Creating Ventilation

Ah yes another fun project at the WSU Spark Building. In the span of 30 minutes my supervisor and I sized and cut a whole in a cabinet door. Sounds crazy right? Who would ruin a perfect good door?

Well, inside these doors are server systems that power a whole classroom. At least 18 monitors are connected to this server to power a collaborative classroom. Overheating can cause fire, fail safe shut down, and other poor situations.

So here is what we did. My supervisor already has some measurements for where the panel should be cut in order to introduce the wire grate.

We took off the door form the cabinet and secured it to the ShopBot. After measuring at least 3 times we input the dimensions into the program. Creating a cut with four passes and four tabs. Again we check out dimensions 5 more times. We needed up making the cut a centimeter larger than we needed to in case we were off.

Here is the door being cut:

The cut took about two minutes to complete. After sanding down the tab cuts we fitted the wire grate. It was a tight fit, probably could have gone a centimeter more on length. But the wire grate fit! The door looks great and will help the server run cooler.

Here is a photo of the finished product:

The wire grate will be secured with T-Nuts and screws.

Thank you for reading! This is my latest project but I have a few more in the works that I am excited about!

Stay tuned!