CUSTOM SHOWCASE - DESIGN WINS
Follows
are just a few examples of the many custom designs, rackmount
and non-rackmount, chassis, systems and LCDs we have designed and manufactured.
These examples highlight our capabilities as well as
provide examples for future projects for other clients.
Chassis Plans' engineers have been providing innovative
solutions to industry since 1985 and are conversant
in all aspects of design and agency certification. We
have provided simple sheet metal boxes through highly
complex ship-board Navy certified designs and telco
Nebs certified systems. Please visit our web pages which
detail our Custom System Engineering and Design Services, our Design
Philosophy and the steps involved in bringing a
design to market.
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| 901D Navy Shipboard Black Box Recorder |
From prototype to production, Chassis Plans prides itself
on quality rackmount enclosures. For turnkey projects
or specialized engineering services, Chassis Plans understands
how to overcome the technical challenges involved in
converting innovative concepts into successful, timely
products.
Our design philosophy is to provide exceptionally engineered,
cost effective industrial computers and rackmount enclosures
at a competitive price. Chassis Plans provides
a turnkey solution for custom industrial rackmount systems,
allowing clients to have quality industrial chassis
with minimal investment in time or money.
Technically
sophisticated
Incredibly
well documented
Aerostat Camera GPU Processing Platform - 5 Week to Design and Manufacture
The Department of Defense has deployed persistent surveillance systems on aerostats in Afghanistan. These systems scan a city-wide area constantly, day and night. When the system detects a threat in its field of view, a high resolution camera system including FLIR is employed to characterize the target.
The system developer required a custom rugged 5U system providing a high power System Host Board and four GPU processor boards in a PCI Express backplane to process the bandwidth coming down from the aerostat. In addition, 48TB of very high speed RAID storage is attached to the system to provide up to four weeks of image retention.
Because the systems are deployed on the battlefield in Afghanistan, Chassis Plans designed the system to be in full compliance with MIL-STD-810G including blowing sand and dust rejection and shock and vibration. The EMI gasketed front door contains a high efficiency air filter in combination with a honeycomb EMI filter. The three high reliability aluminum frame fans are controlled by Chassis Plans's SysCool® fan control board to maximize filter life while minimizing fan noise.
Chassis Plans engineered, fabricated, integrated and tested these systems in a very short 5 weeks allowing the contractor to meet their obligations with the Department of Defense.
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Rugged Portable Computer w/ 17" LCD
A defense contractor required a portable computer system which was very robust yet light in weight. They required it "to survive the trauma of repeated shipping to the four corners of the earth". Systems they had previously tried were not rugged enough and were constantly failing.
Chassis Plans responded with a very rugged portable system that delivers the power of a high end desktop in a design that provides the flexibility to work anywhere. With shock mounted removable drive bays, aluminum alloy construction, I/O card retention, and a spill-proof keyboard and touchpad, the unit stands up to the bumps and bruises of a day on-the-go, including the rigors of shipping to anywhere on the planet. Included is Chassis Plans' proprietary SysCool® system fan management board to minimize fan noise by controlling fan RPM. The SysCool board also provides for system over temperature fan and failure alarm.
The system is provided with a 17-inch high resolution widescreen and the dedicated graphics on the TSB System Host Board makes it perfect for their mobile testing labs.
Their particular installed card suit required the use of a BPX5 passive backplane (2 x8 and 2 x4 PCIe slots) with a TSB Sandy Bridge System Host Board providing a 3.4GHz XEON processor for blazing fast multi-core processing power.
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Rugged Forensic Computer System w/ UPS for the FBI
The FBI challenged Chassis Plans to create a radically compact, yet extremely powerful server for forensic computing.
Included in the specification was:
- XEON Processor in a MATX motherboard
- 32GB 1333MHz RAM
- Four 900GB 10,000RPM removable hard drives
- Internal non-removable system drive
- Blue Ray DVD Drive
- 10-Port Ethernet switch built in
- Internal UPS with battery
- Light weight aluminum construction
- Robust go-anywhere construction
 These units are used in a sensitive investigative capacity. The customer required the built-in UPS to allow a controlled shut-down in the event of loss of external power so that no data would be compromised.
