Ok, so, I'm setting here in the "office" one day, which is also where all the dogs stay (2 basset hounds of my own and 2 foster dogs) and I realize how badly the fans on these computers sound. One I finally jammed something in because it was so noisy. So what's a person to do? Build a rack.

Not just any rack though. I'm going to be building a custom enclosed rack with filtered airways. Yup, I'm going to set this puppy up so that any air being drawn in comes through a household filter. That will keep any stray dog hair and dander away from the fans and other electronics.

But, racks are pricey, expensive beasts. I mean really. So how do I go about this without spending an arm and a leg. Well, I thought about that for a while and I worked up a plan.

Case wise for the rack, plywood would be great. I'm figuring 1/2" ply, with some cut pine rails here and there, glued, screwed and stained to make it all pretty. But the hardware, what to do there. So I went off looking for rack rails on Google. I must say, I didn't find much. But then I found these at parts express and knew they'd work out great.

So, I ordered up a set of the 21U rack rails and some 3U rack ears to go along with them and provide a stable mounting area for the custom 3U chassis I plan to build (which I'll get into more later).

I'm happy to say that they came in the mail today. But, sad to say that they forgot to send the 3U blank I ordered along with it that I needed to make sure the size of the rack would be right. A quick email to sales and I got someone to fix the problem and mail the part out at no charge. Still bites having it missing though, but I'm not rushing forward with this anyway.

So moving forward, I'll be digging up more parts for this. With luck I'll have it done within a month or two. Who knows though, it may take longer considering all the (still working on) projects around the house that need done, like the counter tops.

What I need the rack to be:
* Easy to move, with casters on the bottom
* Filtered, to keep out dog hair
* Good looking, but that's up to me to do
* Large enough. @ 21U, it's fairly big. 21U is larger than a desk top. I didn't measure, just went by the space I needed. 18U would fit under a desk though.
* Integrate with the desk I plan on building (yeah, more projects)

At any rate, I have alot of work ahead of me and for that matter, a budget I have to stay on..

So for now that's it.. Any input or advise would be great.. :)