Racks, rails and panels - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

18 Nov 2003

On Nov 18,  7:35, Ian Primus wrote:
...

 On Tuesday, November 18, 2003, at 03:42 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: 
...
  > Normally, on those racks, you use clip-on
Tinnerman nuts, with 10-32
...
  > screws.  Some devices use a metal strip with
tapped holes to take 10-32
...
  > screws.  A Tinnerman nut is basically a folded
piece of springy sheet
...
  > metal with a nut welded onto the back, so that it
clips onto the
 > vertical rail and holds the nut captive and aligned with the hole in
...
   the rail.

 Are these Tinnerman nuts available in places like Home Depot, or do
 they need to be ordered. Something tells me that Home Depot wouldn't
 carry them, since they sound specific to rack mounted hardware, but I
 thought I'd ask. I'll probably just use regular nuts and bolts, those I
...
  _can_ get at Home Depot. 
Probably not at Home Depot, but specialist hardware suppliers (any rack
supplier) will have them, or Tinnerman Palnut themselves.  Try a Google
search for "tinnerman" :-)  Or see if any local suplus places have any
(look for them still attached to racks).

You'll find that using ordinary nuts and bolts is often very difficult,
because you often can't get your fingers in to hold the nut.

...
  I've got part of the original rails :). Bolted to
the side of the drive
...
  are sliding rails, and normally I would assume that
the entire rail was
...
  there, as the end is such that it could be screwed
into the rack, but
 there are only these screw holes on the front of the rails, not the
 back, and I know that a 150 pound drive cannot be supported by a single
...
  set of screws in the front. 
Correct, there are usually three (or four) screws at the front, and the
same at the back.  If you've got two parts of the rail, one sliding
over the other, you're just missing the back brackets.  If you've got
only one part, fixed to the side of the drive, you have slightly less
than half the rail (you're missing the larger part, with all the ball
bearings, and missing the back bracket).  The back brackets are plated
steel channel, about 8" long, that fit over the stationary part of the
rail. The end is bent over into a flange that bolts to the inside of
the rack's vertical member.  I dare say you could make something that
would do the job.

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York