Homelab Build 2026 Part 1 - Initial hardware, and 3D printed rackz

Getting Starting

I took a week of vacation during December of 2026 and during that time I decided to build a homerack for hosting a few services at my house along with learning some virutalization and networking skills. I enlisted my Quidi Q1 Pro and Ender 3 S1 Pro to help me print out the frame, and I printed all the pieces I went online and started sourcing hardware and other components.

My main aim was to set up Home Assistant along with a few other services, and to access them within my home network. I have gigabit internet through the city utilities here in Fort Collins, so wanted to make the network stack keep that speed throughout.

Main Hardware

Network Gear

• Netgear Nighthawk 5-Stream AX5 WiFi 6 Router (RAX43): This wifi router has served me pretty well, gets about 850 Mb/s speed when the devices have a good link, and was already running.
• AC3000 Nighthawk X6S Tri Band WiFi Mesh Extender (EX8000): We added this extender to get a little better coverage in the upstairs rooms of our house. It does a good job and allows the same netwok name to be used, unlike other single extenders out there that make a secondary netork SSID.
• D-Link Unmanaged 24-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch (DGS-1024D): I keep this by the main modem and use it as a switch in my home office for a couple mac minis, gaming computers, and as an easily accessible access point when settng up new hardware that uses ethernet. I've had this for oner 6 years and it's been reliable.
• TP-Link 8 Port Gigabit Ethernet Network Switch (TL-SG108): This would function as the main switch for my mini rack, and also used to connect a dedicated NAS system to the network.

Compute Resources

• Raspberry Pi 3B: This was running klipper on one of my 3D printers, but I decided to use a Pi Zero 2 W for the printer, which meant I could use this for a small service or two.
• 2x Raspberry Pi 5 8GB: I added m.2 hats and coolers to these, and boot directly from 256gb nvme drives.
• HP EliteDesk 800 G3: i7-7700t, 32gb ddr4, 256gb nvme, and 400gb sata ssd. This is my primary proxmox node simply because I bought it first. Does pretty well for an older gen cpu.
• Dell Optiplex 7070: i7-9700, 32gb ddr4 ram, 256gb nvme, and 500gb sata ssd. The second node in my proxmox setup. The 9xxx intel cpus run notoriously hot, but so far hasn't run over 45C for most of the services I've run on it so far.
• Custom Desktop with TrueNAS and an assortment of drives
  • Intel Pentium G440 3.3 Ghz Dual Core CPU: this processor is pretty ancient, but it was a spare I had sitting around since 2018, and since the computer would just be running TrueNAS I figured it would suffice.
  • GIGABYTE GA-H110-D3A Motherboard: This board was made specifically for Crypto mining, which I dabbled in several years ago, but had just been sitting dormant. Features 6 pcie slots, one of which I used for a sata drive adapter card
  • 16 GB DDR4 RAM
  • 256 GB SSD (boot drive)
  • 2x 300gb hard drives: had these sitting around and didn't have a use for em so I figured I'd throw em in to learn setting up a pool with them.
  • 2x 500gb hard drives: decided these could be used to back up a few services
  • 2x 1tb hard drives: one aim with building a homelab was to get off MS365 subscription. These drives would store the 500+ gb of photos and other data that I had stored on MS One Drive
  • 1x 16tb hard drive: I plan on mirroring this drive for reliability, but for now this is operating as a single drive and is used for backing up media files

The two micro PCs I purchased from ebay. Usually if you keep an eye out your can get some pretty good deals. I was able to score the Dell for $250 usd and the HP for $125, but I also added either a sata ssd or nvme ssd to each so they would have extra storage. I also looked at the Lenovo micro pcs of a similar fashion, but decide on these mostly due to cost.

3D Printed Rack

The LabRax 10in sever rack is a favorite amongst homelab enthusiasts, and that is what I decided to print.

• Atomic Filament - Indigo Golden Sparkle v3 Translucent PETG PRO Atomic filament makes some great products. I used this PETG for the rails and structural components of the rack.
• Protopasta - Green Glow-in-the-dark The current filament on the protopasta site is white and green when glowing, but I was able to score some that printed green and glowed green. This was used for the rack inserts and side panels.
• TECBEARS PETG Filament - Orange: I picked this up for cheap a while back and figured it would go well with the other filament colors.
• Lab Rax 10" Server Rack - 5U: The main rack files provide the rails, side pieces, and corner joints.
• 1U 3 x Raspberry Pi 5 Shelf for 10" Rack: lets me put my 3 Raspberry Pis side by side in one shelf
• TP-Link 8 Port Switch (TL-SG108) 10 in Rack Mount
• 10" rack mount for HP Elite/prodesk mini
• Lab rax honeycomb storage wall panels (custom)
• 10-inch Keystone Patchpanel x10 ports

Other assorted parts

• Thermalright TL-C12C X5 CPU Air Fan, 120mm: I put a fan on the top and bottom to aid in getting air into the rack for cooling
• Tuya 16A Smart Plug Zigbee WiFi Socket: A zigbee socket that also reports voltage, amperage, and watt usage.
• M6 Brass Hot Melt Insert Knurled Nuts: Used for connecting all the frame pieces.
• ESP32 Wroom USB-C: I have had better luck connecting to usbc based esp32 dev boards than the micro usb connectors. Using EspHome I programmed this microcontroller to adjust fan speeds as well and control the rack light strips.
• UV LED Light Strip Black Light: These 5v light strips made the case glow and I thought they looked cool.
• FR120N Isolated MOSFET Relay: Connecting these to my ESP32 Fan controller allowed me to turn of the light strips through home assistant.
• ZoeRax 10PCS,Cat6/5e Keystone Jack