The Story — Johnny Roux, FlexPort Inventor

The Problem

Johnny works inside data closets and server rooms every week — speccing gear, supporting integrators, signing off on installs. The same gap kept showing up. A site needed one, two, maybe four ports near a switch or an appliance. The only honest answer was a full patch panel, burning a whole rack unit for ports that would never get used.

In a fully populated cabinet, the math gets worse. "If a rack or cabinet is fully populated, the only option is to purchase a new enclosure." Two thousand dollars of steel to terminate four jacks.

The Solution

FlexPort mounts directly to the rack rail using the screw that's already there. Standard keystone jacks. Zero rack units consumed. Stackable. Works in open-air frames and closed-door cabinets. No special tools.

Field-tested with Datastrait Networks across MN, WI, IL, SD, and ND before it shipped. Patent secured in May 2026.

Fourteen days
from idea to CAD.

2026.02.10

Day 0

First sketches in a dot-grid notebook. Angled mount, keystone openings, screw-through tab.

2026.02.11

First print

First prototype printed in ROHS-compliant PLA. It accepted a jack. It accepted a screw. The idea held.

2026.02.16

Rev

Mount location and orientation revised. Form factor tightened.

2026.02.18

Drawings

Engineering drawings on paper. Dimensions fixed for the first time.

2026.02.20

Rev

Minor revisions. Reprint the same afternoon.

2026.02.23

Rev

More revisions. Fusion CAD timestamped 11:41 AM — Cleaned Up Vertical Panel v_2.1.

2026.02.24

v2.1

First print of the revised version. The shape that shipped.

Designed byJohnny Roux.

Fourteen daysfrom idea to CAD.

Designed by
Johnny Roux.

Fourteen days
from idea to CAD.