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The Hard disk Speaker
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Did you know you could build a speaker out of your old hard drive?

Well as a matter of fact, a harddrive uses the same technology for its  arm as a traditional loudspeaker. Just apply the right waveform and it will produce sound.

 

For this project you will need :

  • One old Harddrive
  • 3.5 mm (1/8″) Stereo plug
  • Amplifier ( Radio / CD player with 3.5 mm stereo jack etc)
  • Soldering iron

A friend of mine gave me this old IBM Aptiva which had a harddrive perfect for this. The harddrive i have used here is a Quantum 5.25″ with impressing 8 GB of storage.

 Harddrive 

You will need to remove the top cover of your harddrive. Some models can be difficult to open if you like me don’t own a torx driver. However with a pair of pliers and some time you can open even these. 

This hard disk however used traditional Philips type.

Remove all the platters, so you can access the arm.The arm has its coil between 2 NiB (rare earth) magnets as you can see to the right on the picture above. Remove the top magnet but be careful though, these are strong!

Now you need to solder on the 3.5 mm plug. Trace the wires coming from the coil. You can just try connecting your amplifier to different points until you hear something. Be careful not to short circuit. In the image above i have soldered and insulated the wires to 2 different soldering points located on top of the arm.

I have chosen to cut up my harddrive for a more aesthetical look, but this is not required.

Now just put it all back together and you have got your own hard disk speaker!

Some pictures of the final speaker:

 

This idea was originally Afrotechmods.  I just wanted a bit more aesthetical look for my harddrive speaker.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 1:41 am and is filed under Computers, Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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16 comments to “The Hard disk Speaker”

  1. Comment by adam:
    Monday, November 27th 2006 at 9:58 pm

    could you do this with an old ipod?

  2. Comment by Odaiba Net 18 « Hablamos de electrónica y tecnología:
    Friday, December 1st 2006 at 6:09 pm

    [...] Dico duro usado como bocina [...]

  3. Comment by JMA:
    Sunday, December 24th 2006 at 8:01 am

    It seems some one has plenty of leasure.

  4. Comment by sergio:
    Sunday, March 25th 2007 at 9:40 am

    wow love this going to try to do
    send me more things thanks from nova

  5. Comment by lanre:
    Saturday, April 28th 2007 at 10:57 am

    good work and innovation. how i wish if you could send to me detail for me practicalise.thanks keep it up.

  6. Comment by dexter:
    Thursday, May 24th 2007 at 8:16 pm

    This Speaker how many giga hawe ?

    :)

    Nice job!!!

    That think must be showed to Maxtor….

  7. Comment by Francis:
    Thursday, July 5th 2007 at 9:36 am

    nice one… i try this one…

  8. Comment by Odaiba Net » Blog Archive » Odaiba Net 18:
    Monday, August 20th 2007 at 2:41 pm

    [...] Dico duro usado como bocina [...]

  9. Comment by Ganesh Kumar:
    Thursday, July 10th 2008 at 5:28 am

    Nice Job ___
    Please tell what quality of sound it produce
    What is the power of this speaker
    can be it make of 2000 watt

  10. Comment by lacstor:
    Friday, March 27th 2009 at 1:40 am

    This looks very unusual.
    But what a great idea.
    I might try this as an experiment for my child when I have the time.

    How does it sound anyway?

  11. Comment by The Hard disk Speaker SoDoItYourself com | Outdoor Ceiling Fans:
    Sunday, May 31st 2009 at 11:28 am

    [...] The Hard disk Speaker SoDoItYourself com Posted by root 4 hours ago (http://sodoityourself.com) What is the power of this speaker can be it make of 2000 watt comment by lacstor sodoityourself com is powered by wordpress Discuss  |  Bury |  News | The Hard disk Speaker SoDoItYourself com [...]

  12. Comment by The Hard disk Speaker SoDoItYourself com | fix my credit:
    Tuesday, June 23rd 2009 at 1:28 am

    [...] The Hard disk Speaker SoDoItYourself com Posted by root 6 days ago (http://sodoityourself.com) Comment by odaiba net 18 hablamos de electr nica y tecnolog a make of 2000 watt comment by lacstor sodoityourself com is powered by wordpress discuss Discuss  |  Bury |  News | The Hard disk Speaker SoDoItYourself com [...]

  13. Comment by Alice:
    Wednesday, July 8th 2009 at 10:17 am

    Wow, an amazing tutorial. I will try to reproduce after my hard drive is broken =)

  14. Comment by glah:
    Thursday, August 13th 2009 at 12:29 am

    How is it that you make something so cool, take the pains to put it on a website complete with pictures and a reference to where the idea comes from and then not post a video? What the hell! I DEMAND A VIDEO!

  15. Comment by Twitted by grrgrr:
    Friday, September 25th 2009 at 4:57 am

    [...] This post was Twitted by grrgrr [...]

  16. Comment by Jay:
    Thursday, February 11th 2010 at 7:03 pm

    Nice re-purpose project. I know there are sub-woofers that use a servo instead of a magnetic coil to drive the cone.

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