
I'm looking for a "modular" modular case.
I have roughly 12 running metres of Eurorack (about 2400 HP), spread over several cases, plus a couple more metres of unracked modules. Rearranging anything and interchanging modules between racks means unscrewing modules, unplugging power, moving, replugging, screwing. So:
Is there any rack system built from cassettes and slide-in frames, so you can completely rearrange your rack in a few seconds? My searches came up empty.
In the meantime I had an AI assistant design one to my spec. The concept:
• Each slide-in frame carries power. A cassette is a complete 3U unit with its own rails and busboard, and it slides into the frame from the front, makes contact at the back and locks at the front.
• Cassettes go in and out in seconds. A lever on each side locks the cassette and also ejects it, no thumbscrews.
• Power goes through spring contacts on both sides, like a cordless drill battery. Standard gold-plated battery connectors, 5 A per contact, +12/-12/+5/GND, everything doubled.
• In theory it retrofits into any existing case: nothing sits higher than normal rails, the row pitch is 3U plus 1 mm, and you can make it any width in HP.
• Space-efficient: you lose less than 3 HP per side (cheek + gap + frame plate = 14.5 mm).
• Frames bolt together sideways and vertically, flush, nothing sticking out. Angled brackets let you stack rows at 30, 45 or 90 degrees, so a flat-to-vertical console needs no wooden cheeks at all.
• No fiddling with busboard cables: with the cassette out, the busboard is fully accessible from the back.
• Parts: 3D-printed cheeks, lever and frame plates, standard aluminium rails and L profiles, two small PCBs for the contacts. Nothing exotic.
Is there a case manufacturer offering something like this, or even a more mature, tested solution? I'd rather buy than build.
For anyone interested, here is a 3D model of the idea (interactive, rotate and zoom, slide the cassette in and out):
https://claude.ai/code/artifact/d3cbaf71-6c02-4657-91d7-08561216aa77
It's a design only at this point, not finished and nothing has been printed or tested yet.
Thoughts, ideas, things I'm missing? I think this could work.
Happy patching!