Progress report
So, my rack rails FINALLY arrived yesterday. So today, when I took a break from studying, I went to our local OBI (think Lowe's or Home Depot) to pick up some mounting hardware and have them cut some particle boards for me to use as top and bottom pieces.
These are the first racks I'm building, so my first attempt to build them ground-up failed when I stuck about 80lbs of Smart-UPS into it and tried to move it to its future home.
Attempt 2, building the rack the other way round (attaching the upper piece to the underside of the work surface, then installing the spacers and rack rails, then lastly installing the bottom piece with its legs) works significantly better.
So now, the first Rack is finished (apart from side-panels and some covers on the front which still need to be made), the UPSs are installed and "Engineering", my Linux-PC sits atop the UPSs. There still are I think 5HU free above "Engineering", but I will fill them up later. That will be a separate project.
The next rack I will be building is going to be the power-rack, followed by the network-rack. As I have noticed, my servers won't fit into the network rack (they are mid-tower boxes), so I will be building a little shelf next to the network-rack that will house the servers and something along the lines of a good-looking LCD panel above each server.
Before I can proceed with building the video gear rack for my brother, I will need to go to OBI again and get another board cut. But that's alright, since they didn't have enough angled spacers and legs available for the racks anyway. So I will go there again on Tuesday evening, after my last exams for this exam period.
I also still need to do some wiring, the LED strips still need to be connected, the rack rails still need to be connected to PE, and things like that.
I expect the remaining switches, DIN-Rails and connectors for the switch panel that goes above the already finished indicator panel within the power rack to arrive on Tuesday. So on Tuesday evening, I will also be making the layout for that. That way, I can throw it onto the CNC on Wednesday and wire & install it on Wednesday and Thursday night. If all goes as I plan, power-up of the panel and the room will be on Thursday night, with the servers and network functions being transferred to the room next weekend. At the moment, the Servers, Switch and DSL-Modem "reside" up in the attic, along with their power distributor; a solution I am unhappy with since we recently caught a mouse up there (a real one; not the desktop-rodent).
I am still undecided about the layout of my workstation. Right now, I will be sitting in front of three monitors, with "Engineering" being on the left hand side and "XPS710" (I have yet to think of a hostname for it) having the middle and right screen. The keyboard layout will be similar, "Engineering's" KB and mouse will be on the left, while the G15 Keyboard and Intuos3 tablet for "XPS710" are going to be on the right hand side... However, right now it feels pretty crammed. I probably won't be able to really decide until everything is finished and powered...
Pictures will be coming when the place is cleaned up a bit again.
These are the first racks I'm building, so my first attempt to build them ground-up failed when I stuck about 80lbs of Smart-UPS into it and tried to move it to its future home.
Attempt 2, building the rack the other way round (attaching the upper piece to the underside of the work surface, then installing the spacers and rack rails, then lastly installing the bottom piece with its legs) works significantly better.
So now, the first Rack is finished (apart from side-panels and some covers on the front which still need to be made), the UPSs are installed and "Engineering", my Linux-PC sits atop the UPSs. There still are I think 5HU free above "Engineering", but I will fill them up later. That will be a separate project.
The next rack I will be building is going to be the power-rack, followed by the network-rack. As I have noticed, my servers won't fit into the network rack (they are mid-tower boxes), so I will be building a little shelf next to the network-rack that will house the servers and something along the lines of a good-looking LCD panel above each server.
Before I can proceed with building the video gear rack for my brother, I will need to go to OBI again and get another board cut. But that's alright, since they didn't have enough angled spacers and legs available for the racks anyway. So I will go there again on Tuesday evening, after my last exams for this exam period.
I also still need to do some wiring, the LED strips still need to be connected, the rack rails still need to be connected to PE, and things like that.
I expect the remaining switches, DIN-Rails and connectors for the switch panel that goes above the already finished indicator panel within the power rack to arrive on Tuesday. So on Tuesday evening, I will also be making the layout for that. That way, I can throw it onto the CNC on Wednesday and wire & install it on Wednesday and Thursday night. If all goes as I plan, power-up of the panel and the room will be on Thursday night, with the servers and network functions being transferred to the room next weekend. At the moment, the Servers, Switch and DSL-Modem "reside" up in the attic, along with their power distributor; a solution I am unhappy with since we recently caught a mouse up there (a real one; not the desktop-rodent).
I am still undecided about the layout of my workstation. Right now, I will be sitting in front of three monitors, with "Engineering" being on the left hand side and "XPS710" (I have yet to think of a hostname for it) having the middle and right screen. The keyboard layout will be similar, "Engineering's" KB and mouse will be on the left, while the G15 Keyboard and Intuos3 tablet for "XPS710" are going to be on the right hand side... However, right now it feels pretty crammed. I probably won't be able to really decide until everything is finished and powered...
Pictures will be coming when the place is cleaned up a bit again.