Tinkering with TechTough's new SATA Adapter in the CF-29

Tinkering with TechTough's new SATA Adapter in the CF-29

As you may be aware, a few weeks ago Andre sent me one of the custom-fabbed SATA adapters that he had made to try with an aluminum support bracket and for general testing. In the mean time I've had two kids sick, my mother in the hospital twice, and then kids and daddy and mommy sick over the last 4 days.

So... after several weeks of lurking due to massive loads of "Real Life" dumping on me, I finally am able to enjoy the relative peace and comfort of merely suffering the tail end of a 3-day flu. Time to get after some of my postponed projects!

My photos are all here; it's late and I have Work Orders tomorrow. I'll get after making this easier to read when I have a chance; for now I suggest opening the Photobucket in another browser window so you can keep it next to what you're reading.

http://photobucket.com/SATA_Adapter

(1) I started with a trip to the hobby shop; this yielded a bit of aluminum to use for the project and some high-density double-faced mounting foam. The aluminum is a standard K&S #256; .032 aluminum in 5" x 10". This is enough for 2 of this project, plus a few strips to set aside for later. It is perfect for projects like this; medium-hardness, it cuts and bends easily in smaller pieces but is still rigid enough to be useful. The foam is 4mm thick, it comes in a 5" x 10" sheet. If you can't find it at your local hobby shop HobbyKing.com has it cheap, but it comes from China so plan on a 2 week wait. All told, we're about $4.50 into this project so far.

(2) Start by laying out the HDD as a pattern; I use a thin-bladed knife to score and make my marks; it gets a lot closer tolerance than any pen or pencil. After this I'll go over all my marks again using a ruler to square them up.

(3) Hog the metal out using tin snips; they'll warp and leave jagged edges, so don't cut right to the line. Leave a mm or 2 all the way around, then you can trim it up tight in the next step.

(4) I like these garden/kitchen scissors for the finish work; they have great leverage, they are very sharp and don't have a serrated edge. Best of all, they're so cheap I can throw/give them away when they get dull; I buy them 10 at a time from the 99c store.

(5) Now we've got it sized up right, but it's waving at me like New Years Eve. No problem.

(6) Put the metal down on the best-supported corner of my bench and cover it with some sheets of paper from the recycle bin...

(7) A few whacks with a rubber mallet, paying special attention to the corners and flip, do the other side...

(8) ... and now we have our blank nice & flat & ready to lay out for the bend.

(9) Scoring against the adapter gets the height of the bend right.

(10) In case you're wondering, here are our dimensions for this project. It will be 15mm H x 110mm long x 68mm wide when finished. When you bend metal you have to allow for the thickness of the metal, plus I guess I measured closer to 124mm when I roughed out the blank. You can take it out of my bonus.
While the HDD IS 70mm wide, I wanted to make it a little narrower to make it easier to fit in the plastic sleeve. There's still lots of meat left for screws.

(11) For small projects like this I'll use these sheet metal pliers to make the bends; they're commonly used for making box corners on-the-spot for ductwork. Harbor Freight has them for about $8; they call 'em welding pliers. Whatever.

(12) Lay the work tight against the edge of your workbench like so; holding the pliers tight, press down as hard as you can right across the bend to keep it even & square.

(13) A few whacks with the rubber mallet like so will iron out any waves created in the bending process.

(14) Not perfectly square, but good enough for what they're payin' me. :wink: Of course, those of you with convenient access to a metal shop can skip all this "Polish-engineering" & just work straight from my "diagram" in (10). :tongue:

(15) Here's the adhesive foam so you know what to look for.

(16) Trimming the edges of the foam...

(17) ...then softening all the edges of the metal with a foam-backed emery board. Be careful; I've learned the hard way NOT to steal these from my wife. On the other hand, it IS amusing to say in front of her friends "Honey; I'm going to the P-X for some emery boards. You need anything?"

(18) Now time for some mock-up to see how it all fits! I have not drilled any screw holes yet; we're gonna see how this fits first. There's ALWAYS time to make hole later.