The systems are used world-wide in a variety of environments which required good system cooling and air filtration. A tailored card support system holds the plug-in cards in place when subjected to high shock and vibration. Included is Chassis Plans' proprietary SysCool® system fan management board to minimize fan noise by controlling fan RPM. The SysCool board also provides for system over temperature and fan failure alarm.
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Rugged 17" LCD for Military Vehicle Mounting
This design challenge was for a rugged mobile military application which required an LCD with features such as very high resolution, daylight visibility and protection from sudden shock - in a compact form factor. Chassis Plans started with two solid aluminum billets and milled a high precision enclosure with the two halves mating with an o-ring seal meeting IP67. The 17-inch LCD started as best of breed with 800:1 contrast. This LCD was further enhanced with circular polarizers and a high transmission (88%) touch screen with an anti-glare hard coat. These components were optically bonded to the LCD using 
index matched adhesives. Bonding prevents dirt and moisture between the filters and display. Bonding also significantly ruggedizes the LCD, reinforcing the glass and minimizing shock which might damage the display. The bond will also hold the glass together should the display be significantly damaged such as from a bullet or explosion. The finished product came in at 15 lbs.
The enclosure is manufactured from high strength 5052 aluminum alloy with heat dissipating fins milled into the back. Stainless hardware and self locking fasteners were used throughout. The display is highly visible even in direct sunlight. The LCD controller was modified to scale a 1600x1200 image input to a 1280x1024 native resolution display.
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Lear Jet Camera Controller
A Fortune 500 aerospace and defense contractor required a controller system for an airborne ultra high resolution panning camera system mounted in a Lear business jet. As this is flight qualified hardware, there are strict requirements for human factors, flight crew safety, structural integrity and crash worthiness. Chassis Plans designed and manufactured a rugged compact system to house a Micro-ATX motherboard, slim slot-fed DVD/RW, and two canister mounted 2-1/2" form factor solid state drives. Wiring was low smoke halogen free for fire safety. External cable connections are through Mil-Circular locking connectors. Two fans cool the system. Tailored plug-in card retention assures the cards stay seated regardless of flight vibration and landing shocks. The system is constructed from high
strength 5052 aluminum alloy. Stainless hardware and self locking fasteners were used throughout. Configured weight is a low 19.1lbs. See the MBT-1A4MTX for details.
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Surgery Robotic Controller
The customer provides a system to allow surgeons to visualize and plan in 3D orthopedic procedures. They can then transfer that plan to a robotic assistant to actually perform the bone milling.
Chassis Plans is providing compact systems with two separate computers inside. Two passive backplanes with two single board computers provide redundant intelligence. Hard drives and DVD drives are provided for each system. A 24VDC power supply was required for patient safety and to fit the existing platform.
The key feature of the system is failover redundancy which is critical for patient contact. |
Custom NEBS Internet Appliance
The customer provides a network appliance which sits on and monitors the internet backbone in a Central Office environment. The project required a two step approach to satisfy their program requirements.
The first milestone required Chassis Plans to quickly develop and provide multiple development systems to manage their custom hardware. These systems, while not NEBS compliant, were designed to be close to those standards. The system was manufactured from high strength aluminum with a limited depth. Cooling is front to rear and the motherboard was rotated 90 degrees to allow internal access to the I/O connectors.
The second stage of the program requires a NEBS compliant and certified system for installation into Central Offices. The systems will be in full compliance with NEBS GR-0063.
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Modified W5 Wall Mount Can Inspection Controller
The customer liked the Chassis Plans' W05 wall mount chassis but needed to mount several industrial Ethernet hubs inside. They also wanted to prevent falling debris in the environment from getting inside the unit via the air exhaust vents and cable passages.
 Starting with the standard W05 Solidworks model, we were able to extend the top plenum to accommodate the added hardware and ventilation requested by the customer. Additional wire harnesses were designed and fabricated to power the hubs via Molex MiniFit connectors installed into the rear panel.
In addition, the unit is controlled by an AC breaker on the side. This required selection of a motherboard with a BIOS support "last state" power control. The power and reset switches normally associated with an ATX style computer were removed.
