not that i'm complaining but what have you brought me here on this glorious day to the historic
seaside resort of hastings gordon well gary this town has been booming since the reign of queen
victorian towards the end of queen victoria's reign the use of the telephone and the railway was
really starting to get into full swing now we're going to look at an innovation that also traces
its routes back to the railway in the telephone era in the form of the rack the rack what do
you mean by the rack well what later became the 19-inch rack and now is standard across lots of
industries so that is also steeped in history myth and legend and we're going to find out about it
in a factory that still makes them in hastings to this day and it's literally a stone's throw
from here someone's left a stone in here again i wonder did that looks like it's from a beach
i've got questions for you then gordon okay far away so where historically have we used the rack
well as i said in the introduction this apparently has developed from either the rail industry i
think rail signaling or early telephone exchanges where there was a need to mount electronics in a
convenient place and that's where racks first developed okay and we've all seen
them in commercial installations perhaps in that room where the hub is and the networking system
and they're massive these don't seem as big as the ones that we've perhaps come across before
in the industry yeah i mean you're thinking back to those days when it was the mainframe
computing area with those revolving magnetic tapes and yeah that's where you're that's where
your mind stuck and people who worked in labs might think of all that electronic equipment so
the rack has stayed constant but what we put in has changed significantly and now home cinemas
you know everyone has hubs for things you know you used to have electronics with
dials on the front and screens now that tends to be what would be put out of sight and you want
one remote control so you're almost suggesting with the smart home revolution we're going to see
more of these perhaps in domestic installations yeah and that's where pennelcom have concentrated
their efforts their background in the av industry you know building flight cases and speaker cables
and things for speaker grills and all that things for the the touring entertainment industry now has
sort of now arrived in the home and that's what we're going to look at today that specialism in
the home av rack system when we're talking about rack systems i always hear 19 inches can you tell
me what that is yeah it's the standard measurement of all racks so if i run the tape measure across
here between this module that fits into the rack you'll see it's exactly 19 inches yeah so 19
inches being one the next is the letter u yeah so the u is the height so the racks are measured in
modular heights often referred to as u so i'll put this on here this is a 1u and that is exactly
1.75 inches how do i go about fitting the accessories within the rack then okay so
here's a typical rack that we've got for an av installation and in there there's these two
vertical bars that run down either side and yes they're just just over 19 inches apart to fit our
rack accessories and they've got a choice so traditionally this might have been a cage nut that
you had to put your fixing into and then screw your accessory into but now most people are going
down the route of having a threaded bar at the front which take in europe we use a six millimeter
fastening and then just screwed in to build up our rack
navy system has loads of cables so how do i get them into the rack okay so this rack here we've
got is designed for wall mounting which gives us lots of options where we bring the cables in
can start at the bottom here there's a 1u sized removable panel does the whole panel come out
yeah the whole panel so that's held by four screws and that's then mirrored at the top of the
cabinet so this one's also could be used as a as a ventilation outlet you know should you decide not
to bring the cables in that way so again that's one new sized held with the four screws okay
anything around the back yeah so if you bring the cables in from the back perhaps you've put them
into the wall and you bring it out there's the world's biggest cable knockout again one u-sized
you can see that's been pre-punched ready to knock out and then that's also mirrored at the
bottom of the unit as well where there's another one while i'm there these other holes here are
for a wall mounting bracket it's a weight when you think about all this av equipment the weight
can add up so there's a substantial bracket that you can first fix to the wall first that hooks in
and again if it's really heavy there's a that's mirrored at the bottom where there's another
entry no it's a bit of cable tray around the side here yeah it looks like cable tray yeah that's uh
that's that's that's the performance it's uh it's going to do it's yeah to distribute the
cables within the rack so you've brought them in and that's the case they're tidally bringing
them to the correct level within the unit so it's ready for the accessories that we'll look at next
so your first accessory looks to me like a power supply yeah so let's imagine we're going to build
this rack to house a home audio system home cinema that games console the first thing you need we're
about to power gary and that's where this comes in often known as a power distribution unit or pdu
so in the simple man's terms it's got switches on the front with neon indicators
and on the back it's got power outlets oh so we feed it in one position but actually you can
feed multiple things like your dvd your home surround system etc yeah it's like a like a
multi plug but with the advantage of a switch on the front because it's the easiest way to
reset a complex piece of equipment gary uh turn it off and turn it back on again yeah
sometimes the last resort and that's where this comes in so let's get this fitted to the rack
so that last m6 bolt going in yeah m6 in europe i think it's 1032s in america whatever that is
and then we've got our one height one new pdu installed what's the next accessory going to
put in for me well let's think we might have a an amplifier a home cinema receiver so there's
a nice shelf for that to sit on again on the same principle it drops in and then we just put our m6
screws in it's almost everyone's favorite accessory the next one isn't it it is yeah
imagine you put all this work into your wiring you've carefully put the cables in you want to
put your name to the installation pen it'll i'll give you two options for that game this is a
laser engraved aluminium panel or you can have a full color printed
panel which is done with a uv printer that is a great process so yeah let's fit which one do you
want to go for gary i'd like to go for the white one here's the white one so we'll put that next
so hopefully that displays through the door when we fit it at the end
this shelf looks a little bit different it's got some vents in it yeah so shelves come in vented
