TOGRack

A standard for mounting small electrical components, similar in purpose to Eurorack but smaller, simpler, based on inches, and easier to make out of scrap wood.

Components are panels with non-threaded holes for #6 screws (5⁄32″ works well) on a 1″ wide by 3″ high grid. Components can be any width, and can have stuff sticking up to ¾″ out the backside along a centered 2+½″-wide band (i.e. the area between the rails).

The rack is 2 rails, each ½″ wide, with holes threaded for #6-32 machine screws spaced 1″ or ½″ along the center of each rail, and the rails centerlines 3″ apart. The rack can either be open in the back or should have a ¾″ deep area between the rails that will be occupied by components' backsides.

Since a rack is 3½″ tall, it can fit perfectly into a 2U space on a 19″ rack.

Standard Description Mounting Hole Rail Panel/Rack Height
Thread Pitch Pitch Width
WSTYPE-4122 Original TOGRack #6-32 1″ 3″ ½″ 3″
WSTYPE-4123 ½″-grid TOGRack #6-32 ½″ 3″ ½″ 3″
WSTYPE-4123-N N″ variation of ½″-grid TOGRack #6-32 ½″ N″-½″ ½″ N
TOGRack Standards

Note that an infinite set of variations on WSTYPE-4123 can be named as "WSTYPE-4123-" + outer width of the rack, in inches. e.g. 'WSTYPE-4123-6' would be a 6″-wide rack standard, with 5½″ between rail centers, but still using #6-32 holes every ½″ along the rails.

WSTYPE-4140 (a.k.a. WSTYPE-200951) is a variation on TOGRack where panels are trimmed by a little over 1/16″ around the edges (or at least the top and bottom) to give room for case walls, making it more amenable to 1½″ gridbeam sizes, since additional cells don't need to be dedicated to the walls. Making wooden boxes with walls that precise can be challenging, so this variation is probably more suited to situations where parts can be made by 3D printing or CNC routing.

TOGBeam

½″ gridbeam.

Or thought of another way, square TOGRack rails with holes in both directions. Having holes spaced the same as the width of the beam is important because it allows you to make what the Gridbeam guys call a 'tri-joint'.

i.e. ½″x½″ beams, multiples of ½″ long, with 2 perpendicular and intersecting 5⁄32″ holes (to acommodate #6 screws) centered on each ½″ segment.

Macro-TOGRack

Larger scale convention designed to be compatible with Unistrut and common household joist/stud spacing. This is the framing to which you'll attach your TOGRacks, since you probably don't want to attach them directly/permanently to your walls.

Holes for ⅜″-16 bolts on a 16″ grid. 16″ is a very common distance between the centers of wall studs or floor joists in US houses, and ⅜″-16 is a common bolt size for use with Unistrut/Superstrut. When attaching to your house, use threaded inserts. I recommend these E-Z Lok ones (I've found that drilling a ½″ hole works well). This gives you the option to either bolt components directly to the wall or to attach a span of Unistrut, to which you can attach as many different components as you like.

For attaching things to walls, I find that it is more convenient to have the pattern repeat vertically every foot rather than every 16", so e.g. for placing a grid of mounting holes in my bedroom wall, I use a wall-adapted variation of Macro-TOGRack with a rectangular 16″x12″ grid.

The ⅜″-16 bolts require somewhat large holes to be drilled, especially if using threaded inserts, so for purposes of preserving the structural integrity of my studs, I now prefer to thread ¼″-20 directly into the studs, which seems sturdy enough so long as you don't over-tighten things.

The following table provides a name for each of those variations.

Standard Description Mounting Hole Thread X Pitch Y Pitch Y Offset
WSTYPE-4124 Original Macro-TOGRack ⅜″-16 16″ 16″ 8″
WSTYPE-4125 ¼″ Macro-TOGRack ¼″-20 16″ 16″ 8″
WSTYPE-4126 Wall-Adapted Macro-TOGRack ⅜″-16 16″ 12″ 3″
WSTYPE-4127 Wall-Adapted ¼″ Macro-TOGRack ¼″-20 16″ 12″ 4½″
Macro-TOGRack Standards

Gridrack

As mentioned in 'Gridbeam, gridblock, and gridrack', 'gridrack' is a gridbeam-compatible rack standard. The most common configuration is a 12″-wide rack, with 1½″ gridbeam (or 'gridrail', which is simply half-thickness gridbeam with holes drilled only through the wide faces) as the rails, making the mounting hole pattern a 1½″ x 10½″ grid, with 9″ betwen the inner edges of the rails.

Standard Description Mounting Hole Thread X Pitch Y Pitch
WSTYPE-4128 12″ GridRack ¼″-20 1½″ 10½″
WSTYPE-4128-N N″ GridRack ¼″-20 1½″ N″-1½″
GridRack Standards

Note that an infinite set of variations on WSTYPE-4128 can be named as "WSTYPE-4128-" + outer width of the rack, in inches. e.g. 'WSTYPE-4128-18' is an 18″-wide rack with 16½″ between rail centers. For these variations, everything besides rack width, i.e. thread size and pitch along the rails, remains the same.