Reworking My Large System

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I think I have a case of PPD... post PROJECT depression.[emoji1] I didn't do a thing yesterday. Didn't work on my cost spreadsheet, didn't clean the garage, didn't start building a bike for my daughter, didn't mow the yard... NOTHIN'[emoji1]... OH... except I made myself a new ODJT trading card.[emoji1] It didn't help... I still have the BLAHS. Maybe if I shop for some gear or something?[emoji1]... But I can't think of anything I need (or want). Ya know what's really depressing???... All that work I didn't do yesterday, still needs to be done.[emoji1] I guess I'll get up off my lazy butt and get busy... sometime... later... maybe today???[emoji1]
 
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I think it's time to start re-working both the systems ....
 
Told you it was coming. ;)

Can we start over now? :)
I'm working on my Project Expenditures spreadsheet, and JUST now finished documenting my MISTAKES... It's a FIVE PAGE Word document.:laugh:... Without pics.... If I post it, I'll have to do it one mistake at a time, otherwise it would read like a BAD NOVEL!:laugh:
 
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Still testing my new and improved Large System off and on. Had a little medical issue yesterday, but I'm back in business today.[emoji4] So far, only ONE issue with the new system... the left monitor (for the video/light control PC) was getting some kind of interference, causing some minor video static. I'm running DVI over CAT5 from the computers to the monitors, so I changed the CAT5 cable and voila[emoji1]... that fixed it. Hard to believe that with ALL the cables in this system, only one has been found to be bad so far, and I somehow got ALL of them connected properly... That's gotta be a first for me.[emoji1]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Is it time to talk about my mistakes? After having some time to stand back and look at (and test) the finished product (Large System), and assess the results, I can see that I made some mistakes... NO!!!... I'm NOT gonna start over!:laugh: The system works, and I'm planning to use it for at least a while, but I think it's always good to do a post-mortem just to list your mistakes in hopes you can avoid repeating them. There’s a BUNCH of mistakes to talk about. I'm not gonna talk about all of my mistakes, because some were just poor craftsmanship, and can be (or have already been) fixed. But I’ll post about some of my mistakes that were more serious, and I'll discuss each one a-post-at-a-time.

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Perhaps my first mistake was the buying the SKB R-104 rack from @steve149. Not necessarily because I bought it from Steve:laugh:, but it was probably the wrong rack for me. I shoulda bought a R-106. I needed more height that I did not consider, and the extra 2U would have provided the space for a MUCH simpler computer mounting configuration. The rack is only slightly taller than my old rack, but I didn't think about the fact that my old controller case sat on a table above the rack, adding a good 5-6 inches to the actual hight of the controller controls. Also, making mods to a molded plastic rack is a PITA I've decided, and I seriously doubt I'll ever do it again. I got a good price on the rack, so if I had really screwed it up, it would not have been a big loss. At this point though, I have too much work into this one to start over.

It worked out OK IMHO, but we haven't heard what Steve thinks of my finished rack?:)
 
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Is it time to talk about my mistakes? After having some time to stand back and look at (and test) the finished product (Large System), and assess the results, I can see that I made some mistakes... NO!!!... I'm NOT gonna start over!:laugh: The system works, and I'm planning to use it for at least a while, but I think it's always good to do a post-mortem just to list your mistakes in hopes you can avoid repeating them. There’s a BUNCH of mistakes to talk about. I'm not gonna talk about all of my mistakes, because some were just poor craftsmanship, and can be (or have already been) fixed. But I’ll post about some of my mistakes that were more serious, and I'll discuss each one a-post-at-a-time.

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Perhaps my first mistake was the buying the SKB R-104 rack from @steve149. Not necessarily because I bought it from Steve:laugh:, but it was probably the wrong rack for me. I shoulda bought a R-106. I needed more height that I did not consider, and the extra 2U would have provided the space for a MUCH simpler computer mounting configuration. The rack is only slightly taller than my old rack, but I didn't think about the fact that my old controller case sat on a table above the rack, adding a good 5-6 inches to the actual hight of the controller controls. Also, making mods to a molded plastic rack is a PITA I've decided, and I seriously doubt I'll ever do it again. I got a good price on the rack, so if I had really screwed it up, it would not have been a big loss. At this point though, I have too much work into this one to start over.

It worked out OK IMHO, but we haven't heard what Steve thinks of my finished rack?:)
I've always liked large racks ... :)
 
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Next in my series of posts about the mistakes I made with my Large System Reworking Project...