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Modified W5 Wall Mount Carwash Controller
Imagine
Innovations has a compelling system to remotely
monitor and control coin operated car washes.
Chassis Plans provided extensive modifications
to the standard W5
WallMount Enclosure to provide mounting for
the various digital control modules and boards
required to interface with the car wash equipment.
The modifications included adding a small LCD
touch screen to the front door, adding 110VAC
outlets to the side wall, modifying the door to
hold Opto 22 boards, modifying the motherboard
plate to hold digital control modules, and changing
the bottom to provide room for installed components.
The chassis was painted to the customer specification
and a logo screened to the door.
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Custom Telemetry System
This renowned manufacturer of advanced digital
signal processing systems providing telemetry
capture and analysis to aircraft and missile flight
test ranges required a chassis for their new PCI
based system. Chassis Plans designed and built
a passive backplane system providing mounting
for their status display as well as a rear panel
dog house for interfacing the myriad cables and
signals to the plug-in PCI data acquisition cards.
 The
prototype system was designed and fabricated in
record time to allow the customer to display this
important new product at their one major show
of the year.
The 14-slot backplane can accommodate 8 full-length
and 3 short PCI cards. The system is well cooled
with two 120x38mm fans. A redundant power supply
assures uninterrupted data acquisition without
risk of power supply failure. The front panel
provides two Storcase SATA drive carriers and
a slim DVD.
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IC Mask Generator System Controller
This customer required a custom enclosure to control
IC mask pattern generation. This 6U rack mount
system includes a 19-slot PCI Express backplane,
dual Xeon System Host Board and redundant power
supply. In addition, provision was made in the
chassis for a 24VDC supply, PLC and Safety Relay.
Particular attention was paid to cooling the multitude
of high power plug-in boards.
Of particular note, the system includes a "dog
house" on the rear of the chassis providing
a cable interface between the plug-in card connectors
and a custom PCB on the rear of the chassis. This
is a common system modification other customers
have required.
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Shipboard 901D Digital Voice Recorder
Northrop Grumman required a rugged computer system
to build a Digital Voice Recorder for use aboard
Navy ships. The system records virtually all audio
traffic on the ship including radio traffic, PA,
and bridge conversations. The rack system is designed
to meet Mil Spec 901D, Grade A.
Included is a 19-slot PCI Express backplane and
dual Xeon System Host Board, four hot swap Ultra
320 SCSI drives, dual DVD/RW drives, and redundant
power. The front mounted Touch Entry Device provides
system monitoring and control. |
Custom Door w/ Paint & Logo
The customer had seen a custom chassis on our Did You Know
Paint and Logo Brochure and wanted a similar
look. The result is our standard E1Chassis 2U rack mount enclosure with a new 3-dimensional
door, custom paint on the lid and ears, and customer
logo silk screened on the face of the door. Chassis Plans provided fully integrated turn-key systems
to the customer.
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 F18 Radio Controller
Raytheon required a quantity of small enclosure
and cables to house an F18 radio controller in
a ground application. Chassis Plans leveraged
an existing design to engineer the enclosure.
Utilizing previous art allowed for a low engineering
cost and quick turn on the project.
Custom Integrated Battlefield
System
L-3 required a very rugged 4U enclosure
for their JRE-DLT program. The system required
that two custom PCI backplanes be installed
with XPT Dual XEON processors. One side
was configured as a Windows XP Client and
the other side was running Sun Solaris as
a Server. The chassis provides a redundant
power supply, two hot swap hard drives,
and two DVD drives.
A custom rear panel and front panel insert
were developed. A custom power control PCB
was also developed to provide a time delay
for system shutdown to prevent disk corruption.
The system was ruggedized for installation
in a transit case for battle field deployment.
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'Son Of Monster' Logic Emulation
Enclosure
 The
Dini Group, a local designer and manufacturer
of highly sophisticated logic emulation boards,
approached Chassis Plans to design and manufacture
the enclosure for their new DN8000K10 Virtex4
based ASIC prototyping system. This incredibly
advanced emulation engine required a 15x22.1"
PCB to hold the 16 FPGA chips and 9 daughter cards
to provide emulation of up to 24 million gates
in logic and memory designs. A board this large
is quite fragile and very expensive.
