this is a custom eurorack 7u 84hp case built into a samsonite suitcase i got from a thrift store. i custom built it in 2018 and modded the 1u rail in in 2022.
share this with some pictures of your system!!! (non-eurorack is welcome too :3)
HUGE infodump with a ton of pictures on my rack and the construction of it down below:
prototyping the case
i bought a moog mother-32 for my birthday in 2017, and from the start i intended to use it as a jumping-off point for fully getting into eurorack. some people might argue that it's silly to put such a huge module in a rack, when you could keep it in its original case. but my intent was to design a portable system. my background is in doing improvized music with lots of different hardware synths and drum machines. but this was a nightmare to bring with me; i needed several cases of gear and equipment, and it would take ages to connect everything with cables and to soundcheck everything. i wanted to build a self-contained instrument that does all of those things, something i could patch up at home and bring with me anywhere, and i'd just need to plug in a single power supply and a single (stereo) audio cable and it'd be good to go.
diy'ing a case is a great way to save on money since pre-built cases aren't really items that can be mass produced and therefore they cost a lot of money. a lot of diy cases are nothing more than a wooden box with some rack rails slapped into it, but this wouldn't be very portable since those tend to be an open design unless you build a lid for them, plus i didn't have the tools necessary to construct a case like that.
instead, i settled on the idea of building a rack inside of a suitcase; there's several other designs on the internet where people have built a rack into an already existing case, like a pelican case or a flightcase or similar enclosures. while it might be tricky to find a suitcase with the right dimensions, this approach does have the added benefit that suitcases are already designed to be portable and rugged.
me and my dad drove to a nearby thrift store to see if they had any suitcases available; at this point, i had already ordered a set of rails from mdlrcase and a whole bunch of modules, but they hadn't arrived yet. i looked up the measurements of the rails while in the store, and they happened to perfectly fit the suitcase! while that wasn't a guarantee that this plan would work, it was only €10, so i ended up taking it home with me.
pictured above is my m32 sitting in the suitcase after i gutted all the dividers and compartments out of the case so the rails could be installed later. i had to remove the metal braces too because they got in the way.
then all the eurorack equipment arrived, but i still had to go to the hardware store to find some wood and bolts and stuff to install it into the suitcase; i couldn't wait to try out all my new gear, so i just screwed the rails into some wood panels and used it like this.
constructing the case
i don't have any actual pictures of the build process back in 2018, but i do have a few pictures i shot when i took the whole thing apart in 2022 to install a 1u rail at the top.
it's incredibly simple!
mdlrcase rails (and generally most eurorack rails) come with, well, the rails themselves, and some side brackets that the rails can be screwed into from the outside; then from the inside, woodscrews can be used to install them into wood panels. normally you'd just build a wooden box to screw the set of rails into, but we needed to find a way to attach it to the case like this. the hardware store had these L-shaped wood panels, so the plan was to screw the rails in on the side, and then bolt it into the case on the bottom.
here's a better view of what that looks like inside the case:
this required us to drill some holes through the panels and the suitcase at the same time, which was a bit tricky, but ultimately it worked out in the end. the construction is very sturdy, the assembly doesn't move around in the case or anything, nor have the wood panels ever strained or flexed from there being any weight put on them.
1u rails are the same as regular 3u rails; the only difference is that the side brackets are 2/3rds shorter. i measured the case and realized there was just enough space to fit in a set of 1u rails! the only issue was that i had cut the wood panels to length... but, as you may be able to notice, there's these longer panels at the top and bottom of the assembly. they don't do anything; we just nailed them in there for aesthetics, really. if i swapped the shorter panels out for those longer panels and cut them to the right length, it could actually work just fine! so that's exactly what i did:
the dimensions of the case fit a 7u rack perfectly! it makes me so happy, it's so satisfying to look at.
the rack over the years
here's some pictures showcasing how the rack evolved since i first put it together in 2018.
2019:
having the sq-1 in there was admittedly kinda jank, but i didn't really have any other ways of sequencing the system. also notice the cardboard blind panels of all the modules i couldn't afford :')
2020:
i expanded the system a lot; there's some ladik modules, maths, and an antimatter audio launch codes. while i liked launch codes a lot for sequencing triggers, i also ended up grabbing a pamela's new workout later that year, rendering it pretty much useless since now i had two trigger sequencers in my rack and pnw is just so much better for that.
2021:
i traded the launch codes for a doepfer wasp filter + basic vco. that was a really good trade! the m32 is great but since it only has one oscillator it means i couldn't do any crossmod or paraphony with it, which i really missed until now.
2022:
this was a couple of months before i installed the 1u row. notice how there's now a squarp instruments rample!!! shoutout to that one red means recording video for pretty much making me insta-buy it.
a bonus picture of that hand-drawn yuri meme blind panel because i have one image left
yeah
i ended up throwing this in with the trade i did in 2021 and i am still sad about that :) fuck you esther and your liberal performative activism bullshit gimme my blind panel back
um anyways that's it thank you for reading xdxdxd bye
