Plate.jpgThis article demonstrates a nice trick to rack-mount the GR-55 by Roland. The idea is to do this in a non-intrusive way, that is, without drilling any new holes in the GR-55 or even removing the rubber pads. In order to do this, we will first manufacture (thanks dad for the actual manufacturing :-) a small metal plate that will serve both for holding the GR-55 and for fixation on the flight-case rails. See the picture on the right. The plate need not be very thick, as the overall rigidness will be provided once everything is in place. This particular one is less than a millimeter thick.

Fixing the plate to the flight-case rails is pretty straightforward. What might be less obvious is how to fix the GR-55 to the plate, in a non-intrusive way. If you look at the GR-55's underside, you will notice that there are six screws on the border, but also two other screws more in the middle of the device. These are the ones we are interested in. Indeed, if you open up the GR-55, you will notice that contrary to the other screws, these ones provide a solid grasp right into the chasis. This is illustrated by the pictures below.

Underside.jpgInside.jpg

So we can just use those to fix the GR-55 to the plate, and that will be enough. We need to replace the original screws with longer ones though (4mm diameter). Here are some pictures of the GR-55 fixed on that plate, and a final one with the whole thing rack-mounted. As you can see, the plate is narrow enough to fit between the rubber pads. Pretty cool huh?

Fixed_top.jpgFixed_side.jpgFixed_bottom.jpgRack_mounted.jpg

If you are interested in doing this, here is the schematics of the plate that I've designed. The exact dimensions should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt, as there were some variations when the plate was actually folded into shape. Enjoy, and happy tinkering !

Oh, one more thing. Maybe you're wondering why the hell we would want to rack-mount a pedalboard... here is the explanation.