APC Netshelter Rack pain - APC & Supermicro rails?

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sth

Active Member
Oct 29, 2015
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Im having some issues with a clean fit of hardware in a APC Netshelter 12U.
Racks can't be this much of a PITA so I suspect something is off in my configuration but not sure what.
Rack configured a such, top to bottom

1U: Cisco SG500x
1U Supermicro/Netgate pfSense router
4U Supermicro SC846 (24x3.5")
2U Supermicro SC216 (24*2.5")
2U APC SMX1500RM2U UPS
2U APC SMX48RMBP2U additional UPS battery

The Cisco and Netgate units screw directly into the square rack holes. Not a lot to go wrong here.
The Supermicro chassis are on Supermicro MCP-290-00058-0N short rails sets which appear high quality.
The APC UPS units are both mounted on APC SRAILKIT S Type Universal Rail Kit and don't appear particularly well thought out - or I misunderstand how to use them properly.

The supermicro rails appear high quality and operate fine until I fit the APC battery units back fully. The front mounts cause the UPS chassis to move up a few mm causing some case rubbing which means the chassis need jiggling/forcing back into place.

My gut instinct is the APC rails basically suck but perhaps I have the wrong ones for my UPS chassis?

any guidance/advice appreciated, some pics to try and illustrate the issues attached.
 

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cheezehead

Active Member
Sep 23, 2012
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Nope, that's pretty much how they work. make sure your lined up and you toss some cage nuts behind the 4 mount holes to secure the unit. Once it's mounted, it really doesn't get moved.
 
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Terry Kennedy

Well-Known Member
Jun 25, 2015
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www.glaver.org
My gut instinct is the APC rails basically suck but perhaps I have the wrong ones for my UPS chassis?

any guidance/advice appreciated, some pics to try and illustrate the issues attached.
Most APC UPS rails I've seen are basically just some L-shaped brackets to support the UPS. There are some dished washers in the APC hardware package that are used to center the screw in the square hole - the cage nuts have enough "slop" that without the funky washers, the UPS will shift in the rack.

I absolutely refuse to use square-hole racks. They're the second-dumbest thing I've seen in racks*. Until the thickness of the vertical rack rails and the size/thread of the screws for the cage nuts gets standardized, you can run into a lot of semi-compatible and downright incompatible hardware. One of the colo facilities I'm in has a "hardware box" for people who need random rack hardware to use. It is a 5-gallon bucket with a mishmash of every possible piece of square-hold hardware. :eek:

* The dumbest thing I've seen was at a CLEC in the mid-90's. Their colo cabinets had thick vertical aluminum rails with holes that weren't threaded - you had to bring a 12-24 tap and thread the holes you wanted to use in your rack. Of course, they had other bone-headed moves, like the colo access cards working on their office, the DMS switch room, and the battery room by accident.