Mistake #2: The High Heels (height extension)…

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This is one that worked out OK, but the design was flawed. This mistake might never have been made If I had purchased a larger upper rack (see Mistake #1). But since I DID make the extension, the first mistake I made on this build was I used black vinyl wrapped wood to build it with, and it was CR@P! It weighed more than I’d like, the vinyl doesn't adhere very well, and the wood underneath the vinyl was extremely poor quality. But I built the High Heels with it anyway. It bolts to the case using the same bolt holes as the casters, only with LONG bolts, and I reused the original casters. Drilling 6" long holes without a drill press is NOT easy. Mine are not straight, but you can't tell that the holes had to be enlarged (to get them to match the bolt holes on the rack) once the bolts are in and the High Heels are attached to the rack. I was able to fix the loose vinyl with construction adhesive. I think it looks pretty good. The good thing is, I can easily build another one any time (later) with better and lighter materials, and simply unbolt the current one, and bolt the new one on. I later thought of a better way (better design) to achieve the same result, with less difficulty, so that's probably what I'll go with if I decide to rebuild this add-on.

The best part about the High Heels was it allowed me to put my power inlets in without making large holes in the rack. And it also provided a great platform for the Floating Facade slider.

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... Nobody has asked about the metal plate that sits below the inlets and around the slider. That is actually my solution to keeping the slider open when the Floating Facade is attached. I call it a gravity latch.:laugh: The holes behind the metal plate are actually slightly larger than the rods. There's a notch in the bottom of each rod at the point I want them to stop, and gravity causes the rods to drop down slightly, locking the rods onto the metal plate. To push the slider back in, I merely lift the channel up a bit and slide it back.
 
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Next in my series of posts about the mistakes I made with my Large System Reworking Project...

Mistake #3: I've also come to the conclusion that I screwed up the Keyboard Shelf...

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NO... I'm not gonna start over😄... at least not yet.😄 I think it looks OK, but it is nowhere near perfect. The main problem is, it blocks the view of my Denon mixer. I essentially have to bend down or stoop to see the controls on the mixer. Is this a BIG problem?... Maybe not. It's not like I'm constantly adjusting the sliders on the mixer. Once I've set up and completed a sound check, the only time I would typically change anything is to turn microphones up or down (Channels 1-4). I might even be able to do that by feel.

It looks fine, however, I could have made it better. There WERE things I could have done differently, and it probably would not have taken me as long to make it. The PRIMARY reason for the modification was NOT to make a Keyboard Shelf, but to provide access to the knobs on the front of the controller (mounted in the top rack). Providing a place to set a keyboard and mouse was sort of an afterthought. I could have simply cut out the section in front, just as I did with the Gator Case I use with my Small System. However, my Small System has no base (bottom) rack, so it sits on a TABLE, which provides space for the mouse and keyboard. The Small System has only 2U of rack space in the front, so it's also not as tall as the SKB R104 rack, therefore the keyboard and mouse don't sit very low when placed on the table top. There is NO table top when using the SKB rack, and it has 4U in the front, so if the SKB rack was sitting on a table, the keyboard and mouse would be sitting much lower; perhaps uncomfortably so. The Keyboard Shelf puts the mouse and keyboard at the perfect height (level with the controller). One problem with the keyboard shelf is it does not really have enough space to effectively move a normal mouse.😊

I think perhaps my first problem was not understanding that the case was not symmetrical and had NO square edges. The front is thicker around the SKB logo than it is at the right and left edges (so it bows out slightly in that area), but the thickness of the plastic varied; especially from front to back. The back of the section I removed was extremely thin and flimsy, so I ended up just removing it entirely.

My design called for a shelf deep enough for my Gearhead keyboard, but the area available to remove was only half the size (depth) I needed, so I had to somehow add depth to the extended (folded down) shelf. I also wanted the rack lid to fit just as if there had been no modifications. And the choice I made to use the cutout piece of hollow plastic (for half of the shelf) may not have been a good decision. I wanted to keep the look of the original rack, including the logo and oval indentations, but it would have been SO much easier (and smarter) to scrap the cutout and fabricate a replacement in wood. Essentially, that's what I had to do anyway, because the plastic cutout was hollow, so I cut and shaped a wooden insert to fill the hollow space... THAT took A LOT of time.

Now that I switched the Gearhead keyboard/mouse combo for the Logitech combo, they are smaller, work better, and would have fit in a smaller space. I could have gotten away WITHOUT the (second) folding part of the shelf. I also should have cut the ENTIRE front section out, and used a single fold down shelf the full size of that section… It would have been fine for the smaller Logitech keyboard and Trackball mouse...

