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If you're anything like me, you've got a bunch of hobbies that you bounce around

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between, and that can lead to stuff piling up all over the place. It's a lot

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more fun playing with all this stuff than sorting it, but eventually you've

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got to do something about it. Maybe a 19-in rack. I could get all this

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outboard gear tucked away nice and neat, and maybe even do something to reduce

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the number of cables that are all over the place here. But a decent rack isn't

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exactly cheap. You can easily pay thousands of dollars for something like

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Elijah used in our 8V8 gaming stations. At the same time, you can't go too cheap

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either, or you end up with something that can't even hold one of these power amps. This $200 rack from Samson is in

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the Goldilock zone. It'll totally get the job done. But come on, it's still

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just a shelf. Surely I can build something similar and save a bunch of

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money along the way. That's what I'm here to do. That's right. Buy or DIY is

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back.

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UG Green. Say no to expensive limited cloud storage and switch to UGG Green's

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NAS DH2300. It can store up to 60 tab of

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data. So, good luck using all that space. Grab yours today at the link in

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the description. With a limited budget and limited tools, I'm going to build my

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own version of this rack and hopefully save some money along the way. But, it's

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got to live up to Mr. TechTips expectations, so I can't totally halfass

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it. Still, 200 bucks isn't a lot to work with. The price of wood is crazy these

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days, and I've got to pay myself an hourly wage. But I've got a plan. A

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starting point that's under $20 and [snorts] uh might already be sitting in

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your living room. Equipment racks like these have been used in the

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telecommunications industry since at least the 1920s when AT&T established

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this 19in width as their standard, and

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they've since been adopted in IT, proauudio, music, and many other

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industries. Just like those old racks, this one from Samson lets us densely

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pack a bunch of equipment into a tight space, helps us contain all the wiring,

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and it doesn't look entirely hideous in your living room. This is an 8U rack,

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meaning it holds eight rack units of equipment. Now, a rack unit is 1 and 3/4

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in, which means our DIY version needs to have at least 14 in of vertical space to

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fit all our gear in it. This is IKEA's

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Lax side table. They've been around since the late '7s, and if you've ever

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had to furnish an apartment or a dorm on the cheap, you've probably bought one of

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these and had money left over for a hot dog. Somewhere in the 2000s, somebody

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figured out that these are the exact right size for rack mountable gear and

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hence the lack rack was born.

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[music]

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[music] I think this is going to be really simple. We literally just stick our rack

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gear in here, screw it in, call it a

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day. >> Yeah, it doesn't get any simpler than that. >> Right now, we've spent, I believe, 17 US

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for our lac rack. Let's keep track from there. These rack ears are usually

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pretty adjustable, so you can kind of configure exactly how you want to mount

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things. So, this is just a power distribution bar. Probably overkill for

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a little home rack, but you know, this should fit. We got about 17 inches

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there. 17 and 12 there.

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Should be no problem. >> Do we want to flatten that a little bit first? >> That does seem a little damaged, doesn't

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it? >> Yeah. >> Get a hammer.

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All right.

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We're [snorts] definitely losing structural integrity as we go up. Feels

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like >> we're mostly using music gear as our

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example cuz it tends to be shorter.

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>> Okay, so this might be where IKEA bites us in the ass.

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Wow. Yeah, there's not much holding that there.

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We'll have to see how this goes. You know what? Let's try that and just see

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how this this feels. This is supposed to be easy.

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It's not that bad. We got what? One, two, three, four, five units in there.

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So, not quite enough yet.

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Send it.

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All right. You probably get the Lego.

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I lied. >> Okay. [laughter]

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We may have detected a flaw in our plan.

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>> All right. Well, that was about 15 minutes. >> So, we're like 32 bucks in plus screws.

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I don't think Lance is going to approve this. Doesn't even weigh that much.

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[laughter] >> You talk about a brick. >> I just want to cut one side off of this

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leg and we'll see what's going on inside here.

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>> Oh, wow. I think I found the problem. I

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just happen to have this 20-year-old lock leg. I'm kind of curious to see if

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it's the exact same construction or if they've gotten cheaper over the years.

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I'm going to say that's exactly the same. On the plus side, they haven't

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gotten worse in 20 years.