and non-vented options depending on what you're putting in there whether you want ventilation
through this one's a little bit different on a few different accounts again it's got this little
backstop so this is really designed for equipment that may not have been intended originally to go
on a rack so think of that internet router think of that sonoff box think of the playstation
so that backstop can be adjusted so that the unit isn't pushed
towards the back if say you're trying to operate the switches on the front
and you can also cable tie it through the ventilation slots as well then the other
clever thing it has is this magnetic front panel that attaches to so you end up with just the cut
out for the piece of equipment you're going to be in there so it keeps that rackle up and
neat and tidy well the rack is starting to take shape and it is looking lovely what you're going
to add to it now i'm just going to finish that shelf we put in gary here's the custom panel
it would sit nicely around our devices that we've installed there so maybe a sonos box or a internet
router or an xbox obviously this aperture would have to be cut out to suit accordingly
i'm excited to find out what's going next well this rather handy draw gary
so think of all those things that you lose instructions and where do you want to put mrs h
christmas present this is the accessory for you so let's get this fitted into the rack
rack's looking pretty full now yeah so now just fill up the blank spaces with these
blank accessories so again i can put that in there and then there's just one more thing to
complete the look gary you've been patiently waiting to fit this one so what we got now
well we want to pimp up our rack and show off our investment in technology so this is a set of
led lights for the top of the rack and i've set that to a nice efix red
so rack still needs a few finishing touches yeah so the first thing is the side panels once we've
finished our wiring things just clip into place and we need to fit the door so again the door
can be either right or left-handed it's just these little pull hinges to do that so set it into place
just close the door
so we're building our rack up nicely of course the items that go in there i can see there's
some holes in the top to aid with ventilation but sometimes you need to increase that ventilation
is there a way we can do that yes we've got a mechanical ventilation unit here again lots of
options you could put this in the rack and that's what this one's intended for or on top of the rack
and mounts with the four screw holes around it another option would be to have open side panels
so slotted side panels to aid ventilation that way well there's a journey for me i didn't know a lot
about racks before we started this video and now i know a lot more about it and i'm falling
slowly in love with the rack system as well well there's strong words from gary now this guy is
a wall-mounted version now what we've found as we've been around the factory here is there are
loads of options in terms of racks everyone has an opinion if you've got your favorite way of doing
something different to how we've shown about ventilation about lighting about the branding
but gary there's just one more way of mounting a rack that can solve a problem for a lot of people
well this is very similar to the one you've just pulled me away from but i'm sure it's got an added
surprise yeah well this one's been stripped down to its bare bones gary but this is a secret rack
okay a secret i like a secret so you could hide this in a cupboard but then you're thinking you
know eating the walnut what if i'm struggling to get my wires i need to get the back of the unit
watch this it pulls out i like it and then i've got this mechanism so if that was in a small
cupboard obviously the wiring system comes forward with it you spin it round you can do your work
and push it back into place yeah and again that cable tray feature if you look at the back here
we've got this cable tray so run your cables up carefully your bend radiuses that go down
underneath the unit pop out in the middle and then route it to your rack components genius
so we're a stone's throw away from the beach all the kit you've seen here is made in hastings and
what's really impressed me is the amount of innovation i've seen as we go around adapting
to the market changes and the needs of the av installer gary and i've been taking a look at
that process let's see that now well he's been chasing me around his workshop all morning it's my
great pleasure to join by rafa who is the workshop manager here at pennelcon thank you for joining me
thank you i've been looking at these racks in particularly um in your process can you
describe what i saw out on your workshop floor yes of course so we are starting from a row still
and then the beginning of the journey is a and punching machines as well as laser that's where
products are being either cut or punched this then travels over to a breakfast department as well
as panel vendors once a products are being and components are being shaped we send them over to
our powder coating lane here in hastings and then they are being assembled um here in hastings okay
that's hastings so it's in the uk do we export them worldwide yes yes we export them globally
and we sell into europe as well as america and there is a surge in demand especially in asia
over the last few months okay so typically how many would you produce of say these two in a month
is about 500 units a month currently okay and how many parts would i have maybe
manufactured back there for these racks so it we can customize depending to what you require
but generally speaking we produce around 180 000 components a month wow that's why i saw
so many processes going on in your factory now you know time's been difficult recently have
you seen your growth figures of these racks increase or decrease recently yes over the
past 12 months there's a massive um surge in the demand for this type of a product okay what
do you think's caused that demand i think it's just driven by the current circumstances where
people are being forced to work from home oh yeah that makes sense doesn't all of a sudden now our
reliability of internet maybe sound home cinema systems becoming a lot more important to people
who spend a lot more time at home yes people are looking to secure their goods and safely on their
premises wow that would be some impressive kit in that factory gary significant investment i think
yeah and it was a pleasure to spend some time with raff walking around now yeah while gary was doing
that i was checking out the led strip assembly service from penal com so check out that video
above my head link in the description below no doubt it certainly is in our next video
we're going to look at this cabinet behind us which was a half depth rack cabinet and it's
ideally suited to home network installation we've looked at that on the channel before but we think
this is another fantastic solution we've had a fantastic time down here in hastings if you've
got any comments please leave them below and we'll try and get back to as always as many as we can