Leviton 21" Structred Media Cabinet - how to connect

I'm installing an Elk M1 and among the items I purchased is a Leviton 21" SMC (known as a "can").
I'm replacing an existing Vista 20p system, so I know how to disconnect all the wires and remove the old can, but once I mount the new can and bring all the wires into it, how do I them mount the Elk M1 and related boards inside the SMC?

Are there mounting brackets or bars or something that I need to have? Since my HA store is closed weekends, can I source these parts at somewhere like Best Buy or Home Depot. Many thanks.

I usually make anodized custom aluminum brackets depending on the items being installed, but you can probably get a fairly good looking installation using nylon spacers and self-taping sheet metal screws from the local hardware store.

For the M1 itself you can just drill holes and mount. There are also plates and security strips made by leviton and other manufacturers that you could mound and then drill those instead, but they are kind of expensive for what they are. For the other hardware use the elk mounting plates, most things will work with those, some things like the M1XEP will not and again you can drill your own holes or use generic mounting strips/plates. To mount to the plates, elk provides plastic standoffs.

I ordered all the mounting plates that were supposed to be compatible, but wasn't happy with any of them - including the Elk recommended ones (or at least their replacements, since the recommended ones are discontinued). None of them would've looked any good. In the end, I popped the Elk's plastic cover apart (carefully), removed the board, then screwed the plastic backplate directly into my can, and reassembled the board in place. That's about as good as you are gonna get.

As mentioned above, the Elk standoffs work in many cases; for the things that didn't, I didn't drill any more holes - I just use the Elk double-sided foam tape - that stuff is super strong.

You'll be very limited in what you can find in local stores - Home Depot and Lowes have a small selection of Leviton stuff; otherwise you need to plan ahead and order what you need.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. In the end, the solution was Velcro strips and double stick tape to mount the M1 and the daughter boards in the can. I spent a lot of hours Saturday driving around to places in a fruitless search for Leviton mounting brackets, after which my wife said "Would Velcro work?" Now on to zone programming.

Industrial Velcro is also an option. Comes with adhesive backing.

I like to use self-tapping screws that have a little drill bit-like tip on the end.

I've read of someone using a cut up wood dowel for spacers. Save $8, compared to nylon from HD.

Radio Shack, though it'd be a few trips into the drawer with their "assistants" they do have standoffs, metal and nylon last I looked.

Velcro tends to not stand up over time, the heat inside the enclosures do it in. The double stick pads, like Elk makes work very well. The largest item to consider is spacing the boards away from the enclosure/backplate to avoid shorts.

Brass motherboard standoffs work well too.

Home Depot and Lowes both have the nylon and aluminum spacers as well - they are found on the hardware (screws) aisle in the cabinets/drawers. If you do a search on the Home Depot website for 'Nylon Spacer' you should find both types.

I cut a 1/4 inch piece of plywood, and mounted it prior by using screws from the back side. Then I can place anything anywhere within the can.

I'm going to revive this thread because I am in a similar situation and was going to start my own thread until somehow I found this one (I thought I'd already searched).

I have a Netgear GS724Tv3 24 port switch. It weighs about 6 pounds. it is going into the cabinet on vertically and on its side. How should I mount this? Custom fabricating my own brackets might be an option, but that seems potentially hard to do. I'm just starting out learning how to do things more DIY hardware oriented in that sense. Maybe get aluminum brackets that would run the length of the unit and then drill holes matching the ones in the Netgear box for the rack mount? That way it'd stay more stable and the weight of the unit would be distributed along the length of the bracket.

But maybe there are other ideas? I have two little brackets for rack mounting it, but those don't seem like they'll be big enough. They are roughly like these. http://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/fully-managed-switches/switch-modules/420-10043-01.aspx …

That seems awfully large to go inside of a can - but it's doable I suppose. Typically with those you can use the included rack mounts turned sideways for wall mounting.  It'd require drilling the can but maybe you can get it to line up with a couple of the holes in the can and just sorta tap them.

The IT guy in me couldn't do it - I have a 12U wall-mount rack in my closet for the networking equipment.

Work2Play said:

That seems awfully large to go inside of a can - but it's doable I suppose. Typically with those you can use the included rack mounts turned sideways for wall mounting.  It'd require drilling the can but maybe you can get it to line up with a couple of the holes in the can and just sorta tap them.

The IT guy in me couldn't do it - I have a 12U wall-mount rack in my closet for the networking equipment.

Click to expand...

 
Yeah, I searched for some small form factor switches and the biggest ones I ended up wanting to put in my SMCs were 8-port models. I have 2 of them stacked on top of each other giving me (16) 1GB ports inside my SMC. If I had to sacrifice more space I would have moved to a rack solution.

I've got a 42" cabinet. There's plenty of room. I think I can pull it off. I went to the hardware store and then promptly left the bag with all of my screws, washers, and nuts at the front desk. Went back after dinner but it was closed.

Or at least I hope I left them there! Otherwise I'm out of luck since one of the brackets for the Netgear switch was there. Arrgh.

That's quite a switch to shoehorn into an enclosure. Better person than I consider doing that.