After waiting over 3 months, I finally obtained a 104HP palette to join my two 7U 104HP performance cases. By Default, I am sure the assumption is that you place the palette in front, and the stacked 7U cases behind it…
Well at least for me, that arrrangement sucks. having three 3U rows, two 1U rows and the palette tools between you and that vertical case is horrible. you better hope that the modules in that case are “set and forget”, because after 3 hours I could feel it in my back and arms. I was leaning forward just to reach.
So I finally executed my plan - make some brackets so you can mount that palette up high. The brackets are two aluminum plates from 2"x1/8" flat stock (Home Depot to the rescue), and four longer screws and nylon bushings to add 5mm on each side of the palette to get the alignment right. The four mounting holes took some careful measurements to get the angle right. I originally planned for the palette to be perfectly vertical, when the 7U cases are resting on the joiner plate feet - but I went a little overstated and have the pallete leaning towards me by 7 degrees. Mouning the modules takes a little more caution - but after an evening of using both seated and standing (my system in on an Autonomous.ai standing desk), it is the most comfortable setup I can imagine.It is extremely sturdy - the only wobble/slack in the whole system is from the 7U case joiners, which is normal, but the palette and upper 7U case are like a solid unit.
Word of warning - this basically renders the upper case as useless for travelling - as the mounting is attached on the insides of both the 7U case and the palette.
I’ll probably take the brackets off again when it warms up and die-grind the edges to match the Intellijel radii.
The next step is to fab up some new side plates for the palette that have actual joiner plate bottoms on them, so I can just snap the palette in on top - but for that I’ll need to send my CAM files to a fab shop.
Now if Intellijel actually does some 126HP cases… I’m going to be a bit frustrated… mostly because it will mean I will be tempted to expand past 520HP (I have three modules incoming that will fill my system to exactly 520HP).
I am sure most of us on this forum are biased - but the Intellijel cases are the best by a longshot.
This was the only thing I felt was missing.