Project: Biggerest Disk (Discussion Thread) In this project, I am going to make my own external harddisk. This harddisk is going to take away all the cons of the pre-made external harddisks: ventilation, external powerbrick, only one place for a harddisk and mostly the price. The name is, offcourse, a big wink towards LaCie and there "Biggest Disk" I am trying to do this with the parts I have laying around me, so don't expect a 900gb RAID 5 NAT, but I can tell you it is going to be sweet So this is basicly what its all about: Two PSU's. And old AT one (the one with the mighty dust on it) and a 400watt P4 ATX powersupply. Fear the dust: After that, I cleaned the top plate with some soap and water: The guts of the low power AT PSU: Before and after (again soap and water): Just look how nice that HDD fits in with all the nice foam surrendering him: The result: I still wasn't happy with the result. It was way to dirty. So I tried Cilit Bang. And it got from bad, to worse, to horrible, to nigthmare and at last to a Patrick Swayze movie. I do not have any picture of the process, but let's just skip to the results: The case on the right had just a little bit of CilitBang on it, and the left case shows how bad it is after the CilitBang did it work for a couple of minutes. I used the grinder and dremel to sand it nicely, but instead I screwed up even more: And to end this part of my log a fun picture of how your table looks like after you've dremeld a screw of an PSU: I now am experimenting with 2 ways of repairing the steel: 1) spraypaint 2) The good ol' sandpaper, my right hand (for obvious reasons) and a lot of spare time. The spraypaint is probarly the worse paint you can find (it's the "decorative" type of paint, for IE painting indoor stuff). Stay tuned, more picture in just a couple hours The discussion can take place here: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=109480
Project: "Biggerest Disk" http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=109479 Some response on my project would give me a big ego-boost, but I'm also thankfull if you just read my project-log
Thats one hella dusty PSU. I assume where ever you got it from has heavy smokers because thats the only time I've seen dust that gunky/nasty/brown. Still, looks to be an interesting project
Quite interesting that you mention it, but I don't think that is it because of heavy smokers. The dust were like small "clouds" of dust, and I didn't see or smell nicotine. I think that the main reason it is so dusted is because its 10 year old. The warrenty voided sticker said 1996. And yes, it felt gooooood voiding the warrenty which I probarly didn't have anyhow.
Update time! The first thing I did was cutting off the edges on the PSU. I don't have a before picture, but just try to imagine two lips of about 1 by 2 centimeter: And then there was another thing I kinda hated. I peeled of the standard sticker with all the specs of the PSU, but it had left some nasty stuff on the metal. I could even get it off with cilit bang! (fyi: that's the same stuff that wrecked the metal of my PSU). I've tryed nail polish remover (aceton??), a frikkin grinder and a dremel, and this was all I got: So I only saw 1 solution, making a casewindow That's not bad for a dremel-newbie, right? My workbench. Its 40 centimeter high. Perfectly for the lazy ass moders who casemod from there desk-chair. And yes. Thats an imitation dremel from "Top Craft". The second cut. I stopped here since my round grinder thingy bursted into little pieces shattered all over room The final result after half an hour of sanding with sandpaper. This was very hard to photograph, so here is it from different angels and with different lights:
And the second way of repairing the PSU, cheap spraypaint: The result on the front was quite nice, but on the top where I used my dremel to grind the dirt of the surface, you can still see the scratches. I know that it still needs a couple of more layers, but after seeing how slick the metal gets with the first method (sandpaper, some free time, right-hand), I think that I'm going to give all metal parts that nice Lian-Li look
What made that dust go brown? almost made me vomit, But it looks like you have saved the casing after all. How are you going to cool the hard drives? Keep on modding, its gonna look great!!! (Should have left it rusty!!! - perhaps a half-life 2 inspired External Hard drive)
Rusty mods are sooooo 2005. And for an answer to how I am going to cool the harddisk, just check the worklog in a couple of minutes
I just went on a shopping spree and this is what I got: 32 Dremel cut-off disc (€6,99) 40*30cm anodised aluminium (€6,99) and a couple of rubber feet (€1,69) Coolermaster aluminum fan (€9,99) And a can of compressed air (€6,00) and two flip/flop switches (€3,90) Prices are a bit steep, but I couldn't find any online store which could ship me this parts with a lower price (inc. s/h). And if this project totaly fails, I can always use half of the PSU as an ordinary ligth-bolb-holder:
I'm also curious to see how you cool those drives. Are you using the foam padding as noise isolation or to keep the drives from making vibrating noise? I would guess that having the foam right up there touching the drives it would possibly keep heat on the drives like a blanket. I hope that you've already addressed such issues, I'm just impatiently awaiting your next update.
I am going to have 1 controllable fan (on/off) in order to cool the drives To cancel the noise, I have multiple ways to do this: -Put some rubber rings between the hdd-rack and the hdd's (these thing are realy hard to get! -Isolation foam glued to the inside of the PSU, in order to cancel out as much leaking noises as possible. Rigth now, I'm using my dremel to remove all the parts off the old PSU board, so I can copy the exact dimensions and make a replica of it with the anodised aluminum. This offcourse is going to be the baseplate, where the HDD-rack will be mounted on. I just spoiled a big clue on how I'm going to build this, so this realy is the last thing you'll hear from me, just stay tuned for some more updates
I don't think this should be comming out so easy... fixed it with some real man-power FIRE! The endresult. Not smooth, but its going to be hidden And some free goodies from the lovely (and frikkin handsome) dentist: Seriously, with this dusty-PSU, I am almost obligated to wear these thing. I woke up today, and I had a real bad cuff. My nose was filled with black parts of dust, and breathing almost hurted. Stupid dust! Damn you! I am so happy *O*
Looks like the old rusty and dusty PSU are going to look like something Good work so far. BTW, those masks you got there (the one you are suppose too use only one time) they dont work at all! they only stops the big dust particles, and allows the small dust particles to get trough. The only thing that helps are a mask with a real dust filter
Since I'm incapable of cutting a straight line with my saw or dremel, and CNC machines are way too pricy, I am shutting this project down. Can a moderator please move this thread to the Project Logs archive?
You could buy a jigsaw, or a scrollsaw... Jumping directly from Dremel to CNC is the most illogical leap I have ever heard of.
O common. I want perfection, and that is not something I can get with my two hands an a handsaw / jigsaw / dremel. I tryed to drill some holes, what resulted in a totaly scratched front and 12 holes that quite didn't fit. There are time where you have to have to say you just suck ass, and that time is now
