The last few weeks I have been anxiously working to get my home lab to a certain point. I want to use the finalize but I know that is unrealistic statement to make. Networking labs are like art to some extent in the context that they really are never complete.
Most of my energy lately has been focused on the actual racking aspects of my gear. I ditched two relay racks, which I had gotten used several months ago. What replaced them was one brand spanking new Chatsworth standard black 19″ relay rack. The primary reason for replacing the previous racks was that the previous owner(s) had done a good job of stripping out some of the pre-threaded holes. If I was racking up 4U servers, or only sparsely populating the rack, I may have been able to utilize it longer. Given that reason for replacing the rack, I talked myself into buying nearly 300 12-24 threaded screws for the new rack(s). So far my only disappointment in the rack is that the advertised rack U space markings were done in a teal color, which is barely readable on the black coated rack.
One thing to note is that black racks and screws are coated, whether it is painted, powder coated or anodized, metal does not come out of the forge black. I found it worth while screwing in the screws once prior to mounting the gear, which caused the coating inside the threaded hole and on the screw itself to wear away with out the weight / positioning of gear causing the screws to incorrectly thread and strip out the holes.
Most of the gear went back into the new rack without any sort of problem or inconvenience, except the cursed Cisco 2600 gear. The brackets from Cisco and after market providers just did not align well with the new rack and screws. Like a carpenter I measured and squared that rack three or four times and compared it to the old rack. No perceivable difference, with the exception of the 12-24 threaded screws. The ultimate solution was to experiment with the file in my leatherman by filing away about 1/16″ of an inch of metal from both brackets. Once the filing was done the routers fit in without a problem. Unfortunately the file in the leatherman, like most of its flip out tools really stinks. One trip to HomeDepot and I had the proper tools. About an hour later and I had modified 8 sets of brackets.
Outside of the rack, I have been working eBay over pretty hard sourcing what hopefully will be my final Cisco NM and WIC modules. Found a lot of good deals and plenty of bad ones, which I completely avoided. Some of the gear has started arriving; however, most of the people I have bought from seem to be slow on shipping, or wanted to clarify the items they had posted.
The last headache has been planned electrical outages in our city. NSTAR who provides our electricity has had several Thursday midnight to 6 AM planned electrical outages. As I wrap up this post I can only hope they are not about to flip that all important set of uber breakers. Unfortunately for me I’m still working on sourcing and refreshing some aged battery backup equipment for the home office and lab.
Lastly I will leave you with this little bit of advice, if you are selling on eBay do not ship WIC or NM modules in cardboard priority mail envelopes. The NM and WIC modules will arrive bent and probably damaged and unusable!
