1U P4 Systems

[Robert G. Brown]

> >On Tue, 22 May 2001, Bari Ari wrote:
> >
> >> You can have sheet metal 1U enclosures with CNC mounting holes made to
> >> order with aluminum front panels for under $100 US in low volume(100
> >> pcs.). If you are willing to drill your own mounting holes you can get
> >> off the shelf 1U enclosures for around $50 quan. 1.

On Tue, 22 May 2001, Jim Lux wrote:

> For the large number of odd shaped holes you'd need (power supply and fan
> cutouts, etc.), I suspect that the CNC sheet metal fabricator will be  more
> cost effective.  It's not just the drill press you need, you also need the
> punches, etc.  About $10K would set you up with the necessary tooling.  Of
> course, if you have access to the necessary machines, the actual dies for
> the punch are fairly inexpensive.  There would be, of course, the labor
> cost, but for those on a low $$ budget, often they have free-ish labor.
>
> I've been this route a number of times, and what's fairly straightforward to
> do 1 or 2 times, gets real tedious and timeconsuming when you have to do it
> 100 times.  It's one thing to spend a day marking and cutting one chassis.
> It's another to spend 4 months doing 100.

Ah.  I may have misunderstood.  I interpreted "off the shelf 1U
enclosures" to mean equipped with a power supply and compartmentalized
for installation, just like an off the shelf case or the $200 off the
shelf 1U enclosure sold by case vendors.  I also interpreted the
"mounting holes" to be just the rack mounting holes, not all the holes
into which things are to be fastened in the completely empty case.

With that much hassle I might as well go with a filing cabinet design or
buy off the shelf tower cases, take them apart, and remount the
motherboard tray, drive cage, and power supply on shelving.

My main whine is that one shouldn't have to do all this handiwork to
build systems in racks when it is so much easier to do it in an assembly
line.  Case vendor margins on rackmount cases must be huge, because I
cannot believe that there is THAT much economy of scale in the
manufacturing process.

I'll shut up now and just live with it.

   rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu