Take it from someone that mounts equipment all the time, take your time in planning out what
you want to do. Racks have the screw holes in the rails so that they will match up with a 1U rack
panel. If you take the time to place your radio mounting rails or brackets up against the vertical
rack rails. You will notice that they will not match up with the holes in all places. You have to
slide the bracket up or down till the holes match the slots or holes in the bracket.
As for mounting heavy equipment into racks, there are a number of ways to do that. You can
install a shelf below the heavy equipment to help support it. You can use slide out rails that
mount to the equipment and extend out the rear of the equipment and get supported by a
second set of vertical rails in the rear. These type of racks will be of some sort of cabinet
construction. They can come with removable side covers and also doors for the front and
rear. Bottom line is the racks for large heavy equipment don't come cheap. depending on
what you pick and the options, you can see these racks go from between $500 and $2000.
They can even be ordered with casters on the bottom so you can roll them around.
Not that I am picking any one vendor, but you could go on line and look at "Mid Atlantic" and
get an idea of what is available. Their site has about as good of a selection of all sorts of
racks, slides, shelfs, side panels, rack panels, casters and so on.
Forgot to add that you can get the rack rails with either 10 x 32 screw threads or 12 x 24
screw threads. The choice is yours and make sure you have the correct screws when
you go to do the install. Point to make here is that the 10 x 32 screws will fit into the
12 x 24 holes, but you will find out fast that they won't tighten up.
Jim
I'm not very well versed on the concepts of rack mounting radio equipment, however I am interested in understanding how the installation process works for most radios out there today.
So how *do* you actually install a rack mount capable radio into a rack?
Take for instance the Icom R9500 - it comes with Rack Mounted handles and a kit, however I don't understand the installation process. Do you just bolt it in from the front and that front bracket alone supports the entire radio? Or do most radios have side rails? What are some good methods for getting the radio in the rack in the first place (just holding 75 pounds and bolting in is impossible)
Thanks,