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Hard Drive Clocks

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Not sure where this should go but figured the TPU PC geeks would like them. I build them in my spare time from old drives. Makes for a cool office conversation piece. Recently ordered some more tech looking hands and such but have not had time to make more or try them.

I try to use all the parts of the drives that I can including the PCB's as stands. Or I use old ram. This was the first batch I built early this year. Need to take pics of the more current ones - have gotten a little better at it.











 

rtwjunkie

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That is a super-cool hobby! Very nice work.
 

95Viper

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Nice way to recycle...
And, I see you are a person with a lot of time on your hands. :)

Oh, just an idea: it would be neat if you made the drive head stationary and the platters (with the time on them) turned, so that the time would be the point under the head.
 
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As surprising as it may sound, time is one thing I lack greatly. I average a 12-14 hour workday. I worked on the above lot on and off over about a month span. 30 min here, 15 there.. They are actually quite easy to make if you have the right tools and parts.

I started making them as I wanted a fun project to do with my youngest boy. He wanted to work in the shop a bit and had a few old computers a friend gave him. I remembered seeing motherboard clocks so I said.. lets try and make a hard drive clock :) Then we just kept making them as friends - co-workers asked for them.
 
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This is super. :respect:
 

stinger608

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Very cool!!! I had actually thought about this a year or so ago as I had a couple of bad drives.
 
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I saw your avatar... then saw the clocks... and it all fits!

would be a nice touch if you could get the platters to spin, or get the read/write head to tick every second. also... i think your ram is screwed (a joke)
 
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Very cool! I just chucked 25 or 30 old IDE and SATA drives :banghead:

Would have been glad to send them to you if it didn't cost so much.

I ~may~ still have some little laptop 2.5" spinners laying about,...........
 
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Ha! Thanks guys!
- The platters cannot move, the movements would require a lot of torque and besides that, You have to press out the bearing assembly and drill out the hub for the clock mechanism to protrude through the whole drive :) Once finished, the platters are very... stationary. I am sure someone much smarter that I can figure out all the movement and such :D
- Bummer on the old drives! I bought a few large flat rate box (us postal service boxes) full of dead drives for cheap on ebay. This gave about 80 lbs of drives to work with. Wife was irritated carrying in those boxes from the mail hehe


More than anything just wanted to give you guys some DIY ideas to make things out of old PC gear. Cool stuff for the office.

Oh and platters from unusable drives make great modern looking coffee table coasters. Downside is you have to clean them after most every use lol
 
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I have 4 drives I could potentially do this with.
 
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Next step, LED HDD Clock!
 

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I have often been thinking about doing that, I have tons of old HDD's lying around (and one open HDD on the wall as decoration). Is it difficult?
 
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This is awesome:rockout: , very nice
 
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