briholt

odd question:

I've got an old hard drive that I've torn into. All that is left is the disk itself (connected to the spinning motor) and some 'veins' that power the motor. You can see the 4 veins below in the pic.

Anyway, I'd like to wire this sucker up and get the disk spinning, but I'm not sure how to think about how the motor works.

I am assuming that this motor runs on Direct current, but I might be wrong about that.

I'm pretty sure the 4 veins, from 1-4 would be the red wire, two blacks, and then the yellow. The Yellow is the 12 volt.

Am I right in thinking that if I hook up a power source of 12 volts the disks should start spinning?

Cheers

iamsuperbleeder

I wouldn't try 12 right away. Start with 5 and see what happens.

A couple of them are going to be for the measure of the current position the disc platter and where it's at in it's rotation, so they're not ALL simply for power to the motor. That position measurement is important when the computer is reading and writing to the disc so the hard drive knows when to access and write data to the disc in order to get it in the right spot. But if you're just trying to make the disc spin then that sensor wont make a difference to you.


But more than likely the two points that power the motor will be grouped side by side, so try it that way

briholt

Thanks man. I figured since it's garbage anyway I can just do some trial and error. There are 4 lines, and only so many different combinations..what just 6? 3X2X1?


As for trying it with just 5V and not 12, in the playing around I've done so far I've just been able to get the disks to wiggle. I noticed that there were a few capacitors (?) that had 16V stamped on them, so I think it will handle 12v.

Still, it's an OLD hard drive so maybe the motor is bad anyway.

Magnusian

What's the make and model for the hdd?

Jayson_22re

I can tell you once it's opened like that, it will 90% of the time never read again. They are so delicate you really have to do repairs like that in a sterile clean room.

WD_40

He's not trying to repair, he's just trying to make the disks spin for the fun of it.

Here's some fun stuff you can do with an old HDD: http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/04/25/...ad-hard-drive/

iselloil

It runs off of 12 volts. All computer gear is 12v.

briholt

Thanks Man. I haven't played with the project for a while but may once I get some more time!

Dirt Driver

That hard drive has a four-wire stepper motor to drive the spindle; that's what the four traces are that go under it. Applying constant power to them will just cause the spindle to wiggle and stop as you discovered. It will require a stepper motor controller to make it spin.