The AM Forum

I need some help with rack mounting. I have acquired a vintage 4' Bud rack cabinet. I plan to use it for my R390a, CV-591 ssb converter, SP-600 and Hammarlund SPC-10 ssb converter. I need to install some rails or slides in the cabinet for support. I don't have a clue on the best way to do that with minimal modifications to the cabinet. Please give me some ideas. Pictures of how you did it would be a plus. Thanks.

Is the cabinet center to center mounting hole dimensions the same as the equipment mounting holes you plan to mount in the cabinet?
Is it 19 inch, 23 inch, or 25 inch centers?

Pete, the mounting holes match the equipment. Nineteen inches.

Some rack manufacturers offer separate rails for their products, designed to support the rear ends of slides, that you may be able to adapt and attach for the purpose. Another thing done in old BUD racks is to screw aluminum angles to the insides of the rack for the gear to sit on. A layer of thick nylon tape on the upper side of the angle lets the gear slide in and out easily.

This 1U shelf can be used to hold the equipment in place after you slide the equipment on to the shelf and attach the screws through the front panel into the rack threaded holes (make sure they're threaded). Once the equipment is in place, you can move the shelf down to the next location where you want to bolt more equipment in place, etc.. After you remove the 1U shelf, I would leave that space open in case in the future you need to remove the equipment.

https://www.amazon.com/Pyle-Circulation-Cantilever-Universal-PLRSTN14U/dp/B01HTG4WHY

(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61JCg5LWMPL._AC_SL1000_.jpg)

Thanks fellows. I found that Allied Electronics is a Bud dealer. I was surprised to see how expensive all of the accessories are.  :-\ I may try to use some aluminum angle as Patrick suggested. In the mean time, I'm still looking for solutions.

Get a second person to help; one to hold the equipment in place and one to put the mounting screws in  :D

IF your rack has a rear rail, the solutions become much simpler.

You'd need to buy A) commercially made "rack ears" (the front part with the mounting holes
and a "flag" to the inside at 90 degrees. or B) drill your own (there's a trick there, not to be
ignored). Then buy some steel or aluminum angle stock of reasonable thickness and dimension.

The idea is to run the angle stock from the front to the rear, held on both sides by the ears, forming
slides left and right. But you need to be very careful, as the clearance between the sides of the
R-390a (for example) and the rails of the rack, is not very generous!!

Screws, brazing, Tig welding, Mig welding, etc are possible.

The little Peavey shelf will not hold an R-390. The first reason is that it has the tail of the shelf bent
up! The 390 is too deep.

The trick on drilling holes is that they follow EIAJ standard pattern. You can find it online. It's
NOT LINEAR! It is a repeating pattern. So, where to put holes is a bit of a muddle to figure out.

There are commercial installations that use the front to back mounting - always useful to see what
the expensive commercial stuff does and looks like.

Personally, I prefer shelves, but finding heavy enough shelves with enough depth is not so simple.

The whole bit becomes a bit easier to work out IF you can live with not having each piece of
gear with zero gaps. That gap space does add up though. See the pic below, this is non-optimal
shelves kludged together! The "wood" spacers are to let the gear slide past that flipped up metal
in the back (It's done for rigidity and strength).

(fabricating some slick slide rails is on my TO DO list, and dump these shelves... fwiw.)

The one I pointed to on Amazon, the 1U Pyle, has a maximum load capacity of 110 pounds.
You might even be able to find it cheaper if you look around. Don't have to drill anything or make ears or brackets, etc. Just bolt it in, slide your equipment on to it, bolt equipment to rails, remove 1U Pyle for the next mounting. Simple, quick, reusable, and highly less aggravating.

I have copied the method that Henry used on their MRI generators....  As Patrick has said as well.

A couple pieces of angle iron will give you a good, strong shelf.  And allow you to pull them out fairly easily as well.  This is assuming that you have rails or other support front and back.

Their are other, cheaper, companies than Bud.  Ebay is your friend.  Also, GSA auctions have this type of equipment available quite a bit.


--Shane
KD6VXI

Hi Pete,
Maybe I'm just being overly cautious but I've never liked the idea of heavy boat anchors being held by just the front panels. Besides, me being a one person operation, some kind of rails would sure make installation and removal easier.

Put up a picture of the rack, important to know if it has back rails. Middle Atlantic is a good place to order from and they have the best prices. I have used lots of there products, they have shelves, drawers and everything else for racks. If you want to use any type of slide rails you have got to have back rails first and preferably a rack designed for weight.
Light weight PA racks or racks with no back support are ok for light stuff but for real weight you need a real rack. Fortunately there are lots of thing like old server racks that are available that can hold weight.
Also look at the sides of the equipment. Things designed for slide rails will have mounting holes on the sides for the rail attachments. Most professional slide rails are built by Chassis Track or General Devices are easily capable of holding considerable weight.
I have a thing for the old RCA racks being they were all designed for holding huge heavy old tube electronics. Also have most racks on rollers so you can move them around the shop, put this picture up before but you can see I have a thing for racks.
Just finished putting up a cable bridge last week, will include a picture of that just for fun. Its right below a huge heavy mask filter. Spend way too much time playing with unistrut and all thread.

Hi Mike......…. here's a few shots of how I mounted the Viking Bud in the rack. I got a hold of some 1 1/2" angle stock and just bolted it front to rear.

There are any number of ways to secure the rear of radios, and Julius' rack is ideal for side mounts, and I'm sure you could adapt your Bud cabinet to incorporate a similar system.   The shelf Pete mentioned also comes in much taller versions and can probably be very useful.  

The radios and other items you mentioned happen to be specifically designed to hang off the front panel in a rack so doing so wouldn't be a problem.    However mounting the boxes by your self is a different issue.   I'd simply lay the rack cabinet on its back and since the heavy units have handles, simply slide the units in and secure them.   Then when done, set the cabinet upright.

(https://photos.smugmug.com/PROJECTS/Power-Supply-Project/i-D46ts5f/0/bac0f831/L/P1010003-L.jpg) (https://mikeharrison.smugmug.com/PROJECTS/Power-Supply-Project/i-gLS93gs/A)

I don't have any my radios rack mounted but I did build a rack for my test bench a few years ago.   I bought the front rails already drilled and tapped, and along with a couple, three, 20' sticks of 1/2" angle built a 5 bay rack equipment rack.

(https://photos.smugmug.com/BENCHES/Big-Pics/i-dwqC7Zc/0/d4c43b00/L/P1010023-L.jpg) (https://mikeharrison.smugmug.com/BENCHES/Big-Pics/i-dwqC7Zc/A)

(https://photos.smugmug.com/BENCHES/Big-Pics/i-Tp7JtgF/0/72f8fcae/L/P1010023Crop-L.jpg) (https://mikeharrison.smugmug.com/BENCHES/Big-Pics/i-dwqC7Zc/A)

Click the pics, they are links to more pics.

I'd definitely be interested in what you wind up doing, so please update the thread when you've got it finished.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for their thoughts and ideas. I think that I will buy some angle iron or aluminum and bolt in some side rails.