21 Sep
2007
21 Sep
'07
8:48 p.m.
JP Hindin wrote:
Greetings;
I'm planning on moving an Onyx rack in the next two weeks and I'm probably
going to have to be fairly agricultural with my tooling - pickup truck and
flatbed trailer, no lift gate, no lovely enclosed box.
I'm thinking that to safely transport this I'll tip it on its back and lay
it flat on some 2x4s onto the flatbed trailer, but I'd love any advice
from listers who have moved one, or better yet, who have one and can tell
me things like - how solid is the frame (after removal of the plastic
skins)? Is it top heavy? Bottom heavy? (I'm guessing after removal of
PSUs, top heavy, but unsure)
Anything would be much appreciated.
I found the below:
http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/sgidepot/chalonyx.html
Which gives a nice picture of a unit with open doors, but it's hard to
tell how solid the frame rails are. The thing looks awfully deep to be a
standard 19" rack, so I'm guessing it's custom, but... having never seen
one...
Many thanks for your time,
JP Hindin
Nice machine!
I've moved a few Onyx (IR/10K & Challenge but all physically the same)
in the past. The plastic skins do slide off, they just need a good whack
from one end usually. Front and rear doors just lift
off (there may be
an earth strap) and are pretty heavy - be careful as it's
very easy to
chip/scratch them.
The rack is very well made and whilst there is wiring around the sides,
it's within the outer metal framework. It is a very deep rack - there's
card racks front and back and a central midplane. There's space for 3
power supplies at the bottom front (although usually only 2 are fitted)
- these are quite heavy but insignificant compared to the rest of the
system! There's also space for an additional card rack at the bottom
rear, which is usually empty (lucky you if it's loaded!!). I wouldn't
suggest removing cards unless you have to - there's usually a lot of
very similar looking cabling interconnecting them and the back panel
(take a camera and labels just in case you have to undo this!!). I've
also found the cards don't like being pulled - it sometimes takes a few
attemps to get a working system afterwards!
I've generally hired a van with tail lift which makes the move easy but
I've also helped load them into 2 different sized vans, laying on the
side. With two people it's fairly easy to get the machine rocked so one
end is supported on the van floor, then lift the other and slide in.
I wouldn't try moving one by myself :-)
Hope that helps!
James
http://www.machineroom.info