Here’s a full write-up on the first year of my Home-Lab: https://piefed.social/post/1002037
Since then I’ve now added networking and a self built 10" rack, I was undecided between MikroTik and UniFi but ended up going UniFI and I’m quite happy.
Building the 2020 Aluminum profile 10" server rack was a lot of fun and I learnt a lot of lessons along the way like:
- Cutting perfectly straight with a hacksaw is a bitch and nearly impossible (or at least for me) would not recommend.
- Buy a table/mitre saw or have them pre-cut
- Tapping threads yourself is a lot of fun, and I would recommend doing it yourself, worked perfectly every time.
- Bolt length and head size matters, even 1mm matters (that’s what she said)
It’s janky I know, but I love it and it’s a lot less Janky than when everything was just on my desk
Next step for me would be to buy a 3D Printer (Sovol S6 Plus Ace) and print custom racks for everything
Shout out to https://www.motedis.com/ for the Aluminum parts, they can cut and tap all the parts to your desired length if you don’t want to bother with that, but that’s half the fun (and frustration)
Thats a beautiful rack
Good work man, that’s a nice setup. Loving the custom frame.
Hey, nice rack.
Thats awesome. And really tidy, ive only just started making something like this and it already looks like this:
tapping threads is fun
oh buddy you gotta put the disclaimer of “in soft materials” on that, it’s not much fun on steel even with buckets of lube
I disagree, not jank.
I have the same duck.
Nice job OP. Thanks for posting. I’m going to do the same.
Was eyeing a 52Pi rack for a good little while this post inspired me to get one, but then I saw the shipping cost.
Ooof that is rough!!
If you can make your own like I did I would highly recommend it.
If you have the Alu tubing cut and threaded for you most of the work is done
If you can make your own like I did I would highly recommend it.
Honestly I could, metal fabrication comes in handy, get it shop issued and laser or water cut send it through the machinists, I would have to supply the material myself which would be difficult but certainly doable.
I’ll have to consider this! By chance do you have drawings or dimensions of your rack as a starting point, looks like you’re using Aluminum HSS for the frame? Completely understandable if you rather not share the details,
I’m more than happy to share. If others didn’t share I wouldn’t have been able to do my hobby.
So basically I just kinda copied this:
https://www.darkrym.com/posts/2025/05/my-rack-setup-2020-extrusion-diy-mini-rack/The biggest difference is I used different corners, and I made mine a bit deeper (28cm total, so that it would fit a 30cm 3D printer bed)
Nice! I want to build a rack too but want to fit a regular ATX board to fit older / cheaper hardware. So it has to be at least 304mm wide, probably 400mm
Fully custom? Sick! Where do I get one? 😅
That’s pretty slick.
What are the HDDs plugged into? Would you mind posting some photos of the back?
Right now the back is literally empty, I’m planning on moving all the power cords there soon.
The HDDs are plugged into the ODROID H4+ (the thing that looks like a PSU)
Check my linked post and you’ll see what I’m talking about
i like how your hdds just chilling there.
A table saw is for lengthwise cuts, for cutting long things like these you need a cut-off saw.
Fun fact, you don’t really need to tap soft aluminium like this. You can just drive the bolt straight in with an impact driver. I thought it was sketch at first, having always tapped them beforehand. But my buddy said it’s a waste of time, just drive the bolts in right away. So I tried it and he was right, it works perfectly every time. They form perfect threads so you can easily remove and re-add the bolt just like when it was tapped beforehand.
I have enough of a machinist background to doubt the threads are anywhere close to perfect. However if you are saying more than good enough I will agree.
I’d think they would at least need to be self-tapping sheet metal screws but that an impact driver could surely strip the holes just as fast as it threads them.
Thought it was so much bigger until I saw thoss HDDs 😀
Here’s some things for scale
(AA Battery)dude i thought that thing was the size of a closet😭😭
It’s new 14" drives
Oh yeah, it’s on a table, not the floor
This is so fucking awesome! Congrats on the build!
It’s jankey I know
if this is jankey, my 10" rack belongs in the landfill
Do you have any interesting plans to do something against the future dust buildup?
