[BPI-R4] Suggestion: Rackmount 19" 1U Front Panel

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4(MT7988)
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Hi all,

I bought a cheap 1U blanking plate off taobao and cut out the openings on the front panel using the existing BPI-R4 aluminum shell as a reference. It’s quite rough as it was mostly cut through a waterjet (and my measurements were very inaccurate), but as a proof of concept it seems to work.

The existing aluminum case is reused, and only the front panel is swapped out. The case is mounted comfortably behind the 1U plate.

bpir4-1u-1
bpir4-1u-11600×913 277 KB

bpir4-1u-2
bpir4-1u-21600×1200 296 KB

A fibre laser is probably more appropriate for this, but I don’t have access to one that can cut through mild steel.

The screws are M2.5x5mm with washers. I would upload my DXF drawings, but most of the openings are too wide and slightly misplaced, so I think it would be best if BPI can upload their official, accurate drawings instead.

I have no intention of doing this commercially. Rather, I’m hoping that this might inspire the BPI team to produce and sell something like this.

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I saw a post here recently that there is also a rack mount that can be ordered. With space for one to four R3 or R4 devices.

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There’s a recent interest in miniature 10" rack formats, and this concept should also work just fine for the BPI-R4. Same thing, get a cheap 10" blanking panel and cut out the openings using a fiber laser.

At present, there are few 10G options that can work with the mini-rack format. The usual consumer UDM/ER8411 routers are all 19" so this could be an interesting niche for the BPI-R4.

Tagging @sinovoip in case you missed it

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