I remember reading about a laptop that used a top loader. Half the keyboard flipped up to allow access. Can't remember the make. You could try using the mechanics from a cheap portable CD player, combined with the electronics of a CD-ROM drive. Or use the one from a playstation... Cheers
If you check out 486 Hawk's Turandot Shipping Case PC, he converts a Laptop CD Drive to a top loader. I'm not sure how much detail he went into for the acutal steps, but he could probably tell you if you asked. If you wanted to do this to a normal cd drive not a laptop one, you could probably do it easily enough. Hope this helps Link
Yes, it is possable, the only problem you will encounter: making the pressure on the disk enough so that it does not go spinning off and kill something. What you would basicly need to construct is a hinged bit that locked down using part of the orignal casing, the bit that held the top part of the cd-rom. Of corse, you would have to circumvent the cd-rom's programing so that when you lifted the hold down plate it would act as if you "ejected" the tray (I'm sure this is possable, but I can't be smegged to figure out how atm). I'm sure an electronics god like Zap could give you more info on this though (HINT HINT).
I think my idea will work but I have not touched it in a few weeks I am still waiting for Zap to cut me a piece for it….. It should be as simple as relocating that switch in the back of the drive and the eject switch so the OS does not crap itself…
hmm i was just thinking of something before have it so the lid presses the eject button (move it to the back behind and below the hinge for the lid so that an extended part off the back and bottem of the lid will push it kinda like this: theory: ----____________ ___/--------------\________ Front -@/*--------------- Key: @ = button *= Hinge -=nothing so please ignore its just it doesnn't like heaps of spaces _=lid / or \ = sides of lid sorry about the crappy asci drawing but i hope it explains
Do you mean like this? The yellow thing there is the drive. And the bluish things are what I need zap to cut for me. There is a switch in the back near the hinge to detect that the lid is closed this is routed to connect where this switch was… You have also given me an idea to add the eject switch to that switch in the hinge… I wonder what would be needed to make that work with the drive closed switch… To keep the drive from trying to eject one of these linkages would need to be removed… What I have to work with.
i hope that this kinda helps its very rough red solid square = eject switch purple = catch (like cabnet ones that hold the doors shut when you push them in) purple circle = spring green arrow = direction pushed red hollow square= case for drive blue line= lid
Do you think it would be better to mount the eject switch near the catch? You would not need to push so far down onto the lid. The lid on mine would just be held down by gravity or by some small magnet. What kind of drive are you going to use on this?
I like this top loading slim dvd drive idea. I didn't realize there was so little in the way of electronics in there. So do you guys think it would be OK to just not have an eject switch? I could probably live without the autoload function.
You will need an eject switch of some sort for safety reasons, even if you don't actually use it to eject. In a normal drive, pressing the eject switch will cut the power to the spindle motor, then open the disc tray once it has stopped spinning. If you were to just open the cover with the disc spinning it could fly out of the drive! Some laptop drives open while the disc is still spinning, but these have little sprung catches that actually lock the disc to the spindle, so one of these might be OK. Cheers
Usually something along the lines of http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HD-108 For what it's worth, MCE Technologies makes a DVD/CD-RW and DVD-R/-RAM/-RW/CD-RW drive upgrade for the Apple cube, which used a vertical mechanism. The cubes originally had a DVD-ROM or CD-RW drive, though the models of the mechanisms escape me.
saint.duo, that is for notebook hdds, he wants something for a slimline dvd You need to buy an IDE converter like this. Search Google for cheaper edit: http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/MCS-PF-CD5040.htm http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2786849662&category=33870 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2787645121&category=33870 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3460480397&category=31531
I was looking at the pictures of the DVD-ROM above, and it looked like the carriage it is in has a notebook hdd style connector. Of course, I forgot that the actual drive connector is much smaller. Thanks for the correction; I'll take this one to heart.
