source of electronics enclosure? - UK / IRL

[Adrian Brentnall]

HI I'm looking for a reasonably affordable enclosure for a piece of custom electronics (to drive a bank of monitors in an unattended videowall application)

Needs to be big enough to house 7 x Raspberry Pi's, fan, associated power supply, (probably a single big 5v psu, rather than individual wall-warts), rear panel that's easily drillable for 7 x video outs plus

2 x usb.

It'll be locked away in an equipment room when in use, but needs to look reasonably presentable / professional.

First thought was 19" rack-mount unit... probably only needs to be 2U or thereabouts - power supply will be the bulkiest item.

Any suggestions, either for alternatives to 19" or for sources of affordable 19" kit?

Thanks Adrian

[Andy Burns]

Does it need to be DIY or could you outsource?

You could tap holes on one face for mounting pillars of the PSU and the other face for the Pis, or you could mount them onto a sheet of FR4 to slide in the grooves of the cheeks ...

[alan_m]

What about stripping out a PC tower case? Power supply and fans already built in.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Plenty of modular 19" stuff around. You could have each Pi on a slot in card.

[Theo]

What's your definition of affordable?

start at fifty quid.

When you say 'rack mount', do you want ears? Slides? Or is it something of vaguely the right size to fit on a shelf?

To go cheaper, you could look if there's anyone nearby scrapping some servers. Once they're outdated, they're basically scrap metal value only. You could reuse the power supply, and they typically come with mounting hardware.

Theo

[Adrian Brentnall]

HI Andy Could be outsourced - tbh I'd not thought of that possibility. It'd certainly make the whole business of cutting out holes for video sockets etc.

Have you used these guys? - any idea on price for a one-off?

Thanks Adrian

[Adrian Brentnall]

Yes - that's a possibility... Thinking about it - the RPi's would probably fit in the footprint of a motherboard, and suitable rear plates could be found for the video sockets...

Good idea! Thanks Adrian

[Adrian Brentnall]

Like the old-fashioned 'eurocard' idea you mean? I'm hoping that the whole thing will be a 'fit & forget' installation, so I wouldn't mind bolting all the RPi's top a sheet of ali etc and hard-wiring them.

It's replacing an outdated, horribly over-engineered, long-in-the-tooth system using 8x HP xw4300's running XP / NT Server

- and I'd hope that an RPi-based system, with a bit of fan cooling, would turn out to be a lot more reliable in the long-run.

Design aim is to have a big switch labelled 'on / off' as the only user control!

Thanks Adrian

[Adrian Brentnall]

Hi Theo That sounds affordable - thanks - I'll take a look

The last one - doesn't actually need to fit in a rack - just something that sort of size / shape

Yes - all depends on the 'nearby' bit... we're out in the wilds here in rural south-west Ireland - but I know people 'up-country' who run server farms... that's a thought... thanks Adrian

[Andy Burns]

No, and somehow the site 'looked British' but now I see they're American, similar extrusions are available here.

"uniobox" might be a good starting point?

[Adrian Brentnall]

Thanks - looks possible.. Oddly enough, it's sometimes cheaper to have stuff shipped from the USA to here (Ireland), as it is to have it shipped from the UK. Some UK suppliers seem to think that Ireland's situated somewhere near the Falklands, based on their shipping charges!

Some possibilities there Thanks Adrian

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Sounds like gross overkill

I only have one Pi, but judging from the operating temperature it cannot take any more than an Amp.

A 5V 5A SMPS is quite small and I would doubt that a fan would be needed.

I bought some boxes from Newey and Eyre in Birmingham, they are grey plastic with a mild steel base. I used one for a Power supply, Mitsubishi Q00 PLC with four I/O cards and an Edesigner HMI stuck to the front.

I probably wouldn't install the product on a clients site :-).

Technically it worked a treat and as long as the lid wasn't removed it looked reasonably professional.

I think Newey's operate in Ireland, but I assume that they use a franchise arrangement or something similar. Anyway I can get virtually everything Neweys stock at Kellihers in Tralee, so an enquiry there would probably furnish you with details of other Irish branches.

AB

[dennis]

You might find these useful.

[Andy Burns]

Nice, except the HDMI port only seems to be accessible on one Pi per blade.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That sort of thing - but not necessarily Eurocard. Just modular. Some redundant broadcast etc gear might yield the hardware needed at a decent price - and maybe even include a power supply.

[Adrian Brentnall]

The official Pi3B psu is rated at 2.5A - but that seems to be a cautious estimate on the ground that it doesn't know what's going to be plugged into its USB ports. Various sources reckon about 1 amp (per pi) when running - so something rated 10 A or so would supply all 7, I'd guess. The system consists of a master RPi which streams a video out over a wired network, and the slave RPi's simply grab the 'tile' of the video that they want and display that. Might be worth going for a bigger box, and sticking the router/psu inside - so all that's required on the back panel is mains in, and 6x video out. Less opportunity for folks to fiddle with stuff then

I was thinking 'fan' more for the RPi's benefit - as the room (more of a big cupboard!) in which they're to be installed has very little ventilation.... though the current installation with 8 big, old HP towers doesn't help things.

Like that! That's the kind of thing I'm looking to achieve - something that looks 'proper' from the outside ....

That's a thought - thanks. Adrian

[Adrian Brentnall]

Thanks - that's neat. Interesting that they have a PSU rated 4A peak (so that's 1A per RPi). The only snag I can see for my application is that only one of the RPi's has its HDMI port accessible - which is a bit of a problem in my application (one screen per RPi) - but in a more 'control-orientated' environment then it wouldn't be an issue.

Thanks Adrian

[Adrian Brentnall]

Indeed! Neat idea though... Guess it's RPi's fault for 'inconveniently' fitting connectors on two sides of the board! In my case, the HDMI is the only thing I'm interested in...

More details on the product here

Adrian

[Adrian Brentnall]

Just a matter of finding such a beast (out here in the wilds!)

I'm still leaning towards the "bolt 'em all to a sheet of ali and put a box round 'em" approach. I'm hoping that, with decent cooling, and maybe a heatsink on each RPi, the thing can just be installed and left to run. Any servicing that might be needed can be on the basis of 'unplug cables, unbolt RPi, swap over memory card, bolt new RPi in, replug cables' - so I don;t think it really needs the 'pluggability' of a card/rack system. It's essentially a 'display' item, rather than something more 'mission-critical'....

We'll see.... I'm only at the proposal stage so far - but trying to work out the possibilities / costs etc

Thanks Adrian

[dennis]

What software and OS run on the current system?