Cage nut
 |
This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (September 2010) |
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2007) |
A cage nut or caged nut consists of a square nut in a spring steel cage which wraps around the nut. The cage has two wings that when compressed allow the cage to be inserted into the square holes in equipment racks, and when released hold the nut in position behind the hole. The nut is usually slightly loose in the cage to allow for minor adjustments in alignment. The gap between two wings determines thickness of material that will hold nut in correct position without pulling it fro base material. The size of square hole will also govern the position of nut. If size of hole is too large it will still pull out from base material. There are two types of cage nuts: A)SLIDE-ON These nuts are used when rails are square punched because in such a case it becomes easy to move mounting hardware. B)SNAP-IN These nuts are used for rails that are punched with square mountings in data cabinets.
The most common use for cage nuts is to mount equipment in square-holed 19-inch racks (the most common type nowadays). There are four common sizes: 10-32 and to a lesser extent 12-24 are generally used in the United States; elsewhere M6 (6 mm outside diameter) for light and medium equipment and M8 for heavier equipment such as uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs).
Although some modern rack-mount servers have bolt-free fitting, other components such as shelves, networking hardware, UPSs and KVM switches still tend to be fitted using cage nuts.
