When I moved at the beginning of this year, I treated myself with an 8U movable rack and whilst a lot of my devices already had predefined places to go in the rack, my Raspberry Pi stayed offline for almost three-quarter of a year. Basically, just because I didn’t know how to integrate it proper, so it won’t slip around when I move the rack or something inside.
But then a friend who just recently joined the game of 3D printing send me a link on Thingiverse. Someone invented multiple different versions of a modular rackmount for 19” racks. Self-printable. And I knew I had to do that. You can also buy premanufactured ones on Amazon; they mostly come with extension kits and make the integration way easier. But what’s the fun on this one!?
Russross, the author and creator of the rackmount design on Thingiverse (find the thing HERE: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4125055 ) provides the full stack of stl-files needed, together with a detailed description on assembly and other needed materials.
But first things first: The printing parts are kinda basic from the way they are designed, so not many adjustments need to be done to the printer. I used basic black PLA and tried a few different heating and speed settings until I found the right ones for my Prusa MK2. But this might be a thing because the printer is already quite old and sometimes the old lady acts up a little. For the holes in the frames, I used support structures to avoid collapsing while printing what would lead to uneven holes.
Bending due to wrong printing settings
Layershifting, again due to wrong settings
The additionally needed parts can be purchased almost in every hardware store or at the online shop of your trust. I bought one long threaded rod instead of two ones that are already on the right length. One tip about this: if you must cut the rod with a saw, it is likely that the thread might get damaged at some point what in my case made a recutting of the thread necessary. If you don’t have the tools to cut a thread, you might want to avoid this by measuring the total length of your print, including the ends for the hex nuts, and get two rods directly manufactured or professionally cut to your needed length. Second tip here: keep the hex nuts as small as possible to ensure you don’t get in conflict with the cage nuts at rack-installation.
Damages from uncarefull sawing at the threaded rod
When I had all parts together, my next challenge was to get the support structures out of the holes where the rods needed to go. Sounds easy. Isn’t that much. The holes are about M5 what means: not big enough to grab stuff inside with a pliers and then hold onto it and pull it loose by force. Here, I got a little lucky: the holes are not exactly M5 as Russross designed it on US-metrics, so I had to drill them out a little bit anyways. This way I was also able to remove the support structures. Just be careful when drilling to ensure the holes don’t become uneven.
Assembling it all together can be a little clamping. In case of doubt, emery polishing is your friend, especially when it comes to the trays. If you do it exactly right, assemble the PoE shields, mentioned in the description on Thingiverse, directly to the Raspberry Pi. You definitely need them if you want to equip every slot in the mount. I personally still need to buy the shields because I also need to buy a PoE injector and stuff like this to make it work, so I have cables plugged in to the side what ends up blocking the trays of course. (You can see the power cable running over the top of the Pi for now, clumsy temporary solution).
(yes, it is dusty, what do you want from me...)
The rackmount is design for Pi4B but I was able to fit in a 3B on the very left slot as well and so far I can not complain.
Powercables running on top temporarly
And that’s it. All the Raspberry Pi boards nicely and clean mounted to my rack. With a few of the adjustments I had to make it might not be an entry level project but if you have basic experiences in DIY, there shouldn’t be big problems occurring.
Now, all I need is the money to optimize it and add the remaining 3 Raspberrys for a little test cluster.
