The time has come to work on the trays that will hold two complete systems each. The material is 6mm MDF. One nice little feature with MDF is that it can be threaded using normal metal taps. After drilling a fair number of 2.5mm holes they were quickly threaded to M3 and the motherboard stands were installed.

I have a feeling some of the people defining the ATX standard did think twice since the stands from the opposite sides do stay clear from each other when the motherboards are mounted like this.

Next to follow was adding a few more holes for the PSUs and HDDs. After a bit of pain I realized how awkward it turned out to be mounting the HDDs and PSUs. The PSU will block the mounting screws for the HDD on the opposite side but then it has to sit on top of it's power lead from the PSU on the same side... To make a long story short, four hands had helped but I got there in the end. Now I just have to make another four of these.

It felt like manufacturing doing unit after unit. At last all is done regarding major assembly. Power button and LEDs are still left to do on these units. They will not be painted and when the outer shell is ready they won't be that easy to see anyway.

If you look closely you can see ribs of wood attached near the top edge. They were added to make the 6mm MDF fit perfectly centered inside the 10mm aluminium profile.

The last tray was slightly different to make since it hold a system as well as a 16 port 10/100 switch. I wasn't too keen to add spacers to make the switch stay clear of the motherboard stands so a suitable hole was drilled before gluing it in place.

All new switches I get from now on will be gigabit only so this one will be retired together with this project in a far distant future...

I can happily announce that somehow I managed to measure everything correctly so it did fit. The spacing is 5mm between CPU and the next systems NICs.

In case the HDDs needs to be reimaged that can be done fairly easily from the rear. It is lucky the PSUs has bypass power as well since this will eliminate the need for loads of messy cables and splitters.