Material Choice for rig building...

D

Digital Viper-X-

[H]F Junkie
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Dec 9, 2000
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in the interest of fire safety , what material is better, Wood or plastic?

Now on face value i'd say plastic, but I've been told by many people pine has an ignition point around 150degrees Celsius where many plastics are lower than that.

I'm sure Metal is the best in the end but I don't really have tools for cutting metal :)
 
Steel racks with just something non conductive under the boards is probably best but I have a big wooden rack because I was able to build it easily exactly how I wanted.

Milk crates are the dumbest thing imaginable. They restrict airflow way too much
 
Thanks, I had mine in a milk crate which was "holey" (not your standard fair milk crates) but not enough room for Watercooling 3 cards and rads, so I've moved to a wooden rig, just looking for other options, but it seems like wood is fine :)
 
the motherboards dont get hot at all. My video cards are all hanging and I have extra smoke detectors
 
mkrohn said:
Milk crates are the dumbest thing imaginable. They restrict airflow way too much
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I thought that too and then I decided to build one for the hell of it out of the sterilite storage crates. With a 1.5" piece of pine as a card mount and some jigsawing of the crate, I can fit 6 cards with a good 3+ inches of spacing and have everything contained in the crate to allow moving easily. Kinda wish I did more this way after making the 8 foot wood rack I have.
 
mkrohn said:
Milk crates are the dumbest thing imaginable. They restrict airflow way too much
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Not true. I imagine a case made of Jell-o would restrict air flow way more, and in my opinion, be way dumber.
 
The problem with aluminum quick frames is the price and cutting them. They usually hit the $80 mark from my pricing. I find wood to be cheaper and easier to cut/drill. This is a good wooden frame that cost probably $25 or less to build.
 
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edge929 said:
The problem with aluminum quick frames is the price and cutting them. They usually hit the $80 mark from my pricing. I find wood to be cheaper and easier to cut/drill. This is a good wooden frame that cost probably $25 or less to build.
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That's setup for only having 1 rig :) the great part of wood is easily being able to build something to handle ALL of your rigs
 
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I purchased 8 foot strips of 2x2 for $1.89 each, that made my cost of building wood crates at about $5.00 each. Wood is easy to work with, all you need is a circular saw, some 3inch screws, and 15 minutes of time. I was able to build little mount points to hold stuff in place as well. The airflow is perfect, I kept it open and vented. I will post some pictures later today.
 
wirerogue said:
here's mine that i built with quickframe. i started with 4 gpu's and the psu inside the frame. then i went to 6 gpu, added a second psu and moved both psu outside the frame. the second psu is hanging off the other end.
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How much did that cost ya?
 
wirerogue said:
here's mine that i built with quickframe. i started with 4 gpu's and the psu inside the frame. then i went to 6 gpu, added a second psu and moved both psu outside the frame. the second psu is hanging off the other end.
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Do you have any other pictures at different angles? Curious which of the parts you used and what the approximate cost was, as it looks pretty slick.
 
What's the next alternative besides assembly?

Apparently my hands can't hold a tool steady since going on chemo treatments. My joints ache more lately than normally, especially in my right hand-- my primary hand..
 
octoberasian said:
What's the next alternative besides assembly?

Apparently my hands can't hold a tool steady since going on chemo treatments. My joints ache more lately than normally, especially in my right hand-- my primary hand..
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there's a guy on here that makes some nice aluminium racks pre drilled and easy to put together. Another alternative is just buy reference coolers and not ever bother with risers.
 
octoberasian said:
What's the next alternative besides assembly?

Apparently my hands can't hold a tool steady since going on chemo treatments. My joints ache more lately than normally, especially in my right hand-- my primary hand..
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Some pretty good cases that are near assembled on ebay for 50-60 shipped.
 
atp1916 said:
Sterellite crates like these don't. $4 a pop. Tough to beat.
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since when does cheapest mean best? If you plan on doing any decent sized operation just do something right and don't bother with ghetto crap like this
 
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I have several of these on my workbench in the basement. I can get 2-3 rigs per unit on them and they are available from Wal-Mart for $20 each. The next rigs I build will have to be on one of free standing units though, I've run outta room on my workbench in the basement.
 
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mkrohn said:
since when does cheapest mean best? If you plan on doing any decent sized operation just do something right and don't bother with ghetto crap like this
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Why are you hating the crates so much? If done right, doesn't look ghetto at all and you still get all the benefits of spacing and containment.
 
oblox said:
Why are you hating the crates so much? If done right, doesn't look ghetto at all and you still get all the benefits of spacing and containment.
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I spent about the same on my wood rack as it would for crates on the kind of scale I'm doing. Like I said if you're doing any decent sized operation just do it right. Can your crates safely go 8ft up?

I have enough room for the blower on top to exhaust everything out a dryer vent.
 
$6 Wood Case :)

I have built three of these in different dimensions, this one is the best IMO. On a side note, LOWE's wood sucks.

Sorry about the crappy pictures, they are from my phone.

You can pretty much do any dimensions you like, I liked to do 33long, 12width(2" overhang for the video card mount), 12height.

b2nu.jpg


2ws6.jpg


dgz2.jpg


57fk.jpg
 
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96redformula said:
The first wood case I did, I just guessed dimensions as I went :D.
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Nice! So the support for the video cards is just screwing them to the top horizontal piece and let the bottom of the bracket rest against the bottom one? That should work. Figure you could always do some kind of strap across the bottom if you were paranoid and needed it to be more secure.

The new 33" wide one. Is that for two systems?
 
mkrohn said:
since when does cheapest mean best? If you plan on doing any decent sized operation just do something right and don't bother with ghetto crap like this
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I bet i have more rigs than you...and i don't have any problems with these crates.

These crates are cheap, compact, and modular. They will fit 5-6 cards just as easily as the designer chasis out there.

Don't knock crates. You sound like a noob.
 
I personally did a milk crate, cut it to specs that I need and removed parts I didn't that may prevent some airflow. Second, is I used sheet metal in the bottom and tapped my own holes to make a motherboard tray. Working great with 4 gpus at 70-75C :)
 
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