Comms Cabinet Mod

[Project2501]

Ave,

 

I've inherited a 600mm deep 9u comms cabinet (one of these: https://www.pennelcomonline.com/en/Penn-Elcom-WM-Rack-600mm-x-9U-Glass-Door-M6-Black-R6609-M6/m-9302.aspx)

 

And I've got some ideas in mind to mod it into a chassis for all my kit; so gaming PC; storage  server; data drives; SonicWall; cable modem, etc.

 

The thought is to mod the two side panels to take a pair of radiators apiece (1 pair for each system) - then try and keep everything else that's either functional or decorative (LED's, RGB, ports, etc) front facing like you'd expect.

 

Modem and SonicWall both have standard rack mount fittings so they'd go to the top of the cabinet.

 

Primary system - ATX, motherboard/CPU is monoblocked - would probably block the GPU as well.

 

Secondary system mini-itx probably, keep the space used under control - there's some itx monoblocks out there, so that's probably the winning option.

 

There's a question of where the pumps could/should go to - and that'll take some time.

 

Anyway, the reason for posting is this, has anyone here done something like this before and able to give me any words of wisdom/warning before I embark upon a new adventure?

[W-L]

On 7/13/2019 at 4:33 PM, Project2501 said:

-SNIP-

That's definitely going to be tight on space, depending on how you want it configured it may be a good idea to have the rads externally with the pump so it dumps the heat away from that enclosure since it may get pretty toasty.

[Olaf6541]

I had the exact same idea as you, but decided later that it would be easier to just fill it with rack enclosures. However these cabinets have terrible airflow so I switched to watercooling to be able to direct the heat away more effiiciently. So I'll share some pictures here to show how I put my radiators. First I just put an extra case (Haf XB) on top of it and put all the watercooling stuff in there (pump/res, rads etc), later I built a frame to suspend the radiators near the top.

 

Aircooled set-up:

Spoiler

 

Watercooled with external radiators:

Spoiler

 

Watercooled with internal radiators:

Spoiler

 

 

 

I hope this gives you an idea, let me know if you have any further questions.

[Project2501]

Nice, I hadn't thought on that.

I'll try and do some drawings (not my forte) and give a better example of what I'm thinking.

 

Thanks for the input thus far!