- Aug 12, 2009
- 19
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- 18,510
Recently, I decided to radically rebuild my old Dell Dimension 4500 and completely gutted the thing. I redesigned it, built in three hard drive bays and one optical drive bay. Instead of having the drives oriented horizontally, they're all vertically positioned. So the left side of the case has a CD drive, middle has hard drive, and the right is empty and covered with a false front. And that's were I start off.
After I rebuilt it, I was left with a couple of CD drives and I was able to get my hands on a SD card reader. So I got thinking, I don't have built in SD reader capabilities, I have an SD card reader, and I wanted my case to originally have two optical drive bays to keep symmetry; why not combine them all into one thing?
I disassembled the disk drive and got rid off the laser component, got rid of the circuit board too. The SD reader circuit board fits fairly well onto the CD tray. But this is the stumbler, I don't want the CD circuit board installed just to open and close the tray since I have to slim down the drive in total. I'm wondering if I can either power the little CD tray motor with either a SATA power connector or a floppy drive connector. I'm not sure what the voltages need to be for the motor, so if anyone knows that would help.
If it helps to visualize it, the CD drive is vertical so when you sit down to one's desk, the CD tray would slide out when you open it. When it's open, the slots are right there, plug a card in, and close the tray in the mean time. Pretty cool idea when you think about it, I think so.
After I rebuilt it, I was left with a couple of CD drives and I was able to get my hands on a SD card reader. So I got thinking, I don't have built in SD reader capabilities, I have an SD card reader, and I wanted my case to originally have two optical drive bays to keep symmetry; why not combine them all into one thing?
I disassembled the disk drive and got rid off the laser component, got rid of the circuit board too. The SD reader circuit board fits fairly well onto the CD tray. But this is the stumbler, I don't want the CD circuit board installed just to open and close the tray since I have to slim down the drive in total. I'm wondering if I can either power the little CD tray motor with either a SATA power connector or a floppy drive connector. I'm not sure what the voltages need to be for the motor, so if anyone knows that would help.
If it helps to visualize it, the CD drive is vertical so when you sit down to one's desk, the CD tray would slide out when you open it. When it's open, the slots are right there, plug a card in, and close the tray in the mean time. Pretty cool idea when you think about it, I think so.
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