Chassis Plans designed an enclosure that provides
a removable inner chassis to hold the
PCB allowing the board to be placed on a bench
for testing and configuration, yet be fully protected.
The inner chassis fits inside a custom 19"
rack mount enclosure for system operation. The
chassis provides system support, excellent cooling,
a 600W power supply, and adaptable rear panel
I/O.
 Close collaboration
between the PCB and mechanical design teams assured
the enclosure system performed as required on
the first design spin.
Go to The
Dini Group 'Son Of Monster' page for more
information and photos of this amazing system.
Click the two photos to the right for larger views.
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Network Security Appliance
Koolspan had been marketing their SME Lock Private Networking
appliance in a single channel version. They wanted
to expand to the enterprise marketplace by offering
a multi-channel rackmount version.
Chassis Plans designed a 1U enclosure that allowed
four of their Private
Network modules to be rackmounted. The enclosure
provides redundant power supplies for fail safe
operation. Accommodating the preexisting boards
required an innovative front panel design with
symmetrical overlapping module ears for retention.
EMI compliance is assured by the use of spring
finger EMI gaskets. The lid is designed for use
with tamper resistant screws.
Custom IC Manufacturing System
A large multinational integrated circuit
manufacturer required a new enclosure and
integrated system to replace the ancient
VAX computers originally used. This required
Chassis Plans to engineer an enclosure that
fit an odd sized hole in their equipment.
Cooling was a primary concern. There is
also a custom controller interface that
had to be accommodated.
The Chassis Plans Sales Engineer worked
closely with the customer and Integration
Department to define a leading edge computing
platform using new long life components.
The result was a system that provided significant
productivity improvements over the original
VAX systems with assured long term availability.
The system was certified to virtually all
safety and emissions regulations including
CE, Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese and Japanese
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Custom 1U Network Appliance
The customer required a custom chassis to house
two FPGA development boards to monitor network
traffic in an effort to reduce network overhead
and improve client responsiveness.
Chassis Plans provided a custom network appliance
type design with a 1U redundant power supply,
mounting for the two boards, rear panel connectors,
and two fans. The rack ears are a unique design
allowing 4-post or 2-post rack mounting.
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Special Integration Sun Tape System
The customer was purchasing systems from Sun Microsystems
to house a Sun SCSI tape subsystem drive. The
enclosure from Sun was too deep for a particular
application leaving the customer without a solution.
Chassis Plans provided a specially integrated
1U F6000 chassis. We had to design and fabricate
new cables, change the power switch, blank the
reset switch, and incorporate a brass grounding
stud on the rear panel. The result is an attractive chassis with a door
covering the tape drive and controls that perfectly
fits the customer's requirements. Chassis Plans
is providing a Turn Key fully integrated solution
for this customer. |
Secure Submarine LCD Display
Lockheed contracted with Chassis Plans to design
and manufacture an LCD/Keyboard combination for
use aboard nuclear submarines. The principle use
is for officers to be able to connect to both
the secure and non-secure systems from their quarters.
Included is a 17" TFT LCD, full feature keyboard
and glidepoint mouse device and two USB ports.
Mounted inside is an Icron USB hub extender allowing
the keyboard, glidepoint, and two USB ports to
interface via Cat-5 cable with a server anywhere
on the boat.
The challenging specification included footprint
and size constraints and a weight limit of 18lbs.
Chassis Plans delivered a system weighing only
12lbs much to the delight of the customer.
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Wall Mount Paint Control / Display
Haden asked Chassis Plans to design a controller
for their Liquid Paint Application Control System.
The wall mounted enclosure featured a passive
backplane, single board computer and their control
cards. The lid was designed to accept different
overlays allowing multiple uses for the same enclosure.
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DVR Security Appliance
A manufacturer of Digital Video Recorders and related
digital security products approached Chassis Plans
to design and build their next generation security
appliance. Difficult design constraints included
a depth limit of 21", four high speed large
hot swap raid drives, a vibration isolated fan system
to prevent drive errors, high component density,
and an obstructed rear panel which limited cooling
flow. The customer had rigorous component temperature
limits. Chassis Plans delivered two different system
configurations to satisfy a changing specification.
