K'nex Hard Drive Rack

K'nex Hard Drive Rack

After upgrading my gaming rig and removing most of my hard drives, I decided to shell them and connect them via USB. As my collection of hard drives grew, I ended up building a custom expandable rack out of K'nex to hold them all.

I figured it might not be a bad idea to add a cooling unit to it as well, to help disperse the heat so I designed a detachable cooler, also out of K'nex that goes on the front, housing (3x) 120mm case fans. I recycled the control board from an old, dead hard drive shell to power the fans through its molex plug. I even added a power switch to the top to control the fans! All in all I was really happy with how this turned out.

I don't use it any more however, and now have a dedicated data server box with a raid card that houses all my hard drives instead. Much more portable and logical than my initial approach.

K'nex Hard Drive Rack
The fans and power supply for the cooling attachment.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Starting a frame to attach the fans to.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
The mount for the power source (a recycled control board from a dead HDD shell).
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Frame for the cooler is almost done!
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Fans attached to the frame and tied off using wire.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Hooking the cooler onto the rack to see if it fits.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Designing a mount for the power switch.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Power switch attached to the frame!
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Wiring everything together. Soldered wires are covered in hot glue to prevent contact.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Done! Plugged it in and tried it out to make sure it works for a minute.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
Close-up of the molex plugs and wiring all crammed together in the bottom.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
A picture without the cooler mod attached.
K'nex Hard Drive Rack
And a picture with the cooler attached. I later swapped the fans out for LED fans.