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When you pick up junk computers, you get a lot of parts that you can't really use, but are hard to throw out. Small hard drives are the most difficult thing for me to get rid of. When they still work you keep them around thinking someday you might need just 2 more gigabytes. When you find one that is broken, you still want to do something with it. They look so interesting inside, mostly because its the type of thing you are not supposed to open. So, I decided to make a clock out of an old broken hard drive. | |
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I already had a good set of Torx drivers, but for the
Western Digital I needed a T6 and a T9. This little fold out tool was
perfect.
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| You will need a drill and a set of bits up to 3/8", a hammer, and a skinny flat-head screwdriver. You might also need a large, flat-nose, Phillips-head screwdriver, and a pair of tin snips. |
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Start by taking the cover and the back circuit board off. Next you have to take off the shield (it's the quarter donut shape in the bottom right of the picture). Now you can take off the head arm, use a large flat-head screwdriver in the middle of the arm's pivot. |
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Once the arm is detached, carefully slide it off the platters.
I removed the magnets so that the arm can move a little easier. This magnet
is really strong, and it makes a nice refrigerator magnet. Now that the
head arm is out of the way you can removed the platters. Take off the
plates on the front that hold the platters in, and remove all the little
spacers and collars. Three screws on the back hold the motor in, remove
these and take out the little motor.
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Pry open the motor with a screwdriver and pull all the innards out. Once this is empty, you can drill it out. The outer metal is really soft aluminum and is pretty easy to drill. |
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I had a lot of trouble with a bearing that was on the platter site of the motor. I couldn't hammer it out and it wouldn't drill out. Finally, after prying and drilling for 2 days I did manage to get it out. The part that came loose was bigger than I expected |
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I didn't want to paint or glue anything onto the platter
to display the numbers, so I measured out some points on the top platter.
I made sure these were all the same distance from the edge, and that they
were 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees around the clock face. I took a hammer
and the large Phillips head screw driver and hammered each of these points
into a nice round dimple. One good whack made a decent bump in the platter.
The close up pictures taken with the macro option on my camera, make it
look like there are scratches on the dimples, but they are completely
smooth.
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All of the arms were too long for the drive platter. They
would have all hung off, and I didn't really like the look of the hands.
I cut off the tips past a detail that they had in common and made them
shorter.
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| For the second hand, I originally just cut off some metal from the front side. The clock ran, and didn't lose any time, but the movement was not smooth. When the second hand got to the top and bottoms it would swing forward the distance of about 2 seconds and wait there for 2 seconds. Once I cut about the same amount from the back side, the second hand motion was much smoother. |
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