Flexy Rack

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

So I finally decided what I wanted to do for replacing my pre-pro and now while I'm at it, I decided that it's time to replace my equipment rack.

My existing rack was a floor model that I got from Circuit City about 4 years ago probably (~$35?). It's a little beaten up and I don't like the glass shelves on it. Not only do they look dusty within days of cleaning them, but I'm concerned about how much weight I'd be putting on them with the new equipment. It's probably fine, but I'd rather not risk it... especially since it didn't come with a manual stating the limits of the shelves.

Since I'm cheap, I wanted to get something that would have enough space for my equipment in a wider stand that could go below my projector screen and hopefully act as a center channel stand as well.

After roaming around Home Depot and Menards looking for inspiration, nothing really jumped out as a good DIY solution that would be easy to assemble with minimal tools.

I remembered seeing at least one member here (to whom I sent a PM) who had a Flexy Rack. I did a bit more research on it and it seems like a great solution for flexibility and function while keeping costs low. I just did a actual search on AT (yes, it worked), and found half a dozen other members who had made flexy racks also. Some of the pictures were down though due to age.

I'm thinking of making a design roughly like this
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y...howsDAjello/flexy1.png
(Using 24" tall rods, total width about 72")

I've read through about 8 different pages demonstrating their designs including what seems to be the original
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/flexye.html

Some things I'm wondering about from people that may have built one already

-I notice that a lot of the ones people have made have been 4 rods vs. 3 rods. I've attempted to be economical and do a combo of two 3-rod units connected together. Any issues I might run into?

-The original design called for using damping paint. How much of an issue is this? Is this something that mostly concerns people using turntables?
(I believe I should be able to put my Auralex Gramma pad (Thanks Ankit) on top of the rack and have the center channel sit on that to hopefully isolate the vibration from the speaker a bit.

-Are there any tips or things that you'd change if you had to do it over again?



As far as appearance goes, I'm planning on just doing some plain MDF to start. Since I'm going to be moving in the summer, I'd likely end up disassembling it (how long would this take... a couple hours of tedious twisting?). Since I don't know what my new place will be like, I'm hesitant to make a decision on what the final look should be. Black would seem to be safe, but I also don't have the room to do a decent job of painting anything in my apartment.

 

[mshan]

That Flexy Rack looks like a knock off of the Michael Green Just a Rack and Salamander Archetype systems.

You could probably google for those terms to find more info for design ideas and complaints owners have had about the original products.

edit: personally, I don't think you need any special damping paint. To my ears, MDF has always sounded very neutral when combined with stock rubber footers on mass market gear. If you want further isolation, you could just use an MDF sandwich with appropriately loaded Vibrapods.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

nice rack!

i have the 5-shelf rack pictured in mshan's link. it's certainly strong enough for practically anything, but this construction is a bit wobbly no matter what you do (this might be made worse by the use of a rubber washer between the steel washer and the wood). not recoomended as-is for turntables, reel-to-reel, etc. in 6 years, i've adjusted the shelf spacing once. for a complex set-up like yours, assembled in 1 night might be tough, but disassembly shouldn't be bad if you hustle. you'll need 2 adjustable wrenches and maybe a level. i recommend making a feeler gauge barely shorter than desired shelf height. your 3-rod side sections should be fine, as i expect your setup to have greater stiffness than a tower.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: mshan
That Flexy Rack looks like a knock off of the Michael Green Just a Rack and Salamander Archetype systems.

You could probably google for those terms to find more info for design ideas and complaints owners have had about the original products.

edit: personally, I don't think you need any special damping paint. To my ears, MDF has always sounded very neutral when combined with stock rubber footers on mass market gear. If you want further isolation, you could just use an MDF sandwich with appropriately loaded Vibrapods.

