Hi fellow modders.  I'm new to this and very happy that I found it.  So far the only modding I did was paint an old 7200 case satin black.  I've been wanting to mod stuff for a while and came upon this subject.  I have a friend that wanted an iMac to take to gigs so he doesn't have to lug every piece of computer equipment around.  I'm trying to get him to get an old eMac but considering how he could disconnect the monitor and use an external monitor instead.  I've been pondering how to make a 2U rack as well and that's when i came upon this.

I was going to reply to a topic where the subject was about a 2U rack space Mac.  This is maybe the second or third thread that I looked at so maybe this point has come up before, but what about fans too?  You probably want to make sure that there are vents and the front and back.  By those vents can be those small 1"-2" fans (like the ones connected on the heatsink of a Sonnet processor), or since it will be a 2U rack space, bigger fans or more smaller fans.  I'm not sure if the one or two big ones or the multiple smaller ones will give the most airflow with the least amount of noise.

ENGINEERING TIP: I work at a local Guitar Center and we regularly sell QSC Amplifiers.  They've got a unique engineering design where the circuit board on their power amps is installed upside down and clinging to the top.  Basically this means that any dirt or dust that might accumulate inside the case will fall to the bottom and not cling to the motheboard, er um.. circuit board.  I forget how their fans are set up inside but I think they have one or two in the front and one on the back as well.  Also, most amps are designed to pull air in from the front, and warm heat goes in the back, like most rack pieces that generate a lot of heat.  However, if you've got a whole rack of pieces that do this, that's going to be a lot of heat in the back of the rack.  I think what QSC does is have the fan pull hot air in from the back, and push it out in the front.  That's one less piece generating more heat in the back and one more piece removing the heat.

I don't know how easy it would be to port a iMac or eMac to a 2u rackmount. Both the iMac and the eMac I would think have a analog video board. This would make the total pcb pieces you need to install 2. Then you would have the power supply, hdd, optical. It probably wouldn't be that bad but getting everything secure might take some thought.

Most server chassis have dust filters and usually pull air in the front and out the back.

http://www.raxxess.com/
http://www.middleatlantic.com/enclosure/knock/slim5.htm

Check newegg.com for chassis.

Pity you can't still get these:

http://www.marathoncomputer.com/irac.html