CD Drive Full Sized Stash

I have seen a lot of CD drive stash, but all of them has just the room for a CD. That's not really convenient...

So I decided to make my own, with a box that will take all the room of the case.

To make one like mine, you just need a CD/DVD drive (and a microcontroller), and some common tools.

Step 1: Disassembling !

The first step is fun : just unscrew everything !

You will need to keep:

• the metal case (of course)
• the motherboard and the front board (to make details)
• the tray
• the plastic holder with the motor and gears.

Step 2: Cutting !

Well this part is fun too...

You will need to cut away everything that will block your box.

Begin by cutting a maximum of the plastic holder, but keep the motor and his gears !

Then mark the hole on the tray, and cut it. You can discard the back, but keep the front, it is necessary. You can add a small piece of plastic at the back to make the whole thing sturdier.

Step 3: Adding the Front Panel

Firstly, cut everything in the metal case that could block the box.

Then, cut the plastics holder on the front panel, and make sure it fits nicely on the metal case.

Finally, reassemble the drive, and open the tray. This way, you can put some hot glue on the back of the tray. Now quickly close the tray on the front panel, to glue them together.

You can add more glue on the back, but make sure it will not prevent the tray to close correctly.

Step 4: Making the Box

As a prototype, I just have made a cardboard box, but can do whatever you want.

Just make sure it fit well even with the motherboard in.

Step 5: Adding Details

If you don't plan to put back the front board in (like me), just de-solder every component on it, and glue them on the front panel. Don't forget to add wires on the button and on the LED.

If you are lazy and want to do something simple, just glue the button and led to the case, but it will not move with the tray, which can lower a bit the user experience.

With one of the salvaged switch, make an endstop wherever it is possible.

Make sure the motherboard doesn't have any tall component that can block the box, or remove them. By the way, you can grab any useful component for an other project. But if it is usable, keep the motor driver, and try to cut some tracks to take control on it. If it is not possible, just use a motor driver breakout.

At this point, you can stop and keep the stash as is, and just open and close it manually. It can make a good drawer, and you can stack them !

If you want to make it harder to pull/push, you can add a small resistor (or even a short-circuit) across the motor lead. If you want to make it hard in only one way, add a diode in series !

Step 6: Wiring and Program

Now you can solder everything to the microcontroller of your choice (I chose the PIC16F628, but you also can use an ATtiny programmed with an Arduino).

I have made a small (and kinda dirty) program with a code to open the tray. It is well commented, but if you have any trouble, feel free to ask me some help !

Step 7: Some Improvements

My PIC acted weird on power up, so I decided to add a capacitor on the reset pin to make a power on reset. One problem : you can't do that while using a Pickit3, so I put my capacitor on the jumpers already there at the back.

I also put the programming port on the IDE interface, this way there is no need to open the drive when I want to change the firmware.

In the next version, I want to add a solenoid to lock the closed tray, but there is not a lot of room in there...