old hard drive project

[mpcwizzard]

I am looking for a project to make use of an old hard drive. Where I could take the cover off the platters and hook up the drive motor to run with the heads moving back and forth. Final resulted to be something I could set on a desk or shelf with minimal electronics hanging off of it.

If there is any projects out there that already that does this am interested, or if someone is willing to guide me through doing something like this am interested in that to.

thanks

 

[Thunderchild]

do you mean to make the drive into an ornament ? well just power it and the disks will spin but to the the arm to swing back and forth is a bit more triky you need to bypass the controll and power it like on and off 01010101 so the arm swings up and down but I've never done a thing like this

 

[Papabravo]

The heads on a hard drive are designed to fly microinches from the surface. A piece of dust going under the head is enough to cause violent bouncing of the heads and their subsequent crash into the surface of the drive rotating at 4000-7200 rpm. At these speeds material is scrapped off the surface, which further contaminates the very small space between the head and the surface. It is not a pretty sight. That is why hard drives are assembled in clean rooms so particulate contamination is kept to an absolute minimum.

 

[Thunderchild]

well if it an old hard disk then that is not so much of an issue. some oe opened up a 512 MB drive and I reclosed it and it still worked but of course modern drives are more delicate

 

[Papabravo]

I just meant that you could not remove the covers, and power it up, and expect it to continue operating without grinding up the surfave of the platter. I don't know about you, but the thought of breathing ferric oxide or the other magnetic materials gives me a chill.

 

[Thunderchild]

yea i see you point it is a silly project but then it's not something i would do its like getting the engine out of my written off car and setting it up in my bedroom and leaving it running with the windows shut just for the fun of it

 

[Papabravo]

Thunderchild,

If you ever decide to give up your day job, I think you have a future as a stand up commedian: in either language

 

[Thunderchild]

by the way I am intending giving up my daytime job but do intend leaving crappy Italy and going back to england hence I do actually have two languages but you did not know that so what were your thoughts ?

 

[Papabravo]

I just meant to say that I had a really good laugh at the image of running an engine in an apartment so one could inhale and enjoy the subtle fragrances of the combustion products. I spent 6 mo. in Ivrea in the in the 70's working for Olivetti. I remember being in a hurry to get home.

 

[Thunderchild]

yea its just that thinking of what you said about breathing that metal in and having myself something old (the casr engine) that i want to reuse thhe extreme came to mind

 

[HarveyH42]

So this guy wants to put on display, what is going on in that mysterious box... Why give him a bunch of crap about it? How about increase the distance between the head and the platter? It's for display, and not actually doing any read/write functions. I think there are few here who could actually be of much help. I've only popped one HD open, salvaged a few parts, a cool super strong magnet. I have no idea how everything worked inside...

Anyway, I'd suspect this is going to be a microcontroller project, which I'm only thinking about getting into (shopping for a programmer schematic).

If there isn't a course enough head adjustment, maybe bend the arm a little, or remove the head. That should save you from the toxic particles, maybe a chunck of metal flying off and hitting somebody...

 

[JimB]

If there isn't a course enough head adjustment, maybe bend the arm a little, or remove the head.

There is no adjustment for the head, it literally flies over the disc surface on a cushion of air a few microns thick.
However, bending the arm or fudging it to give some clearance from the disc surface is a good idea, it will prevent the head from crashing onto the surface due to the dust in the atmosphere.

JimB

 

[mpcwizzard]

yes this is going to be just an ornament to gaze at.
and the though of the palters spinning at 7-10 thousand rpm is something that would not be practical for a desk ornament.
Sense it was a dc motor I know that can be controlled to a slower speed. Like maybe 25-50 rpm, something that could be seen. I’m sure if a good project could be developed that there would be many of these created and even possibly sold on eBay if done right.

 

[DirtyLude]

Replacing the harddrive cover with a plastic see thru cover is a common case mod project. It's only done with older drives though, since even taking the most care, the success rate is still hit or miss. Running it free air, even just as display is not going to work, like mentioned. platters with head crashes do not look all that good.

If you google search, you should be able to see these projects, most use a plastic bag to protect the hardrive from dust while doing the procedure. You have to watch out what glues or sealants you use as well, because some outgas particles that will crash the heads as well.

As for driving the hdd, yes, you'll need to get an IDE connection made up with a microcontroller. There maybe another way to drive the motor and head directly, but I'm not certain that's very easy.

EDIT: Someone posted a HDD clock project earlier, but there was no head, just the spinning platter.

 

[Thunderchild]

hm so perhaps i should just run my banged up car engine on the starter motor to advoid the toxic fumes great idea

 

[ante]

How about building an oscilloscope: https://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000240073665/
Might be useful too! :lol:

 

[Thunderchild]

yea always wanted too what parts of my car motor can i use ? perhaps use it as a signal generator by making it turn a potentiometer hehe

 

[ante]

Well, if you can fire it up I’m sure it will make some noise = (noise generator)! :wink:

 

[Thunderchild]

hm yea it works everything intact basically i got an engine on 0.5 tons of scrap metal

 

[theinfamousbob]

How's this?

**broken link removed**


they sound pretty good, too (from the video :lol: )

-Infamous