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PC in a drive bay
- Thread starter tom61
- Start date
I've been too busy with work lately (factory job 
), so not much progress. Here's a small update with pics.
Imac slimline CD/DVD adapter hooked to drive:
Finally managed to find a piece of Lexan to make a drive holder.
Marked for standard drive width, and slimline drive length:
With drive on top:
The iMac adapter breaks the connector on the back into a 50 pin IDE header (which carries data, audio, and power). I'm going to need to build my own adapter (shouldn't be hard) from the 50-pin to 44-pin to run this on my SBC.
I borrowed a notebook IDE to desktop IDE adapter from a friend to try out a drive I had laying around from a scrapped notebook. Neither that drive, nor the 1GB drive I was planning to use with the SBC (at least as a stop-gap) worked with it. Not sure if it's adapter, as it's quite cheap, or the drives.
), so not much progress. Here's a small update with pics.Imac slimline CD/DVD adapter hooked to drive:
Finally managed to find a piece of Lexan to make a drive holder.
Marked for standard drive width, and slimline drive length:
With drive on top:
The iMac adapter breaks the connector on the back into a 50 pin IDE header (which carries data, audio, and power). I'm going to need to build my own adapter (shouldn't be hard) from the 50-pin to 44-pin to run this on my SBC.
I borrowed a notebook IDE to desktop IDE adapter from a friend to try out a drive I had laying around from a scrapped notebook. Neither that drive, nor the 1GB drive I was planning to use with the SBC (at least as a stop-gap) worked with it.
Not sure if it's adapter, as it's quite cheap, or the drives.Should be restarting this project soon. I've just purchased a 20GB notebook drive from Compgeeks during their Sunday sale. I will probably be purchasing the rest of the parts soon.
After playing with positioning, I determined that I can't put CDrom above the board without interfering with the heatsink, so I'm going to put it underneath the motherboard.
My current thinking on mounting: I'm going to mount the motherboard to stand offs, then glue the standoffs to piece of lexan (possibly counter-sunk holes, if height proves an issue). The lexan will rest on top of thin lexan strips attached to the sides of the drive bay, that way it can slide out to access the CF slot and other components. CDROM will be mounted to the bottom of the lexan with industrial velcro, that way it can easily removed, and the fact that there'll be no room for both lexan mounts for the sides and for the slides that hold up the motherboard. I will likely make a holder for the harddrive to be mounted underneath the motherboard, behind the CDROM. I'm trying to figure out how to route the cable though.
When I get the face plate made, I'll probably order two versions; one for the current slot-load drive, and one for a possible tray-load upgrade.
After playing with positioning, I determined that I can't put CDrom above the board without interfering with the heatsink, so I'm going to put it underneath the motherboard.
My current thinking on mounting: I'm going to mount the motherboard to stand offs, then glue the standoffs to piece of lexan (possibly counter-sunk holes, if height proves an issue). The lexan will rest on top of thin lexan strips attached to the sides of the drive bay, that way it can slide out to access the CF slot and other components. CDROM will be mounted to the bottom of the lexan with industrial velcro, that way it can easily removed, and the fact that there'll be no room for both lexan mounts for the sides and for the slides that hold up the motherboard. I will likely make a holder for the harddrive to be mounted underneath the motherboard, behind the CDROM. I'm trying to figure out how to route the cable though.
When I get the face plate made, I'll probably order two versions; one for the current slot-load drive, and one for a possible tray-load upgrade.
Got my 20GB drive. I plug it in using an adapter borrowed from a friend. It was not recognised in the BIOS... I power down and take a look at the drive and adapter, all pins seem to be in the right palces. Then, I smell something foul, kinda like burnt circuit and burnt plastic. I notice the rubber surrounding the circuit board is expanded, like it was exposed to heat. I take it apart and find that some SMT component (too late to indentify it now) was destroyed on the 5Volt line.
I can only hope that the drive is still OK, and that if it is not, CompGeeks will let me RMA it. I've got a USB 2.5" harddrive adapter ordered to test the drive, and a few other notebook drives I have.
I can only hope that the drive is still OK, and that if it is not, CompGeeks will let me RMA it. I've got a USB 2.5" harddrive adapter ordered to test the drive, and a few other notebook drives I have.
20GB was dead. The place that was supposed to send me a 2.5" external hard drive bay ended up shipping me a 3.5" bay by mistake. Hopefully the replacement they're sending will get here about the same time as the harddrive, as that would make it easier to test.
Oh, yeah, I finally tested the laptop CD drive, works great reads CDRs and CDRWs without troubles. Kinda noisy putting a disc in or ejecting, though.
Does anybody know of a place selling a cable with with two 44 pin laptop IDE connectors, and one 40 pin desktop IDE connector? (pre-made prefered) It'd make my job easier.