The customer had a short time-to-market window.
Custom Video Amplifier Enclosure
An affiliate company of the Digital Video
Recorder shown above required a custom enclosure
for a multi channel video amplifier system.
Chassis Plans worked closely with the board
designer on the layout of the PCB to ensure
good heat management, component selection
to fit a 1U enclosure, and ease of assembly.
The systems are being widely installed in
casinos for camera management.
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UAV Controller
A large defense contractor specializing in tactical
ground control shelters required a rugged diskless
system for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle control. Time
to delivery was critical.
Chassis Plans leveraged an existing COTS design
to quickly and inexpensively meet the requirement.
Starting with the D3Chassis,
we shortened the chassis to 18" and designed
a new front panel to maximize cooling flow. The
chassis accommodates an EATX motherboard and a
redundant 2U power supply. Three 90mm cooling
fans and generous chassis openings assure the
installed components are well cooled. |
AMC Module Chassis
Advanced Mezzanine Cards, or AMC modules, were originally
developed to add I/O capability to CPCI and ATCA
products. An AMC products developer approached Chassis Plans to design and manufacture the first rack mount
system to enable the use of 10 AMC modules in a
2U enclosure. This is bleeding edge technology and
Chassis Plans engineers worked closely with the
AMC hardware manufacturer to provide a system to
the customer in record time for display at SuperComm
2005. The system was designed with Nebs certification
in mind.
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Reverse Engineered Power Supply
The customer had been purchasing a custom power
supply enclosure from a local vendor for several
years. They required several enhancements to the
design and the vendor had no engineering documentation.
Chassis Plans reverse engineered the enclosure to
fit within their system. In addition to their required
changes, Chassis Plans' engineers proposed several
changes to lower their costs and simplify the system
assembly.
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Custom Paint and Logo
Custom paint and logo to customer specification
is our most common special. In this case, the customer
wanted the entire chassis painted to a Pantone specification
and their logo silk screened on the door. The base
chassis is the C3CHASSIS.
Multicolor logos and front panel silk screened accents
can "spiff up" a chassis look and make
it your product instead of some generic
computer. |
Ultra High Res 1600 x 1200 Keyboard LCD Display
A military customer required an ultra high resolution
LCD display / keyboard but had a height limit of
1U. In addition, there was limited depth available.
Chassis Plans performed by modifying our standard CPCSD1-17 Clamshell Keyboard LCD to incorporate the Samsung
LTM190 panel with a proprietary high performance
LCD controller. There is no 1U keyboard LCD display
with a larger monitor or higher resolution. |
Innovative High Speed Switch Packaging
A
major defense electronics manufacturer approached
Chassis Plans to design and manufacture the
enclosure for their sophisticated high speed
switch. The system houses 3 hot swap modular
cards, rear mounted CPU module, dual hot swap
power supplies, 4 hot swap fans and an internal
backplane tying all the electronics together.
Several innovative design features were incorporated
to enable the system to meet specification.
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ASI Switch Platform
A manufacturer of PCI silicon products for PCI Express
interface needed a development platform for their
customers. Chassis Plans provided a simple 1U enclosure
to mount their PCB. Using a modified off the shelf
1U ATX power supply simplified their product and
lowered their costs.
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Ultra Light Short Depth Keyboard LCD Display
A defense customer required a light weight 1U LCD Display
/ Keyboard to fit in a Hartig travel case. The requirement
was a weight less than 22 pounds and an installed
depth less than 20 inches. Chassis Plans exceeded
the design requirement by producing a keyboard weighing
19.6 lbs with an installed depth of 19 inches. There
is no lighter or shorter keyboard on the market
with these features.
Note: This display is in production and available
for sale to other OEM's. |
4U Battlefield Tactical Situation Server
A major supplier of battlefield qualified systems
required a continued supply of the Appro 4408 chassis
which Appro no longer offered. The specification
from their military customer did not allow for another
chassis to be substituted. Chassis Plans exactly
reproduced the Appro 4408 chassis dimensionally
and functionally. The chassis looks exactly the
same. Turn around time on the project was a short
5 weeks.
