Racks and Cabinets

Racks and Cabinets - many sizes,shapes and types. We've built a great many, some our own design, some in collaboration with a customer, and sometimes, customers send us their cabinetry and
we assemble it and then do the internal harnessing. Whatever works for you, we'll do.

On this page, we'll show you some past projects and a description of what they were used for. They
span the years since 1980, but we think you'll find them interesting.
If you have anything like this in mind, we'd like you to CONTACT US

Back around 1980 or so, if you wanted to switch two printers to one
computer, or any other combination, you had to manually change cables.
There were no switchboxes ! Even the idea was new.
So CABCO built them from scratch.A box from one place, a switch
and knob from another, three DB25 connectors, all hand-wired.. but
what a savings in time and gain in efficiency. We had a hard time making
them fast enough.

    That big blue cabinet sitting in the computer room of St.Clare's Mercy
    Hospital, in St. John's, Newfoundland, was a Patch Panel...believe it or
    not. The Hospital used three large Data General time-sharing systems to
    handle all departments, all on RS-232 individual lines. The Panel was
    built to handle 270 on-line terminals, any of which could be patched to
    any of 270 ports on the three systems. If a system was down for
    maintenance, critical terminals could be patched over to the other
    systems in a matter of a few minutes.

Here's a little insight into how the finished product came about.

    With 540 lines, each with 6 conductors, 3,240 signal lines were
    terminated on the junction boards on the right hand side of the picture.
    An internal harness connected each set of signal lines to one of the 540
    DB25 connectors mounted on the rear of the three hinged panels. Each
    connector was wired in parallel to a mating connector on the front of the
    panel. Thus, in addition to being able to patch lines on the front of the
    unit, any of the lines (or any group of them) could be moved around on
    the back of the panels. In effect, this gave the ability to not only patch
    terminals, but to patch an entire computer system.

Each panel held 180 back-to-back DB25 terminations, with each panel
mounted on hinges which could be swung down and suspended,
allowing easy maintenance.

After being put into place in the computer room, initial testing and
set- up of all the lines was done. The long patch cables shown were
replaced by much shorter ones after the final configuration was
established. However, a set of long cables was retained on site
because, in the worst case scenario, a terminal on the top left
connector could be patched to a computer line on the bottom right
connector, or anywhere in between.

The biggest one we built was for the General Hospital, also in St. John's, Newfoundland. The
pictures show, left to right, the internal harnessing, the front view and the back view. We used two
cabinets bolted together, with full doors on both front and back for a neat appearance, as well as
security. Each of the four panels controlled 96 terminals and 96 computer ports, for a total of 384
terminals and 384 ports, allowing any terminal to be patched to any port on any system.

Of course, there have been smaller units, such as these:

This unit was built for New Brusnwick Forestry, and was located at a remote site many miles from the
main offices. By incorporating four LEDs, each a different colour, a non-technical person at the site
could report a data problem simply by observing the LEDs. A phone call to the main office aided in
locating the problem, or the remote site person could be told to patch the offending line to another
port, minimizing any downtime and saving a long trouble-shooting trip which could be handled at a
scheduled maintenance time.

Typical of small, desk-top
switchers, this unit was
built to switch a bank of
test equipment from one
process control computer
to another. Change-over
was done by one switch on
the front panel, controlling
a bank of high-speed
relays. Each relay
controlled a set of signal lines and the LEDs showed the status of each line. As one computer was always the back-up for the other one, system maintenance was simply a case of flipping one toggle switch to move all the test equipment from the primary to secondary system.

Patching terminals between Twinax systems, such as the
System 38 and AS-400, was more difficult because of the
daisey-chain configuration of the terminals. However, it
could be done, as shown in this panel being installed for a
large food distributor in Nova Scotia.

Because of the differences in customer installations,
almost every unit we have built has been tailor-made for
the site, whether it was for RS-232, V.35, Coax or Twinax.

When the Canadian Navy awarded the Frigate Program to Saint John Shipbuilding in Saint John,
New Brunswick, an immediate need was for dedicated computer systems for the large staff of marine
engineers. Two PRIME Systems were selected, each handling 64 on-line terminals. CABCO was
asked to design and build a patch panel system which would consolidate all 128 possible ports and
128 terminals. These pictures show the evolution of the unit.

PLANNING THE DESIGN MECHANICAL LAYOUT ASSEMBLY AND WIRING

And here's one more we'd like to show you. This was designed and built for Alberta Power, and
incorporated switching not only terminals and other peripherals, but complete computer systems.

THANK YOU, for viewing our site. We hope it has been enjoyable. We also hope you'll think of us when you need any of the services we provide.

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