm