Search for subrack and card cage parts and you get two different worlds mixed together. One is enclosure hardware that ships inside finished equipment. The other is factory equipment that never leaves your floor. Both hold printed circuit boards (PCBs) on edge, which is where the confusion starts and where it ends.
This guide separates the three honestly, then points you at the right rack if the factory floor is the world you meant.
What is a subrack?
A subrack is a frame that mounts inside a 19 in (482.6 mm) equipment cabinet and holds PCBs as plug-in cards. Cards slide on guide rails and mate with a backplane. The subrack ships inside the finished equipment and stays there for the life of the system.
Subracks are stackable by design. Each unit bolts into the cabinet and takes a fixed slice of the frame, and the next one bolts in above it. Card positions are fixed by the guide rails, connectors are fixed by the backplane, and all of it is specified by the product designer, not the process engineer.
What is a card cage?
A card cage is the metal skeleton inside an enclosure that holds PCBs vertically on card guides. In practice the terms overlap: a card cage is often a subrack without the front-panel hardware. Like a subrack, it is a component part of the end product, not production equipment.
When buyers search for card cage component parts, they usually mean the pieces of that skeleton: card guides, rails, ejector handles, backplanes, front panels. Those are catalog parts from enclosure vendors, chosen at design time and bought once for every unit built.
What is a PCB magazine rack?
A PCB magazine rack is a conductive, ESD-safe holder that carries boards through production. Fifty slots hold boards on edge, side panels adjust to board width, and the whole rack moves between stations or drops into an SMT loader. It handles work in progress. It never ships inside a product.
Ours carry 50 slots on a 0.4 in (10 mm) pitch. Gear-track adjustment sets board width from 2 to 9.8 in (50 to 250 mm) on the standard chassis in seconds, with parallelism held across all 50 slots. Larger chassis reach 18.1 in (460 mm) for backplanes and oversized industrial boards. Construction is five interchangeable conductive PPE side panels per wall and aluminum pillars, on a galvanized steel or conductive plastic base, with the whole current path in the conductive 10⁴ to 10⁶ Ω band. One adjustable rack covers the full standard-format range without re-tooling, which is why buyers call it a universal PCB rack.
What problem does each one solve?
Subracks and card cages solve a packaging problem: how to organize cards, cooling, and connectors inside finished equipment. Magazine racks solve a process problem: how to move and store populated or bare boards between assembly steps without static damage, scratched components, or mixed-up batches. One lives in the product, the other lives on the floor.
A card cage answers a design question: where do the cards live inside this box. A magazine rack answers a floor question: how do 50 boards get from reflow to inspection without touching each other. Different questions, different hardware, different budgets.
When does an engineer actually want a magazine rack?
When boards are the product moving through a factory, not cards inside a product. If assemblies travel between SMT, reflow, AOI, test, and packing, if they feed loaders and unloaders, or if they wait between shifts, you want magazine racks. If cards bolt into a cabinet and stay, you want a subrack.
- Boards feed an in-line loader. Magazine racks drop into SMT loaders and unloaders, commonly a 22.2 in (563 mm) chassis height on a 0.4 in (10 mm) slot pitch. The SMT loader interface guide covers the fit.
- Boards bake or cure. 200 C (392 F) racks run IPC/JEDEC J-STD-033 bake cycles. The 300 C (572 F) all-aluminum racks load straight from the oven, and their slot opens to 0.3 in (7.5 mm) to clear boards that warp after reflow.
- Board width changes between jobs. Gear-track changeover takes seconds. Belt adjustment is continuous from roughly 0.4 to 9.8 in (10 to 250 mm) for prototype and NPI work. Screw adjustment holds one width for long runs at the lowest price. The adjustment guide compares all three.
- Boards wait at a bench. Slotted-edge racks and angled holders keep the batch on edge at the station, so nothing is stacked while it waits.
- Boards ship in cartons. The Karry-All 35 karrier rides inside any outer box or tote, with 30 numbered slots keeping boards aligned and edge-protected without foam inserts.
How do subracks, card cages, and magazine racks compare?
Three frames, three jobs. Subracks and card cages are enclosure hardware, bought once per unit shipped, sized to the 19 in (482.6 mm) standard, and specified by the product design. Magazine racks are factory equipment, bought once per line, sized to your boards, and specified by the process engineer. The table shows the split.
| Subrack | Card cage | PCB magazine rack | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Bolted in a 19 in (482.6 mm) cabinet, inside the finished product | Fastened inside an equipment enclosure | On the production floor, moving between processes |
| What it holds | Plug-in cards on guide rails, mated to a backplane | PCBs on card guides | Bare or populated PCBs on edge, 50 slots per rack |
| Width setting | Fixed by the card guide spacing | Fixed by the card guide spacing | Adjustable; the family covers 0.4 to 18.1 in (10 to 460 mm) |
| ESD role | Part of the product's own grounding design | Part of the product's own grounding design | Conductive 10⁴ to 10⁶ Ω current path, ESD-safe |
| Temperature | Set by the product's thermal design | Set by the product's thermal design | 80 C (176 F) standard, 200 C (392 F) and 300 C (572 F) versions |
| When you buy it | Once per unit you ship | Once per unit you ship | Once per line, and it stays in service |
| Who sells it | Enclosure and chassis vendors | Enclosure and chassis vendors | PCBRacks magazine racks, from $174 |
Does PCBRacks sell subracks or card cages?
No. We build the handling side: ESD-safe magazine racks, bench racks, holders, and turntables that move printed circuit boards through production. If you need guide rails, backplanes, or 19 in (482.6 mm) enclosure parts, you need an enclosure vendor. If you need to hold boards between processes, you are in the right place.
That split is deliberate. Handling boards through production is its own engineering problem: conductive materials, adjustable widths, loader interfaces, bake temperatures. We build for that problem only. The biggest production floors in electronics run these exact racks, and in-stock racks ship from the USA in under 24 hours.
Which PCBRacks rack fits your line?
Match the rack to the job. Adjustable magazine racks for line movement and loaders. High-temperature versions for bake and reflow exit. Slotted bench racks and angled holders for bench work. A karrier that rides inside cartons for shipping. All conductive, all ESD-safe, all shipped from the USA.
- Standard SMT lines. Gear-adjustable magazine racks, 50 slots, board widths 2 to 9.8 in (50 to 250 mm) on the standard chassis, from $174.
- Large boards. The larger chassis in the magazine rack collection take boards up to 21.1 by 18.1 in (535 by 460 mm).
- Narrow and flex boards. Belt-adjustable racks reach any width in a continuous range, from roughly 0.4 in (10 mm) on the standard chassis.
- One width, long runs. Screw-adjustable racks give the most rigid locked setting at the lowest price for the same chassis.
- Bake and cure cycles. The high-temperature collection runs to 300 C (572 F) in all-aluminum construction, $276 to $510.
- Bench work. Universal racks: slotted-edge racks in packs of ten for boards up to 0.09 in (2.4 mm) thick, $200 to $270; angled holders at $290 and $330; ESD turntables at $118 and $182.
- Shipping inside cartons. Karry-All 35, 30 numbered slots, pack of ten, $480.
The paperwork behind the catalog: the MIL-B-81705-B ESD-safe materials standard, NASTC ESD test report 2025AS4693AP, and SGS RoHS report NGBEC25007648601. How we verify what we sell walks through the test reports, and the ESD surface resistance guide explains the ohm bands.
Not sure which rack fits your boards? Start with the sizing guide, or send us the spec. Board length, width, thickness, tallest component. We confirm the right part number before you order.