KALLAX custom 10" 6U rack (EU)

[BlackChar]

This is a quick rundown of my homelab minirack I built in 2021. It fits nicely into KALLAX from Ikea, thought it's far from portable. It was a case of form fitting the need, as I was refitting an apartment room into an office/workshop and I already put the shelves up. I found 10" rack fitting in a single compartment really neat!

The main idea was to tuck away everything neatly aside but still have easy access for any work done in the workshop, while still having access to all of my ethernet and audio cabling hidden behind my KALLAX wall. The base of it is a second-hand 20U rail I had sawed to size and bolted inside the box. The rack would technically fit 7U but the access and airflow problems would be too much, so I kept some spacing inbetween.

Going from the top:

• DATACOM 10" patch panel with a cable management plate ( https://www.alza.de/datacom-10-cat6-12-anschlusse-d394586.htm )
• 3D printed 2x 40mm fan panel
• Unifi Switch Lite 16 POE ( https://techspecs.ui.com/unifi/switching/usw-lite-16-poe?s=eu )
• Dell Optiplex 3040 with Proxmox running pfSense, PiHole, Unifi Controller, HomeAssistant, Database and some dev VMs.
• 3D printed shelf with RPi4 (missing from the photo) and RPi3, both with POE hats. Later I added a HifiBerry hat to RPi3, running the audio in the office, with RP4 running backdoor access over 4G and whatever I just needed an ARM for.
• The most of stuff was sitting on 10" steel rack shelves ( https://www.alza.de/datacom-10-150-mm-schwarz-d235882.htm ) since I wanted something that could survive a bit of rough handling.
• The door was a KALLAX glass insert without the shelf in the middle and with back wall cut out ( https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/kallax-vitrinentuereinsatz-weiss-70340299/ )

What unfortunately didn't fit into the rack and is seen below:

• Eaton 5E USB UPS ( https://www.alza.de/eaton-5e-850i-usb-din-d5221787.htm )
• Fractal Node 304 NAS - I really didn't want to compromise on this one :)

The 3D printed parts for the rack were ordered from https://www.drei-d-w.de/ - a small print farm in Germany. I believe they don't open their designs, but I'm sure there will be some replacement models available. Though back then I didn't care, I didn't have my own printer anyway.

[taggart]

Making designs around the KALLAX bays is a great idea! In your case you have a glass door and maybe the gaps on the side of the rack are good for airflow. I think it might also be interesting to make a bezel that covers up those gaps, both for cosmetics but also if you did fans to seal it up and promote front-to-back airflow.

Yours appears to be an older KALLAX, the outside panels seem to be the same thickness as the interior. On the more recent ones the outside panels are maybe 2x the thickness and are a hollow core honeycomb material. Those might be harder to mount to, I don't know if a screw would have anything to grab too (but you could use some kind of anchor or adhesive).

The EKET build in #22 is also interesting, and the original LACK RACK had a bunch of good ideas too.