Custom Chassis & Card Cages
A card cage or chassis holds boards at a fixed pitch and lines their connectors up with the backplane, so its guide slots, rear rail, and standoffs have to keep their positions to each other. K-Display makes chassis, subracks, and card cages from your drawings.
Chassis and card cages we build
We build chassis, subracks, and card cages with card guides, backplane rails, standoffs, and gasket lands fitted. Parts are cut and formed from stainless steel, aluminum, carbon steel, galvanized steel, or galvanneal, with spot welds in steel and frame welds in aluminum, carbon steel, or stainless steel, then powder coated. They leave the dock as loose panels, a joined chassis, or an assembly with hardware, guides, and covers fitted, ready for boards.
Chassis that mount in a rack on ears or slides are built as rack-mount enclosures.
Each pair of guides and the rear connector positions locate from one datum, so a card's path and its connector line up. The front cross rails hold the pairs apart at the board pitch.
Chassis and card cage parts we make
- Equipment chassis
- Formed bases, side panels, and covers joined into a chassis, with connector cutouts, vents, gasket lands, and mounting features.
- Card cages and subracks
- Frames with card guide slots or purchased guides, front and rear rails, and backplane mounting at the board pitch.
- Backplane and module rails
- Rails, brackets, and tie bars that hold the backplane, modules, and power supply.
- Front panels and brackets
- Panels for card fronts and bracket sets for fans, drives, and power supplies.
Card alignment and bare faces
- Board pitch and parallelism
- A card binds when the pitch drifts across the cage or the guide slots are out of parallel, and rail flatness decides whether it seats squarely in the backplane connector. Positions follow the board pitch or subrack standard you name.
- Guide type
- Formed slots take their position from the flat pattern and the bends, while purchased guides take it from where they fasten to the rails. A slot or hole placed for the wrong guide type leaves the card riding off its path.
- Standoffs and hardware
- Self-clinching hardware seats by sheet material, hardness, thickness, and distance from edges and bends, and a fastener too near a bend does not seat. We place each one from the hardware maker's edge distance before the flat pattern is cut.
- Gasket lands and bonded seams
- Gasket lands, bonded seams, and conductive faces pass current across a joint only while they stay flat and bare, and powder coat over a land or ground pad stops that current.
Hardware pressed in before forming
Press access to a panel closes once its flanges are formed, so hardware goes in ahead of forming and finish.
Cut the panels
We cut the flat panels with their guide slots, hardware holes, and vents by laser or CNC punching.
Press, form, and join
We press in standoffs and nuts, form the flanges, then spot weld steel rails and panels or fasten them.
Mask, coat, and assemble
We mask ground pads and gasket lands, powder coat, and fit guides and covers last.
Locate the guides from the board layout
Include the board thickness, guide part number and connector position in the same layout. Checking those together gives the fabricator the rail positions and attachment pattern that must survive forming and joining.
A card follows its upper and lower guides toward the backplane connector. Guide position and the rear support must agree, so the board reaches the connector squarely rather than relying on the connector to correct its path.
What to send for a chassis quote
- Chassis drawing or model
- Panel drawings or a STEP model with material, thickness, bend radii, cutouts, position tolerances, and quantity.
- Board and connector layout
- Board pitch and thickness, subrack standard (IEC 60297 or IEEE 1101.1), guide part numbers or slot dimensions, backplane and connector positions, and the modules or power supply carried.
- Hardware and gasketing
- Self-clinching hardware, gasket, and vent panel part numbers.
- Finish
- Powder coat color and texture, and the surfaces that stay bare.