Floppy Drive Salvage

I am writing this because I wanted to start fiddling with stepper motors and I knew I had one in my unused floppy drive. I have read recently read an article on mouse parts salvage
http://hackaday.com/2008/05/16/how-to-scavenge-a-mouse-for-parts/

I think this is great, with E-waste on the up, Old hardware is being overlooked. I don't think anything should be wasted and any way to get cheap parts for a project is fantastic.
Just opening up something like this gives you little ideas, if just a couple of those turn into full fledged Instructable projects I'll be happy and content.

I will go through the disassembly and what parts I have found.
There isn't too much too disassembly of a floppy drive once you figure out the outer casing.

In short:

I want parts for new projects
I have a floppy drive I don't use
I like taking things apart

:o) nuff said

Step 1 Tools

You should only need small jewellers flat head and a Philips head screw driver to dismantle the metalwork and a soldering iron for removing the parts from the circuit boards.

Comments

[WhiteTech]

Hmmm, I don't think that's a stepper motor, looks like a brushless to me, I could be wrong though

[WhiteTech]

*The little one is a stepper, the large disk like one looks to be a brushless, I think anyway

[m8rixman]

The drive pictured has TWO <-- That's right! Two different motors. One is the large brushless spindle driving motor that everyone seems to be focusing on because it is BIGGER. We all know that bigger is better right? SHUH, right. Anyhow. The smaller second motor is the important one being focused on by the original author of this article. If you take a close look, you will see that the tiny motor on the BACK of the floppy drive that drives the read head has four wires connecting it to the circuitry. And on the actual motor upon closer inspection, most of the time has SIX connectors which only four are being used. So read into the tech here. It can be wired either unipolor for speed or Bi-Polar series for higher torque (not that the torque will do any real work though. You are most likely talking about 10-20 oz. This is an extremely versatile motor being under utilized. It is a low voltage ( 5V), low current (30mA) and high accuracy (400 Steps per revolution or .9 degrees per step) with low torque. You could easily use an open source low power L293, ULN2003A, ULN2803 Darlington array or UCN-5804B  based unipolar driver to make plotters, CNC PCB mills, 3D scanners, soldier paste applicators/SMT component placers etc. from these little nuggets. A little creative thinking can go a long way to making valuable CNC worker bees from these mostly overlooked and undervalued precision gemstones. [http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/diskstepper.html]

[cheeswiz]

Hey you know you can actually Control the Stepper Motor without dismantling the drive? in fact I have successfully removed only the stepper (the little one with the worm drive) and controlled it by it self, as well as hooked up A larger more powerful Stepper motor and controlled that with it Via my LPT port.

[funbob]

cool, smells like an instructable in themaking

[fjort]

Good work! I wonder if any one of you get the details of the brushless motor in the floppy drive, I want to control it with a microcontroler and motor drive module, but I don't know how to connect the wires. My email is [e-mail], thank you!

[santy22]

it would be a great way to stash things in there, or make it hermetical and keep your lunch warm!

[russ_hensel]

I do not think the motor is a stepper. It is a brushless motor. Outer ring is magnetic, I think alternating north and south poles. Older drives had steppers to move the read-write head, mostly back in the days of 5 1/4 inch dirves

[funbob]

Thanks, Now you've said that I'll see if I can wire it up.

[dsandds2003]

Just thought I would mention that that is a brushless motor and could be rewired for a small wind generator. If you look at the wind generators in instructables you will find out how to redo that motor to make it a generator.

[cyrozap]

Tip: rotate your sideways pictures. You can do it right inside Windows, no add-ons necessary.

[funbob]

lol! Being lazy, I could tell what it was! :)

[cyrozap]

I could tell what it was, but it's nice to have pictures the right way up.