Monitor Gantry
From Fusselman.org
I've been working towards a "monitor gantry" (which is really just a fancy word for a "stand") to hold the monitors on my Multi-Mon of Doom setup. Commercial solutions are pretty slick, but also horrendously expensive. For some reason, people think it's worth it to spend more on the stand than they did on the monitors attached to it. I am not "people", however.
In true Fusselman style, I've decided to build my own!
I decided early on that I wasn't going to mess with the monitor brackets themselves, and promptly ordered 4 cheap pan-tilt brackets from MonoPrice, purveyors of cheap A/V stuff.
I'll admit that Richard and I's first attempt (made out of plywood and 2x6) didn't go so well. From issues mounting the peripheral monitor mounts to the backplane to... more than a few problems spraying primer, it was just not a good experience.
The "MK II" version is entirely made of angle iron and is much stronger and more compact. I'm also impressed, in retrospect, with how rigid it ended up being. I credit this mostly to the springyness of the bedframe angle iron.
The new model is also much more simple than the original, in that the arced frame is made of 1.5" angle (three segments) and the monitor brackets hang on larger chunks of angle (about 4x2 angle, 4" long segments). Presently, the brackets are clamped to the gantry with 1" C clamps. Ron makes fun of this arrangement, though I think it's much stronger than he gives it credit for. There was lots of precision drilling involved, and I discovered that something in my clamping setup wasn't quite square, as the prototype bracket sits just a tiny bit out of square with it's associated pan-tilt module. Either way, I can probably adjust that out with a shim where the bracket is clamped to the rail.
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