DIY Home Network Rack – the Lack Rack - EU-Vietnam Business Network (EVBN)

I’ve got an abundance of equipment in my home office/lab. I’d been contemplating doing a rack setup for a while but all of the options I was looking at were above budget for what I wanted to spend. Also, while I liked the idea of the functionality of a rack I wasn’t too keen on how a tower of metal would go with the décor. Then I stumbled across the “Lack Rack.”

Here’s what I used: (All in it was about $110.)

Depending on how many tiers you want to do you can adjust the number of tables. Remember you’ll need one extra for the base.

The Plan:

There’s the expression, “Measure twice, cut once.” With me it’s more like measure 4 times. Measure the components you plan to include, adding in room for the rack shelves as well.

the original design plan.

Assembly:

Secure the casters to the bottom of one of the tabletops. Casters should be about 3/4 inch from the corners. Center them over where the mounting holes for the legs are.

For the lowest level, I used the full length of the table legs. So just build the table as per the instructions (screw in the legs).

Next, start stacking. I used a little bit of Gorilla glue on the bottom of the legs and attached it to the wheeled base. 4 steel braces were also used to secure the legs to the base.

The next set of legs are going to be cut shorter. Wrapping the area where you’re cutting with painters tape helps the edges from getting brittle. Power saw is probably easier but in this case a hack saw sufficed.

Add the shortened legs to the next top. Attach the short table to the previous level with steel braces. Note due to the legs being hollow at the bottom there is no glue securing the upper tiers.

Secure the metal rack shelves to the legs of below the table tops. You’ll want to keep them pretty close to the top as only about the top 2″ of the legs are solid to drill into.

Stack and secure.

Add another table stack to the top and it’s all done.

Here it is all loaded up. There’s a lot of space to add components still. There’s a switch on one of the shelves between the tiers. Also, though not currently utilized as such, all the shelves can support full 19″ network/rack hardware so as resources grow, I’ll have plenty of room to accommodate.