IKEA Lack

I had 3 of them stack on top of each other, all with 3D printer and power supply and filaments for more than 2 years. It is very strong and sturdy. It didn't shake or sag.

Had a LackRack(ish) running in my closet for a year or so. It's a good and dirty way to free up space on top of your server(s) for a monitor and keyboard.

I think my GALANT desk with a glass top survived multiple moves, including one that had it travel about 800 km in a trailer. Worked fine until the day I got a standing desk, at which point I put it up online and someone bought it from me. That desk might still be kicking around to this day. I think really the only IKEA product that has given me issues is the MARKUS chair, and more specifically, the gas spring leaking. Apart from that, I think everything is more or less functional? Even the five-euro LACK coffee table is still fine, even if it has signs of use on it. I've also bought used IKEA shelves and they're still holding up fine.

Many years ago, I bought 2x IKEA LACK tv consoles for exactly that purpose. Less than 30€ and is now used to store/display a lot of books right where I need them when relaxing on the sofa :)

It’s perfectly adequate for stability. People have suspended printers in midair with elastic cables, or printed upside down, and prints have come out fine. The printer frame is providing most of the rigidity in this case. Don’t get me wrong, people that place their printers on spring like things tend to get lower quality prints so there is a limit there. The downside about the IKEA particleboard over hollow cardboard core is more about sound and resonance imo. It can act as a speaker for printer vibrations and amplify that sound in the same room or to the floor below it. A popular “mod” is to place a concrete paver block on top of some isolation pad, typically made of rubber or sorbothane to increase the functional mass of the printer and lower the resonant frequencies created during printing. I personally have two of those enclosures stacked, with a printer in each one.

the lack I used for my prusa was , over time, covered in printed gusset features and additional L-brackets to get rid of sway and movement within the table itself. it looked god-awful but it was sturdy for years and years of production-quantity printing. It was only disassembled when the print lab got rebuilt. so, in other words, I support your idea of modifying the construction of the lack wholeheartedly. The joint lines are one of the only 'strong-ish' elements on the entire table, and I think they'd take glue nicely.

It works fine and lots of people do it, I have been using mine without issue for a few years now. It helps to put a concrete slab in it, but it's not necessary. The lack table does have a tendency to amplify the noise though. Here is a guide by Prusa to build one for their printers: https://blog.prusa3d.com/mmu2s-printer-enclosure_30215/

I stacked 3 of them with a 3D printer. It can handle all of them running at the same time.

I currently have two stacked Lacks acting as a cheap homemade server rack. I have 2x 4U ontop the bottom table (not floating as they're doing in the article), with an older colour laser printer and 21" monitor, KVM, etc. on the top table. Underneath I have 2x1500VA UPSes. It's been that way for years and I've moved it a few times. I think if you've seen them fall apart without any load, they're either the much newer ones that have been completely hollowed out, or they've been used in a rougher setting than "servers sitting statically on them for years." I know quite a few home lab users who swear by them. One person I know even has a full triple stack (which seems unsafe to me personally) with his networking gear on top of the servers.

In some ways, sure. The LACK ( https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lack-side-table-white-30449908/ ) is probably one of the most optimized pieces of furniture you can buy. There's no hand crafted desk that can be this cheap. A wood worker won't even get out of bed for $17. Now is it an amazingly beautiful, rock solid, heirloom quality piece of furniture? No, but it's not trying to be that.

You're quite correct about the Lack. They're cheap as hell (15 bucks at time of writing?), but as a result quite manipulatable, such as creating 3d printer enclosures [0]. You can see some of their insides as they go through the process. [0] https://blog.prusa3d.com/mmu2s-printer-enclosure_30215/

It's also perfectly sized as housing for Prusa i3 3d printer, and people have been doing it a lot: > https://www.google.com/search?q=ikea+table+prusa+i3&client=f... Truly magical piece of furniture.

Also works great as a 3D printer enclosure https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2864118

Let's also not forget the Lack's crucial role in forming the Standesk 2200, a classic standing desk hack: https://alphacolin.com/ikea-standing-desk-for-22-dollars/