Note: This chassis is in production and available
for sale to other OEM's.
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1U Custom Short EATX Chassis
- Front I/O
A large highly respected manufacturer of chip manufacturing
equipment required a very custom rackmount system.
A limiting factor was a depth limit of 16.63"
and the I/O had to be accessible at the front. An
Intel EATX Dual Xeon Server Board fits and provides
1 I/O slot. A hard drive and 1U power supply are
included. Seven high flow 40x38mm fans cool the
system. Chassis Plans provides totally integrated
systems.
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2U Custom Short EATX Chassis
- Front I/O
In conjunction with the 1U system shown above, the
customer also required a 2U chassis of similar construction.
A limiting factor was a depth limit of 16.63"
and the I/O had to be accessible at the front. An
Intel EATX Server Board fits and provides 2 I/O
slots. A hard drive, slim CD and 2U power supply
are included. Three high flow 80mm fans cool the
system. Chassis Plans provides totally integrated
systems.
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4U Custom Aluminum Chassis
A leading company in audio noise control for broadcast
and film required a quantity of small, light 4U
enclosures for mounting in a Hartig portable case.
We modified our standard C3Chassis to exactly meet their requirements. Modifications
included an aluminum construction instead of steel
for lighter weight, low noise fans, modified rear
panel including BNC connectors, modified drive bay
area, customer specific paint and logo.
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1U Custom SCSI Drive Chassis
An aerospace company needed a 1U chassis to hold
2 removable SCSI drives or a mix of removable drives
and tape drives. The chassis had to be 16 inches
deep and 16.75 inches wide which precluded an off-the-shelf
solution. Good cooling was required.
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Ultra Rugged 1U 17" LCD/Keyboard
A defense contractor required a large quantity of
"flight line proof" rackmount keyboard/LDCs.
They liked the features of the CPS217 but had special
ruggedization requirements. Chassis Plans was able
to modify the standard CPS217 to include:
- Mag-Floride coated protective glass over the
LCD
- Aluminum construction instead of steel
- Special Cherry keyboard w/ touch pad
- Shortened length for installation in a Hartig
case
Note: This display is in production and available
for sale to other OEM's. |
2U Chassis for ATX Form Factor PCB
This customer supplies high fidelity flight simulations systems to the military. Their existing supplier was not able
to keep up with the orders. The existing chassis
was simply a stock 2U with a custom rear panel.
This led to several compromises in the cooling
of this high power system. The customer also wanted
a matching 2U chassis for a cohesive system look.
Chassis Plans redesigned the E1CHASSIS to remove the drives, incorporate a new rear panel,
new chassis, fan bracket and door. In addition,
Chassis Plans' engineers noticed an error in the
customers PCB layout and provided a custom spacer
to better support the rear panel connectors.
The first call for this project was logged May
22, 2003. The proposal drawing was approved May
28. Fifty five custom chassis were shipped to
the customer June 13.
Click below for a PDF of the E1CHASSIS Customer
Drawing next to the proposal drawing for the custom
chassis.
+ enlarge |
Custom Chassis
Original E1CHASSIS |
5U Rugged System for Extreme Environment
In the winter they build ice roads. You can't drive
to the oil wells in the summer because the tundra
is too soft. This international oil services company
needed a chassis that would survive continuous bouncing
and banging in the back of the data logging truck
as they drove on these ice roads. Hard to get parts
in the middle of Winter in the far North oil country
when your computer gets bounced to death.
Chassis Plans created what has to be one of the
most rugged chassis every built. Each of the drive
trays is held by four thumb screws, two in front
and two in back. Five SCSI drives are arrayed behind
the air filter for good cooling. A card hold-down
is tailored to the installed cards. Special zero
backlash slides are used. All stainless steel hardware
was installed for harsh high salinity environments.
Color matching was provided as well as a standard
silk screen with the company's logo. Strict depth
and front panel requirements were met to comply
with the customer's specification. Chassis Plans
was able to create an enclosure that will accommodate
their needs for years to come. |
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4U Rugged System for Extreme Environment
After designing and producing a large quantity of
the 5U chassis shown above, the customer required
the same chassis features in a 4U enclosure. The
resulting design is identical in all regards in
a smaller package.
