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shallow sliding rack shelf?


leeascher

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Hello Richard,

Thanks for referring me Rackman, but even they did not have what I was looking for.  I was trying configure my Boom Recorder rig into a rack case, similar to John Pritchett's Metacorder rig featured on Gotham Sound's page:

http://www.gothamsound.com/main.shtml?page=pritchett

 

The main difference is that I wanted to use my SKB X case, which is more shallow than a standard rack case, but fits perfectly on the top shelf of my Magliner cart. 

Oh well... back to the drawing board!

-Lee

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My first metacorder rig was very similar to the one shown on Gotham's site.  The interface and the laptop and an RME ADI4-DD were mounted in a small satellite SKB case as well.  I used this rig as a backup for one full production while I tested Metacorder before it became my main recording system.  Metacorder was brand new back then, and laptop based location recording was all but unheard of for the most part.  I was testing very uncharted waters.  While many colleagues were following my progress with a mixture of curiosity and awe, others were convinced I was less than sane.  It was all rather exciting at the time.

The RME ADI was needed to get the Cameo's AES outputs into the MOTU that I was using then.  As mentioned in the article, I also found that the RME sometimes had issues locking to the Cameo.  Strangely enough, most of the AES pairs would always lock up fine while often one or two of them would not.  Rebooting the Cameo, sometimes more than once, always seemed to solve this problem for me.  This would only need to be dealt with when first powering up the equipment.  Once the signal locked it would remain locked.

By the time I started my next production, I had integrated all of this into my main cart and the RME had become redundant as I had switched my mixer to an 01v96, which offered ADAT optical outputs that could be directly interfaced to the MOTU.  I still have the barely used RME, if anyone is interested in it.

Cheers,

Darren

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The main difference is that I wanted to use my SKB X case, which is more shallow than a standard rack case, but fits perfectly on the top shelf of my Magliner cart. 

Oh well... back to the drawing board!

-Lee

I have used the SKB X cases before and built up several items: 2 playback boxes (with control preamp, power amp, patchbay, etc.), a SHURE dual wireless receiver unit with 2 handheld mics stored in the lid, etc. I think they are great cases but just not quite big enough (depth) sometimes and as you pointed out, no "off the shelf" sliding shelves that fit. The other problem that I have with almost all the rackmount stuff, including the sliding shelves, is the use of STEEL --- too heavy! I have tried to keep everything aluminum on my cart. This company has been posted before but I will post it again here since it is the only that seems to have aluminum parts:

Star Case (thanks to David Waelder) has lots of stuff, aluminum drawers and even aluminum rack rails

http://www.starcase.com/default.htm

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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Not to completely digress from Lee's OP, but this might be a good time to note that while Star Case seems to own the aluminum drawer market and many of us appear to go to them for such, be forewarned about their hefty shipping charges (I recently paid around $50 for a 2 RU drawer shipped UPS Ground). After playing around with various 2RU placements, I thought I had found room on my cart for a 3RU instead. I called to see about exchanging the NIB drawer and they told me there would be a restocking charge. That on top of my return freight and another $50 to ship the replacement would have made the 3RU drawer beyond expensive so I quickly decided that 2RU was just fine. IMO, gouging for shipping and restocking charges is greedy and bad business.

EB

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  • 1 year later...

Not to completely digress from Lee's OP, but this might be a good time to note that while Star Case seems to own the aluminum drawer market and many of us appear to go to them for such, be forewarned about their hefty shipping charges (I recently paid around $50 for a 2 RU drawer shipped UPS Ground).

The other warning about Star Case is that the weights of the products listed on their page are not always accurate.  I bought a 4U drawer years ago which was listed at 6 pounds -- when I received the item I promptly unwrapped and weighed it and it came up as 9.5 pounds on my scale.  I double checked on another scale with the same result and then finally called Star Case to investigate.  I got the phone equivalent of a shrug, and all of the punitive restocking fees and hefty shipping charges that Eric noted.

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One of the only reputable case companies that I have dealt with in the past was EWI (audiopile.net).  Unfortunately they do not have a 10" sliding shelf, but smallest is 12".  Their cases are also best BANG for your MONEY.  I use them for my cart.

Any possibility that you can switch out your rack case to a 12" depth size instead of 10"?

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"IMO, gouging for shipping and restocking charges is greedy and bad business. "

actually I wonder why some companies charge for shipping when they are actually saving the expenses of having a brick and mortar sales location.

That said,  many companies, who price their products FOB the factory then add on shipping and insurance costs based on the specifics of the order (overnight, standard ground, etc.) many also believe that the USPS's "delivery confirmation" service is not as good as other carriers' tracking systems, and find that an important factor in their shipping choices.  many will waive shipping charges if you supply an account number they can use.

As for "restocking fees", merchants and vendors have a legitimate concern.  many times when the merchandise gets back it is not ready to be put back in stock, for any number of reasons. It may need to be repacked, certainly handled by hand, carefully inspected, and maybe even worked on...  also, these companies may not be in the free trial business.  (there are some companies that go overboard to make their merchandise easy to return, even including return shipping labels, but often  there are some costs there, too.

so how would you deal with being booked, given a call time, loading up your gear, driving to location, and being told there is no sound, after all, and you are canceled???  a restocking fee is like that.

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One of the only reputable case companies that I have dealt with in the past was EWI (audiopile.net).

Those sliding shelves from EWI are as great deal ... you can't beat that price, $32.50 for the largest (14" deep) shelf. They are very low profile 1 RU but steel construction does make them weigh in at about 13 lbs. I weighed my SKB plastic and metal sliding shelf and it is actually just about 10 lbs. anyway. Some sort of locking mechanism would have to be worked out.

If I were in need of a sliding shelf and didn't want to do all the work myself, I would get one of these, cut out a whole center section of the steel shelf surface leaving only a surround (frame) and put a perforated aluminum sheet in its place. This would cut down the weight considerably and provide the sort of cushioned shockmounted ride that I have with the other shelves I have built.

Thanks for the link, Alan:

http://www.audiopile.net/products/Cases/Rack%20Shelves/RF1UKM%20Sliding%20Rack%20Shelves.shtml  

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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