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The bottom actually got a little better. >> Oh, yeah. >> So, I guess you could say it's uh

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lacking. >> Oh, dear. What if we replace the two

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front legs with solid wood? >> I mean, yeah, that seems like the

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easiest fix. >> All right, let's try again here. So, 17

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bucks. Resetting with a little movie

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magic. We made this out of a glued up 2x4 earlier. We just got to cut it down

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to our leg height and screw it in just like the lock legs.

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You can see your uh pencil mark was perfect. Your cut [music] on the other

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hand was not. >> All right, I'll go fix that. You get those out of there. Trying to drill into

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your leg.

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>> Screwing into these legs, it already feels significantly more sturdy.

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>> I mean, it's still a soft wood, but at least it's actually a wood.

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>> Yeah, it's not air.

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>> Okay, that's good. >> It actually does something now. >> Took me about 30 minutes to prep that

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stock yesterday. So, that's 15 bucks for just my time. And we just spent another

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10 or so with me and Justin cutting them down to size and installing them. I'm

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still doing pretty good. [snorts] >> Well, it didn't immediately fall out

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this time. >> All right, let's go big or go home here. What about your home server?

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>> I think home server.

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>> All right, let's flip that over. >> Do the flip. >> Oh, it's a little heavier this time.

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Oh, would you look at that? >> That's not too bad. And if you had like

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a longer server, you could probably the L bracket into this stuff.

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>> Yeah. Into the back arm there. Yeah, for sure. >> Let's add another 10 minutes for us to

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install our gear here. So, we are at 52

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bucks. >> Also, a lot of this moving. Move that again. Look here. It's actually just

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moving on. >> Just moving the server itself. >> Yeah, it's not actually moving the

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mount. The real question is, is this going to hold up long term?

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What if we're going to pull things out and put them back in >> again? I imagine these holes lasting

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maybe doing that once or twice before the holes are just screwed.

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>> We got to come up with something better. >> Yep. >> Round three. >> Round three.

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>> Got some rack rails from Amazon here. >> Oh, interesting. >> And I'm thinking, can we just mount them

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onto here somehow? Okay. But we can't

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screw into this holo crap. >> No. And we can't give up any space in

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here, I don't think, from what we've seen for installing gear in that one.

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>> Yeah, it was pretty tight in there. >> So, if we do another solid leg

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and just make it a little narrower. >> Yeah, I think that's all we have to do.

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Like just like we [music] basically need the width off of this.

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>> All right, I guess we got to make some new legs then. >> Way out of here.

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>> Even better. We should put the hole in the top for the screws first

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>> and then >> so we know where the center actually is. >> Yeah. And then >> and then trim it down from there.

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>> Slim it down. >> Stop judging me. [laughter] >> All right. And just for good measure,

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because we're going to be having it right up nice and close just so nothing hits it, we're just going to counter

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sync a few of these holes so that way it's nice and flush. Not going to run

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into anything. Keep it nice, you know.

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Okay, we're good. I should still mark it, though.

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Tiny little mark. >> This feels like it's taken us a lot

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longer already. >> We got brackets. >> All right.

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>> One there, one there. >> Beautiful.

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>> Screws to the side. And I think we're laughing. >> Let's do it.

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>> I need a Felipe. >> He doesn't work here. I got you.

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>> Yo, this company be wild.

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>> They're the wrong size. >> Those might be from a different rack.

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Oh, yeah. These are for these rack nuts. Well, you know that would make sense.

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>> We happen to have screws over here. All right, this is the real test.

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>> We the thick boy.

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It's not light.

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>> Oh god, that's dirty. [laughter]

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That's perfect. I like that way better. >> 17 for the lack. But actually, this is

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just an extension of the last version. So, why don't we just say 52 plus the 20

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bucks for our rails, 72. >> Okay. So, it's our most expensive one,

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but it's still cheaper than buying something. >> Still cheaper than buying a rack.

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>> I think we give us a little white wash on the legs and show it to Linus.

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>> Okay, sounds good. >> Happy little accident. >> Happy little accident.

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Little too early to brush that off.

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>> Just going to paint a happy little tree right there.

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What am I looking at? >> We got version one, version two, and

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version three. >> And I guess they get better as we go, cuz I saw the sign before I sat down

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that said, "Don't touch this one. >> Don't even breathe here."