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6U Rugged System for Navy Ship Installation
Spawar came to Chassis Plans to design a Mil Spec
chassis that would be light, extremely rugged,
adaptable, and able to satisfy the rigorous shock
and vibration specification in 901D. The "Rock"
was the result.
This is an aluminum and stainless enclosure providing
redundant power, 4 5.25" external drives,
2 3.5" external drives, and 2 internal 3.5"
drives. Both Intel and Sun motherboards can be
accommodated. The chassis passed Mil Spec 901D
(Barge Test). If you are not familiar with the
Barge Test, go here for some entertaining video (Large File - 27Mb). |
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7U Chassis Designed to Customer
Specification
The DOD required a robust 20-slot chassis for use
in remote locations world-wide. Critical performance
issues had to be met. The system had to be easy
to install and maintain with minimal MTTR. A defined
drive mix as well as depth issues precluded using
an off-the-shelf solution.
Chassis Plans successfully met the design challenge
offering an innovative solution with a swing-down
and removable drive/power supply sub chassis. This
approach greatly simplified initial integration
and on-site service. The top section accommodates
any 20-slot backplane offering 20 full slots with
great cooling for the installed high power cards. |
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W03 Wallmount / Benchtop Chassis
Note - The W03 is now a standard Chassis Plans product.
Chassis Plans was approached by an arcade game manufacturer
to provide a ruggedized PC chassis able to fit existing
game cabinets and to survive the abuse and transportation
loads imposed on these cabinets. Microsoft and Intel
were supporting the Arcade PC initiative to use simple
PC components for arcade games instead of the historically
used dedicated boards. The problem was office type
computers were failing. See ArcadePC
Drop for a graphic example of what this system
can survive.
The resulting design was the first single-sided
arcade chassis allowing access to all I/O and drives
from the same side. The chassis can be supplied
with shock mounts tailored to the specific application.
Variations of the original design have now been
installed is such diverse applications as ATMs and
kiosks, lumber mill saw control where constant vibrations
and shocks were killing other systems, chip testing
systems where cooling fan vibration is an issue,
public transportation. This design is perfect for
any application which requires an easy to service
yet rugged shock and vibration resistant design.
Shock mounting the entire system is the only way
to assure component survivability. See our White
Paper on Shock and Vibration.
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Embedded Card Cage
The customer, a large multinational printing press
manufacturer, needed to replace an existing card
cage with a newer model. The backplane had changed
and his offshore supplier was not able to adapt
in a timely manner. The customer also wanted to
incorporate some additional features. Chassis Plans
was able to create full documentation in 2 weeks
and provide prototype system 2 weeks after that.
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Embedded Election System
With the US not having a President for several weeks
due to hanging chad, the Government has provided
funds to modernize the voting process. The Government's
goal is computerized voting for all elections. In
conjunction with several partners, Chassis Plans
developed a small, light weight system to control
the LCD panel, touch screen, printer, and provide
network and WIFI interface. This compact computer
was 1/4 the weight and 1/3 the size of the competition
Included inside the 6"x4-3/4"x2.5"
chassis is an 800MHz Via board, 2-1/2" hard
drive, PCMCIA WIFI controller and flash drive. Total
system weight is 1-1/2lbs.
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1U Network Appliance
This embedded 1U network appliance was developed
to maintain the continuous flow of legitimate customer
traffic during a Denial of Service attack as well
as minimize the time network engineers spent on
labor-intensive manual investigations. The customer
was unable to find an off the shelf product that
offered the required appearance and features. The
design incorporated high airflow to cool the motherboard
as well as a front panel LCD display for system
status. |
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1U Network Security Appliance
Network Perimeter Policing is the comprehensive
real-time monitoring and interpretation of important
system events throughout a customer's network, including
unauthorized behavior, malicious hacks and denials
of service (DoS), anomalies and trend analysis.
The customer required a simple 1U chassis, no external
drives, and a defined front panel connector scheme.
Chassis Plans was able to quickly develop a chassis
which exceeded all the customer expectations.
