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Silenti_etc
06-22-2005, 02:18 AM
OK. This is most likely not going to make any meaningful sense at all.

I am in the process of doing several functional mods to my old antec SOHO performance case. I just finished rack mount unit style handles on the top. I am planning on adding 4 black castors to the bottom.

My next planned mod, however, has me completely stumped.

I am trying to work out a stealthed stash. Ok, no idea what I am talking about?

Lets see if I can explain. I took an old dead cdrom and gutted it, saving the case (which is now empty) and has no front (where the drive plate is) nor back (where you plugged the molex and IDE cables, set master/slave/cable jumpers, etc). I mounted my drive rails on this box, slid it into place on my case, cut down one of the blank faceplates and smashed it onto the front of this box. The end result is a box I can keep stuff and its completly stealthed.

Cool as hell mod, I know. But, I need to step up my abilities to the next level.

What I want to do is hinge the whole drive cover on either the left or right side and install some sort of mechanism that will open and close the drive when it gets pressed on the non-hinged side. I would also like this motion to be rather smooth.

I saw a roughly functional design on the home entertainment centers we have at my house. All the glass doors use a magnetized "pop-latch" (my term) The door has a metal bracket that presses on the pop-latch, the magnets thereby holding it. When you press the pop-latch in, it clicks and holds the door at a closed position. When you press the latch again, it pops out about a cm and holds the door slightly ajar or makes the door swing freely again. depending on the way the magnets are situated.

This would work sorta for my idea, but it has several major drawbacks.

1) size. the ones I found here (which I looked at Home Depot, Lowes(Home Depot only blue not orange), and Walmart for but couldnt find) stick out about 3/4" and are about 2 inches long.

2) Strength. These things are ment to hold onto a 5lb glass door. Even using one that lets the door swing loose when popped open, on my 5 gram drive cover, I'd have to yank pretty hard to get it loose. Definately not 'refined.'

3) Magnets inside a Computer case. Now I have read all the papers that put huge holes in the 'magnets near a computer cause data corruption' theory, but I still hessitate to put strong magnets inside a case without some sort of shielding. Especially so close to a 300g HD.

4) 'Pop' motion. This isnt really the nice fluid motion I was envisioning. The motion I am after is like opening the cd bay of a boombox or diskman.


I have been kicking around the idea of using servos and doing it that way.
But... and this is a HUGE but... I have no previous electronics experiance. I took one semester of a ultra basic intro to electronics (i understand watts, voltage and amp, understand capacidence (sp?) and inductance. I know what a diode, transister and transformer. I used to be able to read the color code on a resistor and tell you the value) but other than doing 2-5 componant circuits and seeing how they affect the output on a oscilloscope, I dont know crap. Don't even know how to solder correctly (only ever used breadboards).

If anyone can shed some light on this problem, I will be most indebted.

temmink
06-22-2005, 03:49 AM
You could make your own pop-latch fairly simply. All they are is a magnet that is turned around when you 'pop' them. If you really want it PM me and I'll draw you a diagram on a basic mechanism for it but for it to be secure at all it needs to be a reasonably strong magnet. But IMHO, wouldnt it be better to have it lockable? I know this would ruin the stealthyness but being able to leave 5bucks, my cds, my keys, my nude photos of the First Lady or whatever, safe in my case would be pretty cool. You could just use a case lock mech similar to the one in your case already, if your feeling particularly special you could get one on the same key, then mount this off to the right hand side of the case. Simply make the lock latch onto a hook on the swingfront drive cover. You could use weak magnets (like strips cut from a fridge magnet) mounted opposite each other opposite polarity as well to give your door that nice little pop so that when you turn the key and the arm disingages the door swings open automatically. I thought that would be cool. And a servo is probably a little overboard.

Anyway, sounds like a cool mod, hope you work it out.

Silenti_etc
06-22-2005, 04:20 AM
Or servos and remote mount the switch. my thinking :)

But like I said, for it to be strong enough to hold onto the door, you'd still have to give it a nice yank once it's 'open.'

A nice yank isn't so sexy.

hmm, the lock with reversed polarity magnets is a cool idea.