Oh, yeah, I finally tested the laptop CD drive, works great reads CDRs and CDRWs without troubles. Kinda noisy putting a disc in or ejecting, though.
Does anybody know of a place selling a cable with with two 44 pin laptop IDE connectors, and one 40 pin desktop IDE connector? (pre-made prefered) It'd make my job easier.
That place is in my bookmarks already. They don't have the cable I need, at least on that page. I might email them and see if they have what I'm looking for. They have a cable with two 40 pin and one 44 pin connector, but not a cable with one 40 pin and two 44 pin connectors (which is what I need). I could stack a couple of cables using those gender changers, but that's inelegant.
They don't have the cable I need, at least on that page. I might email them and see if they have what I'm looking for. They have a cable with two 40 pin and one 44 pin connector, but not a cable with one 40 pin and two 44 pin connectors (which is what I need). I could stack a couple of cables using those gender changers, but that's inelegant.A note about Cold Heat - don't use it anywhere near any ic's or caps or a pc board for that matter. The way it works causes anything other than like simple wires to fry. So if you're just getting it for cabling before anything is attached, you're all good. Otherwise, beware. There's a whole thread about it somewhere...tom61 said:
Still not sure if I will get a Cold-Heat, but it'd be principally used for connectors and stuff, not soldering ICs.
Progress update:
Finally got the 20GB notebook drive from RMA, and it does work. Still need to order connectors and such. Right now it's taking a back seat to my main rig, which just got a new motherboard and case.
I've decided to try to go exclusively Linux on my main rig, so I've been playing with that the past couple of days, all I need is to get Launchcast working under WINE (IE and Media Player are installed) and I think I'll be able to stay with it. That makes the orginal use for my drive bay box kinda un-needed, as I don't really need to have a dedicated machine for Linux, as I'm using it on my main rig. I'm thinking maybe a Windows box (especially if I can't get Launchcast working), a Dist-CC box (to help with compiling stuff under Gentoo), or yet another alternative OS box. Since a 20GB drive isn't big enough to triple boot really (unless one of the alternative OSes I choose is *really* small), I'll have to choose at most two uses to boot.
Progress update:
Finally got the 20GB notebook drive from RMA, and it does work. Still need to order connectors and such. Right now it's taking a back seat to my main rig, which just got a new motherboard and case.
I've decided to try to go exclusively Linux on my main rig, so I've been playing with that the past couple of days, all I need is to get Launchcast working under WINE (IE and Media Player are installed) and I think I'll be able to stay with it. That makes the orginal use for my drive bay box kinda un-needed, as I don't really need to have a dedicated machine for Linux, as I'm using it on my main rig. I'm thinking maybe a Windows box (especially if I can't get Launchcast working), a Dist-CC box (to help with compiling stuff under Gentoo), or yet another alternative OS box. Since a 20GB drive isn't big enough to triple boot really (unless one of the alternative OSes I choose is *really* small), I'll have to choose at most two uses to boot.
I've got some more pictures, this time of a test-fit, but can't get them off a camera. Hopefully my brother brings back his PC, so I can offload the pics to his computer and upload them.
That stupid adapter on the back of the drive causes troubles. I had laid everything out, at least in my head, on how everything fit without the adapter. As it adds nearly 1/2" it throws where I was planning to put the hardrive back another 3/4" or so, since the cable adds even more length. Original plan was to have the total length to be 8" (length of motherboard), but it looks like 9" is the minimum. Not sure how long I can fit, as the average CD drive seems to be 6" or less. Glad the motherboard mount was only made of card board, otherwise I would be wasting alot of work.
This will just barely fit in one bay. I have to remove the heatsink on the CPU to be able to put a drive above it though. Still counts as the CPU can actually run without a heatsink.
That stupid adapter on the back of the drive causes troubles. I had laid everything out, at least in my head, on how everything fit without the adapter. As it adds nearly 1/2" it throws where I was planning to put the hardrive back another 3/4" or so, since the cable adds even more length. Original plan was to have the total length to be 8" (length of motherboard), but it looks like 9" is the minimum. Not sure how long I can fit, as the average CD drive seems to be 6" or less. Glad the motherboard mount was only made of card board, otherwise I would be wasting alot of work.
This will just barely fit in one bay. I have to remove the heatsink on the CPU to be able to put a drive above it though. Still counts as the CPU can actually run without a heatsink.
Project currently dead, but I found and uploaded some pics of the final prototype:
The project may respawn later, as I have a new board, that while not as beefy or upgradable, will fit inside a CD-Rom tself, not just a bay. I might get pics of the new board once I get ahold of a camera again.
I'm currently using the old board in my Ultra-Portable PC project.
The project may respawn later, as I have a new board, that while not as beefy or upgradable, will fit inside a CD-Rom tself, not just a bay. I might get pics of the new board once I get ahold of a camera again.
I'm currently using the old board in my Ultra-Portable PC project.