Faraday Cage
- Rating
- Posted by
- Chris
- Date Posted
- 01/07/2017
Pros: Very well build out of heavy gauge square tubular steel and sheet metal covering the outside. The rack came with a removable top cover and front cover (no hinges, just lays on the unit and is secured with 2 pins each. Solid rubber casters, so you will never have to worry about flat tires, but they seem a little under-rated for the weight they are being asked to hold. So far so good (had it for 3 months), but we'll see how long they last. Plenty of room for a large mixer and small computer on the top carpeted deck. Power ports on the top deck and inside the unit. 2 USB power ports in the upper half. Pre-wired speaker cables and ports. The racks are mounted to the frame on 4 rubber shock mounts. This thing can withstand many years of use indoors or out. Cons: The entire rack and covers is covered with sheet metal - this is a huge problem if you use wireless microphones and/or wi-fi router. The sheet metal creates a Faraday cage which radio frequencies cannot penetrate. You will need to mount external antennas or replace a significant portion of the exterior with plastic, wood or Plexiglas so you can use your wireless microphones and wi-fi router for your digital mixer. This is relatively easy to do on the top and front covers (drill out the rivets and replace the sheet metal with plastic), but the back doors and sides have the sheet metal welded to the frame, so you will have to grind off all of the welded points before removing the sheet metal. This thing is HEAVY, and gets even heavier with audio equipment installed. Do not plan to lift it up any stairs or into a truck without a lift gate. Adding a trailer hitch will make it easier to move around if used for marching band. Some wasted and unusable space near the bottom of each rack because there is not enough room between the rack and frame to mount audio equipment About 2 spaces cannot be used depending on your configuration. If they would have mounted the racks back a few more inches, this would not be an issue. The back doors are mounted to the frame with piano hinges, so they are not removable. It would be nice if they were removable, like doors and covers on most audio racks. I also mounted some tie down points to the frame so it would be easier to secure inside a box truck or trailer during transport.