OH! Ok, the only thing Pimp My Ride has ever given back to the universe: I now know how pop-open car doors work! Why didnt I think of this before. Make a simple latch like you'd find on a gate (I can mock up a drawing if this isnt clear) that the door w/ a glued on pin with snap into when closed. Mount some lightweight springs pointing from the case out to the door. When you close the door, the springs will try to push the door out, but the latch holds it closed. Then you use a solenoid valve that snaps together when electricity runs through it, to open the latch when you push a simple button/flick a switch.

You could even use a momentary switch and some sort of delay circuts so you could push on the drive pressing the switch, engage the delay, 20ms later or so the latch would open and the door would swing free.


Keeping the drive stealth is the key.
Thieves can't steal things they don't know are there.

Malatory
06-22-2005, 12:23 PM
You guys might be over thinking this ...

as you stated you want this to work the same as an old Boom! Box or walk man. If you have one that you can dismantle you have the parts.

they have the push lock/unlock door holders that dont have magnets in cd plays at best buy.

to open the door use a right angle spring (my terms)



|
|
|
@-------
Open

@======
closed



Hope this gives you an idea on what to look for in a spring

Cyberaxe
06-22-2005, 03:45 PM
I would like to take an old CD drive, gut everything but the servo and change the cd holder into a small depth bay where I could store USB thumbdrives. It would be awesome, i dont know if its possible or not, but it would be cool.

lorddarkwolf
06-23-2005, 05:28 PM
That's do-able but a switch has to be rigged to turn on and off power and reverse the current. and need a place to mount the switch. the dimensions a cut down to about 3"Wx4"Lx1"D. I made a working one but I still need tou figure out the switching mechinism. BTW motor runs on about 3v dc might work with 5v. I tested it with 2AA batteries.

lorddarkwolf
06-24-2005, 12:24 PM
OK, messed with the old cd drive a bit more hooked it up to 5v and figure out thats it's to much power and hase to be nocked down to 3v or you'll stripp out the gears.

Zeus
06-24-2005, 09:31 PM
isn't that what a resistor is for?

Xato
06-25-2005, 06:11 AM
If you want to have a nice littel stealthed drivebay storage box... why not just rig up a couple of small actuators, on each side of that box u have, fabricate a little box to stick between em. But the back end on rollers... Then have the front panel on 90 degree spring. It would certainly make it a lot deeper.
Plus if you really wanted to, you could make a cool little Blastdoor looking one. Where two doors open sideways.
And thats what i think will look cool... Infact i might do it for my next project mod.
hmmm.

Silenti_etc
06-25-2005, 10:12 PM
Xato, how to actuators work? I played with a mockup using the 'alligator' mouth type spring setup, but for the springs to be strong enough to swing the doors open, they send the doors flying open and then bounce when they hit the limit of motion and swing back.

Tried it with 2 slightly weaker springs from an old floppy door and it wasnt strong enough to get the door moving.

I have also kicked around the idea of having the door mounted to a drawer type setup instead of swinging front doors. But while playing around with that idea, I figured it would be much simpler to cut the top off the 'box' and just slide it out on the drive rails. The drive rails on this case have spring tension retaining clips which show on the outside of the front bezel. But this isnt really 'stealthed.'

I am leaning towards using a external hidden switch to activate the door, as is detailed on a drive stealthing project in this thread (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=387601&highlight=stealth+drive) over at overclockers.com's forum.

The core of my idea is that I need something that is seemless in the case design (stealthy), pretty much secure to tampering and adds a level of 'sexiness' to the case. Sexy in the 007 gadget sexy kind of way.

Right now I have a functional version. Just shaved down the clips on a drive cover that smash into the front opening of the gutted drive. It works, but its evident that something is different about that drive cover, and all it takes is a gentle pull on the cover to get it to come off.

I have the guts for the cdrom i gutted laying around here someplace. I think that its fried because the motors in it stopped working. Hopefully they will respond to direct voltage (i.e. the control board is toast, not the motors themselves). If thats the case, I'll play around a bit with using those. Don't know how thats specifically going to fit in with my plans though.. we'll see.