Awesome! I think I might try this with an old CD-ROM drive since they have an easily controlled brush motor and I could etch off the top layer of a CD more finely than I could cut a notch in an aluminum platter.

That’s sweet. If you were going to display it, I’d put a motion trigger so it doesn’t spin all the time and wear out the motor.

Wow this has got to be the neatest hard drive project I have seen. Also the most impressive looking. I will view the instructions and see if it is something I may be able to replicate.

I saw this project and really liked it and decided I wanted to try it with a laptop HD… unfortunately every method I’ve tried (the grinding tools and various cutting tools) with the dremel break or shatter parts of the platter.

I suppose the larger drives have sturdier platters. Has anyone tried cutting through a laptop drive platter before?

davi, you could try a diamond saw, like what is used to cut ceramic tiles. Most tile setters could help you out with that.

@greg
dude the daily hack always gets the b/w stickytape pic

Could this possibly be used as a graphic display for music?

Reezy, that would be awesome, have 2 or three of these doing visualizations, better yet mount it as part of a projector lens (like some auxiliary car lamps), then it would be a really neat graphic display for music.

Why was the second hand on the clock moving in the wrong direction? Was it a backwards clock. Nevertheless, this is an awesome hack.

Pretty nicely done, but as he says himself you do want to put it in some soundmuffling enclosure, I’d go for glass I think, not sure acrylic will block much, plus it’s sensitive to scratches.

As for the clock ‘running backwards’ that would probably be an optical illusion caused by the refresh frequency of the camera I imagine.

You have to find hdds with a low capacity, the higher the capacity the higher the chance to get glass platters.

But with glass platters you have the chance to make the slit without changing the balance. (Maybe etching would be a possibility…)

As for the sync signal, you probably can use the tachometer signal from the drives motor.

amazing !!! hats off to ur thinking.. i m sure u’ll come soon with more updates on this

@david
I know it may be impractical, but you could put tape over the entire platter except the aria you wanted stripped and sand-blast it.

@Melvin: that was exactly what I thought, but you still need an index signal, because you not only need to know the speed but also the position of the disc.

Balancing the disc after cutting the slot shouldn’t be all that hard, just hang it on a smooth rod, spin it, and if it stops repeatedly in the same position, or rocks back and forth just before it stops, remove some material on the bottom side, and try again. This is basically how many mechanics still balance motorcycle wheels.