(UK Only) Selling Stackable 4 Bay 3.5” Hard Drive Racks - includes fixing points for 120mm fan (PETG or PLA)

I’ve designed these myself, they can be vertically stacked, or interlock side by side. Stack two and that’s 8 drives, how high you go is your risk. The can even be screwed together side by side using fan mounting screws, but this is not required, and could make hard to get one set of drives out.

Each pair of brackets can hold four 3.5" hard drives, and a 120mm fan can be attached to the front with room for the cable down the side.

These are quite substantial brackets made from PLA, I would of liked to have used PTEG, but for the moment I can’t get it to print - apparently my printer is rather fussy with PETG, so require further investgation.

These are now available in both PLA and PETG

PLA starts going soft around 60 to 70c, PETG around 85c, but if your hard drives are this hot then you have other problems, call it an early warning system :wink:

More details and pictures on eBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224534564726

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The glass transition of PLA happens progressively over a temperature range, and if you load PLA with something heavy it can start to deform way below 60c in my experience, and this kind of thing pops up on Reddit every month or so (see below).

If you have these spaced out well, and have fans on them all the time, and make sure the ambient temp. is always reasonable then they’ll probably be fine, but IMO it’s better to dial in another material if you want to print structural things, PETG is quite hard to set up because it’s quite sticky/stringy but once it’s working it’s good. I personally find ABS much easier to print with, but you do need a heated bed (one that can comfortably go up to around 100c) and I have an enclosed chamber, not sure how important the latter is, but I believe it helps.

Good luck with it, but I would def. recommend trying out a more suitable material before trying to sell these, the PLA glass transition is dangerously close to temperatures that can easily be experienced around disks, and even if that’s not necessarily an ideal operating temp, you don’t want to compound an issue.

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It’s about as hot as it’s going to get in the UK, 30c, with fans on they should be fine. If there’s good demand I can get them made out of ABS, but that will take time and cost a bit more.

How much interest in ABS brackets?

I have a heated bed - Artillary SW1, but I wouldn’t want to be printing ABS myself, it’s a small room.

I can print my own so I’m not your target market, but I don’t think you’ll know what the demand is unless you list them side by side and see what uptake is. Might be a good unique selling point too if nobody else is doing it yet.

Ah yeah, there is that about ABS - the fumes aren’t particularly pleasant - with an enclosure and an open window above the printer you don’t notice it so much, but when doing long prints or lots of prints I try not to stay too long in the room that the printer is in.

Demand is there:

My products are selling quite well…

OP should do fine selling these.

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I’ve now printed these in PETG as well, so have both PLA (ideal if not stacking), and PETG if you’d prefer something more heat tolerant or are intending on stacking them.

More details and pictures on eBay 3.5" HDD Caddy takes 4 drives. Hard Drive Storage Case, 120mm Fan Mount Chia | eBay
Stacking brackets are in a separate listing HDD stacking H connectors | eBay