rerouting cd-rom button

[dingusbird]

ok this is my first attempt into the world of electronics and it didnt work unfortunately. I wanted to take my old 5.25 cdrom drive that didnt read cd's anymore (all it did was open and close basically) and strip out the laser and cd spinning motor so I could have a drive that opened and closed and I could store papers in it ..plus I wanted to reroute the button to open the cd rom im not sure what I didnt wrong....im wondering when you take out the laser eye and all the other equipment but the board and the motor for opening the cd drive will it still have the ability to open and close or do I need the other equipment in there

and secondly is there anyway to just take the whole board out, just leaving the motor for opening and close and operate that through a switch and power it by usb or one of the power cables from the power supply... or would it be ok to put a batterie hidden in the computer for operating this (one more thing I guess the motor spins one way to open the drive and one way to close it I could just have it open then push it shut)

thanks in advanced

[vidas7de7jesus7]

have you ever seen the open and close motor? It takes up a lot of space in there. But you do have an idea. Take apart the CD drive and look at it. I'm not sure how big of papers (or how many) you want to use, but I suggest opening a drive and checking it out, then finalizing your ideas.

[opengswede]

check out Paul's Doom3 mod, he uses a CD-rom open close mechanism to operate the bay doors. So, yes it should be possible to take the whole thing apart and use the open-close things. Wiring is another subject though, but I know there are guides on re-routing the open-close button here on TBCS. Search for it. And post pictures!

Hope that helps.

-.erik