My new rack! - Pics of Old vs New rack check out!

Kaminsky

Finally put mine together,

(sorry for the poor quality pics)

Lab1.jpg picture by kaminsky_bucket - Photobucket

Cable management front and back and putting main ports to patch panels makes things a lot easier and stops the mrs nagging. Patching the ISP line was a bit nervy.

Lab4.jpg picture by kaminsky_bucket - Photobucket

Lots of play time coming up

bulletproof baba

Dude, really nice rack setup you have, a good inspiration ! keep it up!!

itdaddy

sorry dudes for not getting back about the power issue.

well I still havent got it perfect but use a power strips connected to the rack with huge wire ties. I wire tie the power strips to the rack and then plug them in. I was using
UPS but nahhhhh! dont need it. I turn it on and run for awhile while doing labs then switch off. for my cat switches what I do is connect my cat switches into their own power switch
and shut all of them off and on with one switch on the power strip. I love my real lab
I hate sims but lately have made my GNS3 lab work well with c2691 routers and great idle pc value finally can run 5 6 routers no issue CPU.

rack is the way to go!
glad it helps!

itdaddy

Home Lab Setup Topology Who’s Your ITDaddy? - CCNA Blog!

It is way nicer than piling them up kind of feel smarter haahaha

kevin31

Itdaddy nice blog looks like there loads of useful info. Keep up the good work I'm sure it will help us all still working on the ccna

itdaddy

yeah dudes
it is same company that is in uk and us. i went with the 28u cause man i know I am going to fill it up. roles really nice and sturdy an easy to use. the only way to go.

the universal clamps that they prvide are way better than the clamps you get that come with your device trust me. i mixed and matched clamps wish I would have had enough of their clamps (universal) if you can afford it buy their clamps vs using your own that you already have for a rack. the universal clamps that they have are designed for this rack.
trust me it is a ***** with other clamps.

Kaminsky

itdaddy wrote: »

yeah dudes
it is same company that is in uk and us. i went with the 28u cause man i know I am going to fill it up. roles really nice and sturdy an easy to use. the only way to go.

the universal clamps that they prvide are way better than the clamps you get that come with your device trust me. i mixed and matched clamps wish I would have had enough of their clamps (universal) if you can afford it buy their clamps vs using your own that you already have for a rack. the universal clamps that they have are designed for this rack.
trust me it is a ***** with other clamps.

I bought the 16u Skele and I love the rack as it fits perfectly under my desk (once I raised it by a foot). The only one thing that really annoyed me was the cheap cage nuts that came with it. Cage nuts are a pain in the a** to put in at the best of times... ( I have the old screwdriver scars to prove this fact) However, with the nuts sent with these skeles, when you finally get the little buggers in they fall out as soon as you try to screw something into them. I have never come across worse cage nuts than those that came with this rack. I had to "borrow" a load of decent ones from work... (I will give them back... honest!)

Apart from that criticism (and that the feet edges should have rubber caps because stubbing your toes on raw edged steel at 5am when you are staggering to bed is soooo annoying and hurts like a bi*ch), I recommend skele racks for home labs whole heartedly. I would also recommend if you are going to go to this extent with your home lab (rather than pile them on top of each other) you should pay an extra £10 for a patch panel (and tools) and punch down Console, FE0/FE1, etc ports onto the back of it and screw it into your skele. Good raw network practice (yes we used to make our own cables in the old days) and once done, incredibly quick for changing to a new network topology. Is very tidy too.

I did consider a full 42 cage with power and fans but I knew I would be divorced shortly afterward.

jbaello

Very nice rack ITDaddy, looks like that thing will hold alot of future appliance...

ilcram19-2

wow i imaging ur light bill is probably huge u defenetly will save some light if you use gns3 and virtual machines

itdaddy

Kaminsky

you are killing me hahahah I laughed so hard when you describe those nutz. Me too I was pissed trying to clipthem in there and then when I did, I would power screw them and bam
ouch!!!!!!!!!!!yeah, it was a pain in the Arse! but man you described it so funny like. like was back mounting each device. I have like something like 13 devices and man were my fingers sore after, but it looks great and the clamps that they provide are so much better you know...I thru out my old rack mounts and use theres. but yeah the nutz sucks but we both made it work. and the price..you cant beat it...aahaha but you werekilling me describingyour journey hahah we made it! hha
robert

itdaddy

ilcram19-2


no running my rack is not that expensive; dont really notice much of a difference
gns3 is nice but a really rack is fast and no bugs! and I like that that!
realy equip rocks! i have a 2511 access router with 16 telnet ports 2 octo cables
and i love it. rather work on it than gns3 any day but gns3 saves me when working on 12.4 IOS and ipv6 features.

itdaddy

jbaello

yeah that is why I got it for later on to hold many things like the bigger the better ;)size
does matter ahhahahah

itdaddy

kevin31

thanks there is a lot I put on there for ccna, I am brutely honest.
you can do it! use subnettingquestions.com daily for 30 minutes and never stop.
i still use it...i use the blog as a study toool and for my notes to refer back to later
do it yourself; you keep your notes and then I use them for review...;)
and if what I said helps someone super!
I am working on BSCI so ccnpitdaddy.wordpress.com is newer
but still try to post stuff on my ccna blogs

laidbackfreak

guys your not wrong about the nuts n bolts, damn shame really as the rack itself is great and these let the show down a little.....
still easy enough to borrow some from work
I've got a couple more pieces of kit to throw in and once done I'll post a pic