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4U Simulator Image Generator
The customer had been purchasing another chassis
which went end-of-life. The application is for complex
operator simulators for the military, bus drivers,
police drivers, etc. The chassis had to look good,
provide limited access to the drives and controls,
and adequately cool the image generator boards and
motherboard.
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Appro Reverse Engineer
Appro stopped selling their 4U 4402 and 4408 chassis
leaving many customer scrambling for solutions.
Chassis Plans provides identical chassis by reverse
engineering the original Appro products. The result
is customers previously purchasing the Appro 4402
and 4408 chassis now have a reliable source for
continued production.
The FAAC Simulation Image Generator profiled above
was a modified Appro 4402 chassis.
Please note these chassis are available for general
purchase from Chassis Plans. |
Appro
4402 Replacement
Appro 4408 Replacement
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CPATX 4U Enclosure
A relatively simple custom chassis. Standard 4U
design with three horizontal 5-1/4" drives.
The client wanted additional cooling for the hard
drives in addition to their own look. The end product
was powder coated over the entire exterior and had
a complex logo silk screened to the door. |
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2U Rack Mount ATX/Backplane
The customer needed a high performance motherboard
with sufficient cooling for the dual processors.
The three plug-in PCI cards were accommodated using
a riser card which provided the proper PCI interrupt
parsing. In addition, the chassis had no front accessible
drives and dual SCSI hard drives in a mirror arrangement.
Of course, custom paint and logo were provided. |
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Custom 417 Rackmount Enclosure
The client required a minimal depth 4U chassis with
good cooling, filtered air, and no locks. Having
control over the manufacturing and having a domestic
source were important. The resultant design was
constructed of 16 gage CRS, was only 16.5"
deep, and is fully revision controlled for consistency.
The chassis is gold zinc while the front panel is
painted. The lid is secured by only two screws for
quick removal. |
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Custom 5U for Film Industry
The customer manufactured a film editing head.
The target market was film dailys where the day's
filming was proofed. A highly custom retro look
was required as well as a proprietary rear panel
for the many required connectors and cables. The
resulting design is very attractive, provides
a small color LCD display, is well cooled and
provides ample fixed and removable data storage.
Many custom non-PC boards are mounted inside the
enclosure. |
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3U Enclosure with custom look and feel
The primary requirement was for a non-Taiwanese
appearance. While the Taiwanese manufacture many
fine chassis, it becomes hard to differentiate your
product because they all look the same. This customer
wanted a highly unique "made in the USA"
appearance. Chassis Plans was able to modify a standard
product line to provide this customer with a chassis
look not found elsewhere. |
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Highly Custom 4U for Telco Industry
This was a tough custom design. The initial requirement
was to fit a chassis to a 21" telco rack, but
have the design be able to also fit a 19" rack.
The motherboard was a massive EATX dual Xeon server
class board. Because this was a NEBS certified central
office application, the system, including the massive
processors, had to be ruggedly constructed to satisfy
the seismic requirements of NEBS. Five external
NIC connectors had to be available at the front
panel.
The resulting design met all the customer requirements.
It is NEBS compliant in all regards, fits both 19
and 21 inch racks, and is rugged enough to pass
all seismic and transportation spectra when fully
populated. Many application specific features were
built into the chassis. |
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Reverse engineer the look but fix the problems
The customer was purchasing a chassis from a domestic
supplier. The design was poor, the doors did not
open completely, and the quality was poor. The customer
was also having delivery problems. However, because
of customer commitments, they could not switch to
a different chassis.
Chassis Plans provided a chassis that looked the
same but worked. The quality of the metal work was
significantly better, the doors opened all the way,
and the chassis had a much better look and finish.
Not rocket science, but this simple chassis allowed
the customer to keep several major customers. |
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Dual system nuclear plant simulator
This custom 4U enclosure was created to house two
separate computers with independent single board
computers and custom backplanes. Chassis Plans worked
closely with the customer's engineering staff and
other partners to create an enclosure to withstand
high RF frequencies. The resulting design meets
CE for susceptibility in high RF environments. The
independent backplane chassis can be swapped in
case of failure for a very low MTTR. This is another
design which is highly customer specific that can
not be satisfied by any off the shelf solution.
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