I keep looking at server racks and keep wondering why the common slotted angle shelves won’t work as a cheaper yet strong alternative.
How many of you have wondered or dabbled in the same? Do share the gotchas and pictures if you have. I bet it’ll be a lot of help to those wanting to organize their rat’s nest of cables especially the ones homelabbing.
Please feel free to call me out as an ignorant fool if I’m not seeing what’s the obvious flaw in this idea due to which nobody is trying it. Help me get to the light side from the dark.
P.S. :
For anyone wondering – No, this post is not AI generated or even AI assisted for that matter.
Yes, I, painstakingly inserted the emojis one by one and the single em-dash in this post by hand. I find reading blocks of text easy on the eyes with them. Save your critiques. Cheers!
I have a few versions of those, they can be incredibly sturdy if you add cross beams or panels.
That starwork one is 1ft by 2ft, I used it for the SFF sized (matx) desktops, but there’s also one by jd fresh that’s 1.5ft by 1.5ft, those are really nice for 3d printers
Amazon had their own brand of these called umi and they were premium with metal shelves and the slots were covered, they’re very nice. Some sellers are still liquidating old stock of them.
Because these are smaller, they’re more rigid than ikea’s bror but I like the bror for the larger shelf space.
The biggest downside is that there’s no guarantee you’ll get the exact same slot spacing between multiple units, there’s batch variations so all of my mine have different heights. They’re off by about half an inch, so not much but enough to be noticeable.
Finishing is excellent, just like ikea’s bror, the powder coat is decent. You will see scratches because of how they’re packed but it’s mostly on internal surfaces, so out of sight.
Sometimes the MDF sheets are oversized so they need a little sanding/cutting to make space for the rivets they used in the supports. Or you could just bash them in, they give you a tiny plastic hammer.
I think I have ptsd from those kind of racks, they require bolts and rust easily and have terrible paint jobs. I used them for years because that’s all we had access to.
The ones linked above are bolt-less, they have riveted nubs that slot into the posts. You build a wire frame like structure and put in the mdf shelves.
Basically just like ikea’s bror but without a metal shelf.
The best part about these shelves is that they’re all matte powder coat. The older bolted ones often have a unappealing glossy paint.
Hey, thanks for sharing! This exactly what I had in mind.
Rust is one issue indeed. I love the Powder coating on Ikea shelves. Glad to know even others have that quality these days. Though, I didn’t know that the tolerances of the hole spacing were that bad. That’s one concern if we need to mount stuff instead of just placing on the “banged-in” shelves.
Another thing I was wondering is about mounting the Tiny PCs on to the frame itself instead of simply “placing” on the shelf using something like this: https://www.amazon.in/s?k=Mount+Tiny+PC
Once I jump-in to the Homelabbing journey(hopefully soon), I’ll definitely explore these first.
Those 19” ones are too big. I don’t plan to have any rack server hardware. What I have in mind are Tiny/Mini/Micro PCs with some patch panels and a UPS may be. Don’t want it occupying too much space at home either. 10” racks “look” ideal, but I’ve not seen them in person. Only photos.
If they do come cheap, then we wouldn’t look at slotted angle. I thought they were much more expensive than slotted angle and wanted to check if people have tried this.
If weight is not much then punch some holes in base for airflow. You’ll have a pretty good rack. Wiring will look bad but you save a lot. For things that run very hot you can place some ac infinity fans. But they’ll be more costly than the rack
If you don’t need much vertical space, you can ask them to add more shelves. Overall you don’t need much you can keep a bdlc fan on in the room for cooling .
and keep wondering why the common slotted angle shelves won’t work as a cheaper yet strong alternative.
and pictures 
if you have. I bet it’ll be a lot of help to those wanting to organize their rat’s nest of cables 
especially the ones homelabbing. 
if I’m not seeing what’s the obvious flaw in this idea due to which nobody is trying it. Help me get to the light side from the dark. 
