Query: HD spindle motor projects

[golemmaster]

I've got a bunch of bad HardDrives with perfectly good spindle motors. I hate to throw them away. Surely, there's a fun and maybe useful project for these things.

I also come across bad optical/CDROM drives frequently. They have nice motors of varying sizes in them too.

What do ya think?

What kind of motors are they and how do you drive them?






OH...and before you say it....I know there's some nice magnets in the HDs.

 

[Ian]

Yes, those magnets are fun I almost broke my fingers with one pair of them - I didn't realise how strong they were!

I tried taking a drive motor out of a HDD just last week, but it was build in to the casing so I couldn't get access to it (easily anyway). I'm interested to see what you use it for

 

[golemmaster]

Yup. Pretty fun. With some work, you can remove the magnets from the plate they are adhered to. Stack several magnets together. Very very strong field. I've been pinched pretty good. There are power generation plans and projects around the net for these.

Some of the spindle motors are removable. Some seem to be welded to the body.

Are they stepper motors or something else? How are they driven? Most have 4 or 5 contacts on them - driven from the controller board.
I wonder if the motors are strong enough to mount on a big toy and used as independent wheel drive motors. A friend of mind ran a little blower fan with one - it spun crazy-fast.

 

[Ian]

The one I had was welded on so I didn't get a chance, but I'm sure it won't be too hard to get spinning

 

[Resqueline]

These are all tree-phase permanent magnet motors so they need some kind of drive electronics (6-transistor output in 3 half-bridge configuration). They can also be used as alternators using 6 diodes to rectify their output. They should tolerate quite high rpm's. Might be useful for bike lights?