Yeah, I'm just looking for confirmation that damping paint was not a huge deal. Some of the designs I saw made no mention of it, so I figured it would be safe to leave it out. I have enough compromises with my system that my MDF rack vibrating a bit isn't a big deal to me unless it's going to be doing so audibly.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
nice rack!

i have the 5-shelf rack pictured in mshan's link. it's certainly strong enough for practically anything, but this construction is a bit wobbly no matter what you do (this might be made worse by the use of a rubber washer between the steel washer and the wood). not recoomended as-is for turntables, reel-to-reel, etc. in 6 years, i've adjusted the shelf spacing once. for a complex set-up like yours, assembled in 1 night might be tough, but disassembly shouldn't be bad if you hustle. you'll need 2 adjustable wrenches and maybe a level. i recommend making a feeler gauge barely shorter than desired shelf height. your 3-rod side sections should be fine, as i expect your setup to have greater stiffness than a tower.

Thanks

I'll keep an eye on comments about wobble. I didn't get very far into my research yet beyond deciding that this is probably a good idea.

The weight I need to support will be just under 320 pounds according to my calculations. I imagine that this should be fine, especially spread out over 6 rods.

Thanks for the tool tips.

 

[herm0016]

i had a small rack, about 24x20 and just 2 shelves like this. it worked ok but was a bit wobbly. i finally decided to build a real audio rack for my computer ( in a rack mount case) and audio gear on rack mount shelves. I have found this to be much superior to the flexirack type design.

my audio rack: http://ajherman.deviantart.com/art/full-rack-67436872
It now contains a dawr to hold my turn table supplies and another shelf with a stack of records. I have gotten rid of the printer.
http://ajherman.deviantart.com/art/my-rack-67436739

I used 3/4 of one sheet of high grade birch plywood that cost about 75 bucks, but you could easily use mdf if you are painting, and the rails cost me about 20 dollars.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Only one of my components is rack mount ready, so I'd assume that adding in the cost of rack mount equipment for two to three of those sized racks would be cost prohibitive.

Was it the wobbliness of the Flexy Rack that was improved upon with this design, or was it other factors as well?

 

[EvilYoda]

I've made 4 flexy racks in the last few years - still using one now and I'll probably build a new one in a few months due to some hardware changes. They're so easy to put together, dead solid, and dirt cheap.

Bonus points if you can score some extra large diameter threaded rod, like they use in the Salamander racks. That drives up the price pretty quickly though.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

How thick are the Salamander racks?

If I couldn't find it locally, I was going to order 5/8" from here
http://www.mcmaster.com/#90034a035/=1ff8hc

Looks like 1" runs 3x the price as 5/8"

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
How thick are the Salamander racks?

If I couldn't find it locally, I was going to order 5/8" from here
http://www.mcmaster.com/#90034a035/=1ff8hc

Looks like 1" runs 3x the price as 5/8"

5/8" x 23" x 16"
the shelf if effectively 20" wide, about an inch on either side of a standard component.
the centerline for the post seems to be 1 1/2" from the side.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Sorry, I meant how thick were the rods, although it's good to know about the shelves as well, especially the depth. I've been planning on shelf sizes of about 24"x18".

 

[mshan]

http://www.audioadvisor.com/products.asp?dept=115

 

[AirAlex]

I am interested in making a flexy rack as well. YOyoYOhowsDAjello, can you document your adventures for us?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: mshan
http://www.audioadvisor.com/products.asp?dept=115

5/8" then? Great. That's what I was planning on using and it's only $4 per rod.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: AirAlex
I am interested in making a flexy rack as well. YOyoYOhowsDAjello, can you document your adventures for us?

I will.

You will not be impressed by the fit / finish of the stock MDF shelving, but I can take pictures of construction along the way.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

sorry i completely spaced out while replying. when i reached for my leatherman, i had every intention of measuring the threaded rod diameter.

either way, how do you plan on finishing the shelves?
edit: just re-re-read the OP. it's been one of those days

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
sorry i completely spaced out while replying. when i reached for my leatherman, i had every intention of measuring the threaded rod diameter.

either way, how do you plan on finishing the shelves?
edit: just re-re-read the OP. it's been one of those days

:laugh:

Yeah, lazy no finish bare MDF is the immediate plan. If I had the tools readily available, I'd do more work on the shelves, but I don't know if that's feasible yet.

 

[herm0016]

the rack i built improves on stability, and flexibility for me, as i can add whatever rack mount stuff i want in the future. your design looks pretty cool, make sure you take some pics.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Whoa, this fit is about as tight as it gets.

