TwoGuns wrote:
At a recent garage sale I bought a box of old hard drives. I have a
project that requires several very strong magnets and when I saw this
box of 25 Hard drives for $5.00 I took them home. Taking the drives
apart was an educational experience. After seeing the way different
manufacturers go about mounting what are almost identical components I
realized how many ways there are to approach the same problem.
Obviously ALL of these drives had a problem and were not in working
condition. The most common cause of failure I noticed seemed to be
failure of spacers between the two magnets. Another vexing problem
was finding the hidden six point screws that were covered by security
tape. On the first drive I learned just how pesky the adhesive used on
the security tape can be. A box cutting razor blade worked nicely
though. Other must have tools were a set of various six sided star
wrenches, a small Phillips, a small straight screwdriver and a snap
ring removal tool. One or two older units needed a small open end
wrench but they were rare.

I have a use for the magnets but I am wondering about some of the
other parts and how I could use them. I have been told the circuit
boards are considered "HAZARDOUS" and I will probably have to take
them to a local re-cycler and pay a fee to dispose of them. I will
wait until I have a big box of them before I do that though.

More properly called e-waste. Not hazardous, but there
may be local restrictions on disposing it in the trash.
The restrictions are more to encourage and make recycling
profitable than to keep a hazard out of the waste stream.

The cases appear to be all Aluminum although some of them have a Black
paint on them that I am wondering about: Can I just use paint thinner
to clean them up or is there some kind of dangerous chemical in the
paint that could be a problem ? Some of the older drives are really
thick Aluminum and I think I have a few projects where I can use them.

The small drive motors look like they might be fun to tinker with
also. I hooked one up to a large 9 volt dry cell battery and I was
amazed at how fast it was spinning.

The little quill shaft that the heads pivot on usually
contains two very nice miniture bearings. One background
project is to build a wind speed and direction sensor with
that quill shaft.