my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Digital Cinema Forum   » Supporting rack mount equipment (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Supporting rack mount equipment Bruce Cloutier Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Gibsonia, PA, USA Registered: Aug 2016 posted 03-02-2019 10:48 AM                        Geez. This thread is seriously causing me to rethink any interest in supplying rack-mountable product. Here I thought you all loved it. I wonder what exactly is the attraction then? I bet it is a short list. I get it that it all looks cool afterwards. There is the 1U/2U/3U 19" face size standardization. Not to mention that there probably isn't an alternative. But I am sensing that it is somewhat of a pain in the ass. And, even though it is somewhat of a standard it varies quiet a bit manufacturer to manufacturer. Great.  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 03-02-2019 11:30 AM                     Bruce, don't panic. Very few racks in cinema use the dreaded cage nuts and only Christies' pedestals don't follow the standard. 19" is the most common rack standard, IT server farms can use 19" (or at one time 21") and almost always use cage nuts. It's not the equipment that is the issue, it is the rack manufacturer's use of cage nuts (which are as horrible as everyone has said) instead of a standard rail pre-tapped for 10/32 screws. Speaking of that, even with oddball screw threads, the mounting holes on the equipment are always the same location and dimensions. So move forward on rack mount products, and don't sweat the rack manufacturer's stupidity.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-02-2019 11:47 AM                     Bruce, And be slick about your product. If you supply it in a rackmount case, think about having it on slides too so one can service by merely sliding it out and lifting the top off. Either that or bring your IO out to the rear of your rackcase (probably preferred as moving things need all cables sized to handle the equipment moving in/out). I don't see any bitching about rackmount stuff...just the caged nut method.  |  IP: Logged Bruce Cloutier Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Gibsonia, PA, USA Registered: Aug 2016 posted 03-02-2019 01:23 PM                        quote: Steve Guttag And be slick about your product. If you supply it in a rackmount case, think about having it on slides too so one can service by merely sliding it out and lifting the top off. Okay, off-topic, but yeah... I've struggled with access to the rear and the ease (or rather difficulty) one would have with adding I/O connections. So Steve, exactly, I have been contemplating some type of drawer with strain reliefs for the cabling to support easy access to I/O. The thing is to find a way to do it so it doesn't weigh 30 lbs. and cost 3X more than the electronics. So I understand, Frank started this discussion because the heavier equipment is difficult to mount without growing another set of hands, right? Some of the equipment has handles on the front to help with holding it but you still need to somehow will the screws up off the table, thread themselves and tighten in place. My wife keeps want to wiggle her nose to make stuff happen (like Samantha from Bewitched). She also wants a Star Trek Replicator but all of that is another story and a separate issue for me. In our case I would be concerned about the weight of cables pulling down on the unit. It's a concern with these plastic rack housings from Bud Industries that we were evaluating. I can see the tabs breaking or warping under any real strain especially in a warm installation. The plastic just doesn't give the quality feeling that we want. The cost is damn attractive. I just wish that I had a machine shop here for prototyping. I assume everyone expects the black equipment. The QSC Core is pretty sleek with the brushed look and blue graphics screen. Hard to do and keep the pricing disruptive.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 03-02-2019 02:31 PM                        Bruce, I'm no kind of an industrial designer, but it seems to me that all you need is a what amounts to rack-mountable tray. Since the Jnior is a relatively small unit (or at least the one that I have is), all of the electronics should fit into the front couple of inches of the tray. Put the connectors there as well, and just allow the wires to flop over the back of the tray and hang down from there. The tray could have little cut-outs in the back wall for the cables to go through, possibly lined with plastic shields so the wires won't get cut into while hanging. Is there such a thing as a strain relief that can be easily opened and closed? If so, maybe that's what you want there. Then all you need is a plastic cover for the front part of the tray where the electronics are so nothing gets shorted out. Now the heaviest part of the case will be just the tray, and a tray doesn't weigh much. To service it (disconnect and connect stuff) all you have to do is unscrew the tray and pull it out two or three inches. The back of the tray can stay inside the rack so the whole thing doesn't fall on the floor, and the connecting wires need to move in and out just three or four inches, so you probably don't need to make any special provisions for that either.  |  IP: Logged Bruce Cloutier Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Gibsonia, PA, USA Registered: Aug 2016 posted 03-03-2019 07:07 AM                        Of course if we are talking about the current manifestation of the JNIOR, one could mount it in a rack mounted keyboard drawer for a clean installation. A tray would work as well. Or, it can be affixed to the back of a 3U blank. It can be strapped to the back of the rack or left on the floor. Those last approaches work but make me cringe. I am hoping to create a rack mountable version that brings status to the front and maybe some controls. Possibly some combination of the control panel we have and a version of JNIOR. The mechanical hardware takes a commitment in quantity in order to keep cost down. So I need to be confident in the design from the start. Basically, the reason that we don't already offer it. Sorry. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 03-04-2019 02:45 AM                     Not all is perfect in the 19" rackmount world, but in general, it beats the alternatives. You want all your operational equipment neatly organized into a bunch of 19" equipment racks. You also want to route all your input/outputs to those racks. All equipment that doesn't really fit into it, is a bit of a pain, because where do you put it and what do you do with the wiring? Do you slap it against the wall? Do you strap it into the rack somewhere, nobody even knows it's there? So, I guess a 19" rack-mountable JNIOR or a tray to make it rack-mountable is still very much welcome. Nonetheless, there are endless discussions on where your wiring should go, for example, and if the front of your appliance should be control-only, or if it's "cool" to have inputs and outputs there too? In general, the consensus seems to be that your wiring goes on the backside of your equipment and the front is just for control. That obviously creates a bit of a problem, if your appliance rather "shallow" and has to share a rack with those deep monsters like some amps, most servers or some of those deep switches, especially if it's just 1 or 2 units high. A noticeable exception is networking gear, where wiring is mostly found on the front-side of things. That's also why, in many cases, switches are put on the backside of racks as so called "top-of-rack" switches. Another issue is how to do ventilation right. Now, for heavy IT equipment, the standard is that cold air is drawn from the front and exhausted at the back. This is also the case for cinema servers and gear like the Dolby CP850. They draw cold air from the front and exhaust it to the back of the rack. Amplifiers can be a mixed bag. Those with fans in them, seem to stick to the rule though, that heat exists to the back of the rack.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-04-2019 05:10 AM                     Smart amplifiers (QSC) vent rear to the front. The hole front-to-rear things is just plain stupid. If you vent front-to-rear, then each piece of equipment has to filter its air and then each piece of equipment puts heat into the rack, thereby heating the rack. For rear to front, then one only need provide a single filter system for the entire rack and the heat generated is expelled by each respective equipment. I typically provide a fan package at the bottom behind a filter to draw clean cool air into the rack. This also pressurizes the rack which really cuts down on dust accumulating in the rack too. One only has to keep the one filter clean instead of cleaning each piece (if they have filters at all).  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 03-04-2019 05:34 AM                     Yes, you're right, most QSC amps with fan draw in air from the rear. Many older, passively cooled amps don't seem to have a particular flow. But that's why I try not to mix amplifiers with servers in the same rack, but that's not always a possibility. The Front-to-Rear ventilation style of IT equipment comes from the datacenter, where the cool air is usually let into the front, where most of the "operational work" is done and the hot air is removed at the back (the cold/hot isle principle). Some switch manufacturers let you choose the cooling flow, as they offer different models for "back-to-front", "front-to-back" and sometimes even "left-to-right" and "right-to-left" cooling options. quote: Steve Guttag If you vent front-to-rear, then each piece of equipment has to filter its air and then each piece of equipment puts heat into the rack, thereby heating the rack. With mixed equipment in a rack, in my opinion it's better to have the backside of your rack sufficiently ventilated. Or else you end up having your amps sucking in hot air from your server. Although a booth hasn't to be a clean room, I consider it to be much more like a datacenter nowadays, so make sure you filter the air that's going into it. It will also improve the longevity of your projector.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.