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Oh, boy. You're risking it. >> Is that bad, huh? >> Oh, yeah. If you want to give it a

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little shake or just kind of poke around a little. >> Let's have a look here. The plan appears

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to have been wood screws. And uh it

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turns out wood screws into cardboard is not a great time cuz this has already

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come out. >> It's a little loose, you know. >> Yeah. What do you mean don't breathe on

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it? This seems fine. >> You give it a good shake or pick it up

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and drop it like a couple of inches and then that server's going for a little

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flight. >> Okay. But but that's okay. We had ideas.

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I remember Jordan and I talking about, hey, what if you just took the cardboard

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legs and replaced them with wood? This

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is not bad. >> Yep, that worked pretty good. >> Yeah,

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>> this power amp on the bottom weighs more than that server chassis there does and

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it holds in nicely. >> Not as much leverage, but still it's not

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going anywhere right now. This is kind of freaking awesome.

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>> Yeah. >> And all for the low low price of one lakh tabletop plus a piece of 2 by two.

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Wait a second. Oh, you left the original back legs. >> Why replace those? That takes time. I

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got to pay myself for my time, man.

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Our only real concern on this one is if you're going to pull things in and out a

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bunch, it's going to wear out pretty quickly. Like maybe you could turn the

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legs around to get a little bit more life out of it, but

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>> Well, it's got four whole sides. >> Exactly. It's not going to last forever.

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>> But neither will you. >> That's fair.

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>> Yeah, she's uh like she's good. Yeah.

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Like it's pretty solid, you know?

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>> Lack rack. >> Hardly lacking at all. But it gets even

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better. >> If you guys insist on running servers in your living room, there's actually a

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better IKEA product for that. We'll cover that in a Floatplane exclusive

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over on LMG.gg/flowplane. We'll see you over there.

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>> Wa! This one looks classy.

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>> Yep. We got solid wood legs again. >> Yep. >> And proper rails.

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>> That's wicked smart. I bet these weren't even that expensive. Did we get them off

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salvage or can you just buy >> Those are right off of Amazon.

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>> Really? >> Like 20 bucks for the pair. And then you

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can put things in and out of it as many times as you want. Basically, you know

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what? If I wasn't looking for it, I don't think I'd really notice.

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>> You hide it in the corner of your living room. >> Yeah. Like Yeah. It's not quite the

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same, you know, wood color or whatever, but >> Yeah. And the paint job is pretty

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halfass. I'll admit, but >> Yeah. But the mounting rigidity is full

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ass. >> Yep. >> Which ironically is not the same thing as saying something is ass. I don't make

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the rules. English. You crazy girl. How'd we do? Well, this guy here, $29

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US. >> Yeah. I mean, >> you can go cheaper, you can go more

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expensive, but it's, you know, it wouldn't look out of place in the living room.

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>> It's pretty nice. And it has creature comforts that we don't have, like wheels

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and ventilation. Well, >> we got we got way more ventilation. Come

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on. So, the basic guy, we've got $17 for the lack.

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>> Okay. >> And we spent about 15 minutes or so of

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Justin and my time installing stuff into it. So, that's 15 bucks at our rate. and

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then two bucks of screws. >> So, we just saved over 150 bucks.

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>> If you want to like rearrange it, you might have to buy a new lack each time. So, that'll, you know, balance out

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pretty short term. >> Okay, V2. >> Again, 17 bucks for your lack. Great

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deal. It's cheaper in Canada right now, by the way. >> Four bucks for a piece of wood.

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>> We paid about four bucks for a 2x4 that we cut in half and glued together.

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>> Okay. >> And then 20 minutes to install everything basically. So, we're about 50

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bucks all in on this one. >> Still, I think this is going to be the

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bang for the buck. It's pretty solid. >> Looks good. It's literally very solid.

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>> It's not going anywhere >> and takes very little time. >> Yeah. >> Then we've got the bougac rack, which I

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assume we paid maybe what, another 20 bucks for. >> That's about it. So, we're still less

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than half price. >> It's becoming a bit of a theme on buyer DIY, isn't it?

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>> So far, >> it's almost like doing things yourself is a great idea. Like, watch this. I'm

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going to do this segue to our sponsor, >> MicroEnter. Earlier this year,

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more, check the link in the video description. >> If you guys enjoyed this, why don't you

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go check out the last buyer DIY? Jordan and Justin are really becoming the uh J

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and J of doing things half price. Wow.

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The dream team with a J. J R E A M.

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>> I'm leaving. We have to make dream team a