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Since this is going in a case that will be left open so you can see the insides, I wanted to make a clear hard drive.

I set to the closet and found a 200mb, a 600mb, and 6gb conner drives, all with similar cover plates that would be interchangeable. I knew I'd eventually be using the 6gb (or another 4gb I have tucked away), but I didnt want to screw it up. I opted for the 600mb for now.

So I got out the dremel and cut around the design and filed it down smooth and relatively even with a hand file, then with some 150 grit sandpaper. I could have made it even prettier, but I don't want to still be working on this into next year.



I have some plexiglass here for STINGER's windows, but I didn't want to cut into it, so I used a CD jewel case instead.

The CD case plastic is pretty stiff and more brittle than flexible, and I was less worried about it heating up and melting into the drive. However, its brittleness can make it a pain to cut without ruining the surface you want to keep. I first traced with a mechanical pencil the inside of the hard drive window, then used an xacto knife to cut into the surface a little bit outside the lines. Then I used toenail clippers to clip away the un-needed plastic.




I used hot glue and sealed the plastic to the rear of the frame. This causes some problem, but looks much neater. The problems are that the lowest surface (the plastic) doesnt give enough clearance for the hard drive and the actuator arm, so I will have to make a shim-gasket type thing to raise the level of the cover plate. The other problem is if the drive gets too hot, it may melt the glue and hot-glue strings will be floating around in the case. The shims I will be making will overlap the glue, so I'm not terribly worried about that.

I will make the shim using 2 sheets of metal taken from the holes I cut in the side of STINGER. But for now, I just want to see it spin up, so I made a temporary one with cardboard wrapped in masking tape (to avoid paper flaking off into the drive)


I think it looks good, and very sexy. Without a glare, you can't even tell the plastic is there.



Any questions?, email me: dave@unixmonkey.net