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^^^^ Keyboard shelf without the second folding section extended.

If I was going to redo it, and knowing what I NOW know, I would have removed the entire front section, and made the WHOLE thing a one-piece fold-down shelf. I could fix this one by removing the remaining section below the current fold-down shelf (as outlined in red below), and then add a strip of wood to the bottom of the existing shelf...

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The thing is; there's nothing I can do to avoid blocking some of the front of the upper rack as long as there's any kind of a shelf. So I might make this change eventually, but not right away.😊
 
Bobcat, :laugh:you need to start a new thread:
Reworking My Large System - (The Lessons)

Put that in the thread identified above. :)

Dammit!

Dammit!
I could have simply kept all this info about my MISTAKES to myself and pretended I didn't make any.:laugh: I'm sharing them so others might have the knowledge so they can hopefully avoid some of them when doing their own DIY projects.:djsmug:
 
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Next in my series of posts about the mistakes I made with my Large System Reworking Project...

Mistake #4: The Nano Computers. The Nano PC's seem to work GREAT (though they've yet to be used for a gig), and the way I mounted them worked BEAUTIFULLY…

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BUT... after further review... the entire computer setup is probably a mistake. These (2) Nano computers replaced two rack-mounted 1U computers, and they save a lot of weight and space, and make a lot less noise, but the ODD size and shape means it might be difficult to replace them if that becomes necessary, and I suspect it will. You can't just replace the guts of the PC like you can with a 1U rack PC case, and you can't upgrade them. Zotac has already come out with a similar PC with a slightly larger case design, so how long these computers will be available is highly questionable. I could, I suppose, buy a couple of spares since they're cheap?[emoji4]

Performance is NOT so much an issue as far as I can tell (so far). The 1.6 GHz P6 CPU runs Traktor with no effort at all, and the 8GB of RAM is more than sufficient. I’m not a video DJ and have no plans to be, so I won’t be running video on these computers. I’ve also experienced no significant heat in my testing so far. They’re probably gonna work fine. I just think they’re probably not a good long-term solution.

My thought process was this; computers are getting cheaper and smaller. I can’t build a computer anymore for what it costs to buy one of these little Nano computers ($200). I have tested running Traktor on a Stick PC and it works… I just wasn’t ready to go that route just yet. Stick PC’s are getting more powerful, though, so it may be an option in the very near if I have to replace one of these Nano PC’s. There’s an Intel Compute Stick with a Dual Core 2.8 GHz M5 CPU that would easily outperform my Nano computers, but it’s only available with 4GB of RAM, and you can’t just add more RAM in a stick PC. It also costs more than twice as much as my Nano PC’s. However, It’s getting to the point that computers are almost disposable… not worth the cost and hassle of repairing them. Keep your data on an external USB3 hard drive, and just plug it into a new Stick PC when you need a replacement. Can you imagine having computers that weigh less than a pound? And you can just plug them into a big touch-screen monitor if you want.

While the Nano Computers were probably a mistake, they were still a pretty good option for the time being. If I had to (and I don’t want to), I can always put one of my old rack-mounted PC’s in the bottom rack in the unused 1U space above my light controller.
 
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I could have simply kept all this info about my MISTAKES to myself and pretended I didn't make any.:laugh: I'm sharing them so others might have the knowledge so they can hopefully avoid some of them when doing their own DIY projects.:djsmug:

I was teasing - I actually like that you're doing an AAR. :)
 
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Do you want it to end?

Not sure, but for your sake, I'm sure you'd like to have some closure on the large system before you tackle the small one....at least for your mental state of mind...:soldierworried:

I think your large system is a thing of beauty....a lot of overkill for my taste. I think your small setup wold be just marvy for 90% of the events for 90% of members here.
 
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Not sure, but for your sake, I'm sure you'd like to have some closure on the large system before you tackle the small one....at least for your mental state of mind...:soldierworried:

Closure???[emoji1]... OK, but I'm still not done recounting my mistakes.[emoji1] Everybody likes reading about someone else's F-Ups, don't they???[emoji1] This project can't really officially end until I actually use the reworked Large System for real (not just practice). Not sure when that will happen? I have one (small) event (this week), but nothing else booked until OCTOBER, so I might start another DIY thread BEFORE I use this system for an actual event.[emoji1]

As for my "mental state of mind"[emoji1]... we gave up on that A LONG TIME ago.[emoji1]