I made a quick scale mock-up with Paint.NET (1 pixel = 1/8")

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y...lo/Mock_up_cropped.png

Concerns -
Very little horizontal clearance in the middle column - this could be reduced by making the rods closer to the shelf edges or by increasing shelf width
Not much room above components for air circulation / cooling (only 1.5" above the Onkyo 876, virtually nothing above the M1500 UPS and PS3)

Things that I could change
- Spacing to center of rods is 1.5"
- Size of shelves (currently shown as 24" wide)
- Ground clearance from bottom shelves to floor is about 1.3" to shelf, a little under 1" to nut
- Spacing between nuts is .25"
- Arrangement of equipment (Things that will get hot are Onkyo 876, M1500, PS3)
- Top Left / Top Right shelves could be eliminated while PS3 and S77 shelves are raised leaving the components open to above

Not shown
- Auralex Gramma Pad between top shelf and RSC200 adding ~2.5"
- Any rubber feet for rods / acorn caps for rods


EDIT: Different options

Version 2
Onkyo moved to outside, sources inward
- Better air flow above PS3, M1500 UPS
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y...Mock_up_cropped_v2.png

Version 3
Same as Version 2, except outside bars reduced from 24" to 12" and top left / top right shelves eliminated
- Better air flow for Onkyo units, but no room for expansion at all and perhaps a higher chance for dust / damage to exposed units
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y...Mock_up_cropped_v3.png

 

[The Boston Dangler]

looks like you'll need to push the rods farther out and it will be ok. is there easy access to the back? if not, casters could be good. i'm sure it would be better than trying to slide it back and forth.

cooling might be helped by drilling a 4" hole in the middle of each bottom and middle shelf. i would try that before resorting to active cooling.

is there a pc in the mix?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

There's going to be reasonable access to the back in my current apartment. It's on carpet too, so I don't know if casters would work that well.

I thought about drilling through the shelves for better ventilation. I don't know if I'll have access to tools that will allow me to do a decent job of that though.
Although I guess if it's in the middle of the shelves, nobody will be able to see how crappy it looks

There will be a PC in the room, but I'm not planning on a HTPC in the rack anytime soon.

Shelf space modification idea:
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y...Mock_up_cropped_v4.png

I get another inch of space above the M1500 and Onkyo units if I only put a set of rubber washers and 1 metal washer between the top layer of shelves and bottom layer of shelves.
The only down side I can see from this is that now the nuts on the bottom middle rods would be carrying more weight.
The three items on the bottom are 30, 56, and 80 pounds.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Another random idea... I actually thought about this initially when I saw the double Flexy rack but figured it would be 15% more expensive (more MDF, more hardware), more complicated, and maybe 10% cooler

My gf just asked me tonight if I'd be able to switch around the way the rods are positioned so that the rack could be angled to match the arrangement of the front three speakers equally distanced from the center seating position.

The angle is a rough estimate, but here's the basic concept

Ordinary plan to scale
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y...ock_up_cropped_Top.png

Proposed adjustable angle rack
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y..._up_cropped_Top_v2.png

If I put the "hinge" rods in the middle, I fear there would be too much overlap in the front preventing the components from fitting in the already tight space. With this design, I should still have enough room since I widened the middle shelf from 24" to 26.5"
The rod in back of the middle shelf to provide stability makes the depth shorter, but I wouldn't have any full depth components planned for the middle area, so that should still work.

Thoughts?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

now you're "taking the fight into a new dimension" quite literally.

if you have the clearance in front to avoid pinching, i think the only "gotcha" would be a heavy component sagging on the unsupported rear corner. you could keep the 3-post wings (like the original drawing) and front hinges if you use a 4-post center column, and 2 sets of holes (inner, outer) on the rear of the shelves. the weight would be better supported while still keeping some adjustability - definately not on-the-fly adjustable tho.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

You mean like this?
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Y..._up_cropped_Top_v3.png

Black dots representing holes drilled in the center shelves for the option of a straight configuration while the outer holes (in silver) are in use when angled configuration is in use?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

10-4. you could double up on the holes for the wings, too.