Mini Mod - Synergy Green HDD

So here we go with a quick one for ya's...

A certain someone has been telling me about this AWESOME new colour available on the new Camaro's - Synergy Green, and as I work in an auto paint mixing store during the day, I'm lucky enough to have access to pretty much (not all but almost) every stock automotive colour available, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about... I mixed up a huge 50cc of the paint and decided to find something to put it on....

Enter the victim....

A Pluscom external 2.5" Hard drive adapter. This external caddy has a couple of bonus tricks up it's sleeve. Well one really as the second one doesn't actually WORK (more on that later).... It's pretty much the first enclosure I've seen which will work with BOTH SATA and IDE drives....

Four screws later (the other 4 are for holding the drive to the PCB) and off with the ends...

My apologies to those of you with a cleanliness issue - I have not one, but two very inquisitive cats and I didn't take time to clear off the hair before I took the pics. Once those end caps are off, the PCB just slides out and reveals the secret to dual IDE and SATA operation. It's actually a ridiculously simple solution....

On one end of the PCB we have the IDE connector...

And at the other end, the SATA connectors. You just fit the drive whichever way around you need it to go. The long oval mounting slots allow enough movement that the drive can be completely secured when connected to either end.

And the PCB itself - simply a load of long straight traces connecting the IDE connector to the controller hardware - really really simple - I can't believe I haven't seen this before but....

Now back to this pic...

Look closely and you'll spot the SATA data passthru - the caddy is BOTH USB2.0 and eSATA - well it's supposed to be - the eSATA doesn't work - no matter what I try. It isn't a drive issue as I tried both a potentially faulty 80GB SATA drive, and to eliminate that as the cause of the problems, a brand new 320GB SATA drive. It isn't the eSATA port on my laptop either, because that worked just fine when I connected a standard desktop SATA drive to it. I'm also almost certain it isn't the power connector either - as I tried powering the unit both via the USB-DC cable which connects to the small connector you can see on the left, and via a USB cable modified to only send power (data contacts not connected). With both cables, the drive powers up and identifies itself, but as soon as you try formatting/copying/accessing the drive, it promptly disappears. I can only assume the actual passthru or connector is at fault, but as I did what you're about to see, I don't think I can return it lol - then again, I bought it as a USB device so it DOES do what I need - I figure I'll live with it (at least till January anyway)

I took the black outer shell and removed the single sticker, gave it a good rub down, and applied a total of 4 very thin coats of etch primer...

I then applied about 8 coats of the Synergy green. I just kept applying more and more dustcoats until I was certain it was the true colour of the paint I could see, and it wasn't being affected by the grey primer.

Apologies for that poor pic - I didn't have my "proper" camera with me - that was taken with my phone and I tried (and managed a little too well) to catch the sun shining on the colour).

Then I followed that with about 5 or 6 coats of 2k Clear

And left it to cure for a couple of days. Got it home and reassembled it...

And then plugged it in to make sure I didn't kill anything....

And of course, a final gratuitous "in the dark" shot...

I'm thinking I'm going to have to do something about those LEDs - the blue worked just fine when the caddy was black, but now it's green it just doesn't look right. I'll have a dig in my electronics boxes and see if I have anything more appropriate - it'll either have to be green or white I think....

Anyway - at the end of this, I came to the conclusion that, while there's nothing WRONG with the colour, I'm not super-keen on it, so I MIGHT (if he's nice to me, very VERY nice) give it to the person who put the whole thought process into motion. I don't think he's in the market for a new Camaro at the moment, so this way he MIGHT get at least SOMETHING that colour.....

Man this is freaking bad ass!!! I had no idea you were really going to mix up the color and spray it! Dude you are one awesome friend!

Well by the time I added thinners to the paint, I used, at most about 10cc's so I could do another 2 or 3, maybe 4 with that tiny dribble I mixed up lol. I figure it was, at most $3 worth of paint in the cup, so maybe 75c worth on the caddy....

Looks great! :D

That color is certainly hard to miss. I love it.

:up:

Ok so I can't leave well enough alone lol - update time....

Racing stripes baby!!!!

And junior Modkitty approves :p

Stripes!!!!!

I like the stripes. Definitely adds that little something. good work. :)

Yea the stripes add a ton of character to an already awesome job.

It was cool, now it's Kewl! :up:

Now to decide if i risk killing the PCB by trying to change the LEDS or leave it well enough alone....

No guts ... no glory!! :D

Stripes look great.. nice work my friend.

Nice paint mate :up:.

Ok so lil update. The blue LEDs just didnt work with the new green paintjob so I had a dig thru my parts pile and dug out some white and red LEDs.

Attempt one went well but I didn't really get the result I wanted. Most LEDs put the vast majority of light out of the tip, and these LEDs sit with the dome pointing up into the metal, not out the window at the end. I kinda got around that with a little 320grit....

And power only....

Power and HD active...

And that give me a nice glow out of the end, but I still wasn't 100% happy so I started thinking about how to get more light out the end and came up with this....

So I removed the two frosted LEDs and installed a pair in of right-angle adjusted ones and came up with this...

This sends a LOT more light out of the window but there's another catch.... The LEDs now block the IDE connector so it's now a SATA only unit.

I may have another go in the next few days - see if I can get the right angle working without blocking the IDE and without overhanging the edge of the PCB or the end won't go on....

maybe try some 3mm LEDs instead?