Custom Closet Gear Rack (1 Viewer)

[Chris Hovanic]

Well after a long time of wanting and planing I almost have my gear rack built. The only thing left to do is band the edges of the shelves, figure out the cooling fans and work on cable management some more.

Here are some before pics

Here are the after pics

The 3 cooling fans are 110v. I thought they were going to work out nicely because they were pretty quiet in their original plastic holder. But once I mated them to the shelf material their sound doubled. Even with the colset door closed I can still hear them running.

My plan is to install an ibutton or 2 to measure the temp. and trun on fans via X10 based on the tempture. But I am going to have to figure out how to isolate them first to cut down on the noise.

I also need to tweak my MX-600 RF reciever to control all the gear. Im hoping I will not have to run emitters to each piece of equipment.

All in all I am quite happy with the project. The full pull out shelves sure does make it nice setting up and tweaking the gear.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Nice job!

For the cooling fan noise... I'm not sure how they're attached but you might want to look for some sort of rubber washers or gasket to isolate the contact between the melamine and the fans.

I'm still trying to figure out where to put my gear when I do finally get started on my new HT.

 

[BlakeN]

Rubber grommets work great as well. What size of fan did you use? They look like 120mm and the blades look like Comair Rotrons. You could probably decrease the RPMs of the fan by half and still cool your equipment but building an AC power controller isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

You might want to think about switching to DC just because there are plenty of companies making quite DC fans for the computer market. You could easily power all 3 by buying a 1 amp 12v wall wart and cutting the end off. If you do go the DC route make sure you're buying fans with ball barings not sleaves.

 

[Chris Hovanic]

As luck would have it... While talking to my dad the electriction. He happend to have a rheostat (sp?) all wired up and ready to plug in. Im going to plug that in and see how 1/2 speed will do.

I also came across some wire managment arms for a server rack that I am going to atempt to make work. I think I have enough room behind the equipment to install one at each shelf.

Stay tuned for more pictures

 

[BlakeN]

Hmm will a rheostat work for AC? I don't know a lot about how controlling AC power works. You could also try ceiling fan controller that should work.

 

[Parker Clack]

Chris:

Nice setup. The way that you have it made you can enjoy upgraditis without a big hassle with equipment change out.

As far as putting a rheostat on an AC motor I don't believe you can. I know you can't put a dimmer on an AC ceiling fan without burning it up and I am pretty sure that would apply to any type of motor. I would ask your dad what he would recommend doing.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Parker

 

[tokmik]

It depends on the type of AC motor. If you use a rheostat to reduce the voltage, the amperage will increase, causing heat that needs to be dissipated. Ensure that the rheostat can handle the amperage, but know also that the motor will run hotter at lower voltages for the same load. As was stated above, the torque will diminish as speed drops off.

Controlling the frequency of the voltage is a much better way to control rpm. Little torque is lost and speeds can run from 0% rpm to over 150% rpm, depending on the converter you use.