(19) It goes in... but just by a hair. NO WAY is that lid going on there; it needs another 3mm between the two right THERE...

(20) Time to trim some foam. Hopefully this, along with removing the self-adhesive at the other end, will be enough. Let's get it all inside the plastic envelope. Yes, I know I have it in there backwards; this is the cable end. In a few frames you'll see why that doesn't matter.

(21) Here's a review of the OEM cable arrangement; You see that little 10K resistor? It's the CABLE SELECT identifier; if it gets knocked off or crushed, the ToughBook doesn't know that the HDD is Master. Enter all those horror stories of people who've messed with their HDD and then couldn't get it to boot, even though the computer saw it in BIOS. With the cable in this arrangement, it's on the top in open air with lots of foam to provide protection, so kewlies.

(22) With the adapter in place, NOW look where that little guy is. Sandwiched between the ribbon and the back of the HDD, which goes right behind the bulkhead connector. I've removed the thick foam padding and inserted a 1mm cardboard shim in its place to simulate the thickness of potting the board instead of the foam. It now adds 2.5mm to the overall length of the HDD and SATA adapter assembly.

(23) Here's a view of everything inside the box. There's the little guy all the way down HERE. But wait, there's more. See how snug everything is in there already? Well, that divider on the lid goes in there too, right behind the bulkhead connector PCB between it and the back of the HDD. This adds another 2-3mm of compression in this space. Even without the aluminum L-bracket that resistor is still in the same location, and it is still subject to damage, or causing damage to the cable as a result of being jammed in there so tightly.

(24) Here's the whole thing from the side. Yes, that's the IDE ribbon cable protruding from the top. Everything is at rest; notice how the HDD appears level inside the cage.

(25) Here's what it looks like with the lid flipped and laid on top; this view lets you see that the ribbon cable does rest firmly on the lid. With everything assembled correctly, the divider shown earlier blocks that view.
(26) Here's the whole thing from the side and pressed tight. Notice how the HDD is no longer level; this is because we are compressing this corner of the HDD & everything inside.

(27) Here's everything resting on my workbench as it would be inside the box. Notice that the HDD Heater connector is supporting that corner of the HDD; all the weight of that corner is resting on the IDE connector, and the SATA Adapter, and ultimately, the HDD SATA connector.

(28) And here's what happens when we close the lid on this beast. Yes, that is the IDE connector PCB flexing like that. Not the ribbon cable, the PCB.


Okay. So now we know the ugly. As it stands, this adapter solution is NOT ready for deployment with a conventional HDD in a fully rugged environment. We've removed or over-compressed padding in one axis, we've placed a solid load against the IDE connector itself and as a result we've over-compressed padding in another axis. This means that there is only one axis in which the padding is not compromised; but the pressure in the planes of the other two axes probably makes that a moot point.

That said; if we substituted a a "Half-Slim", "Bare PCB" type or 1.8" Form Factor SSD and trimmed the aluminum bracket appropriately it could yield a safe platform for such a drive, as we could gain necessary end clearance and would be able to remove top & bottom padding to suit.

I'm going to pursue this further. I have a few other ideas, but none of them are what I would call "Average Tinkerer" suitable; most involve tracing signals with a 'scope and soldering. LOTS of tiny soldering. And DRILLING. Maybe some lasers; I dunno yet.

[EDIT: Because I plain forgot to give credit where credit is due, and that just ain't right.]

Bottom line is: This is too good a thing to give up on; TechTough has spent some time on it already, and it is by FAR the closest thing to an actual solution we have so far. It infuriates me that we've gotten so close only to be held up by a few millimeters clearance for "bounce room".

mnem
"And then I said 'Let there be light.' and there was..." *ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZORRRRRRRRRCH!* "Oh, look... light. Smoky light..."

 

Holy crap...A1 job mnem :yes:

 

Mnem... If you can't write a few paragraphs to describe the whole process... You should just wait!

ZOMG... I didn't have the time to read it all this morning but I did look at the pics (Typical, right?) I'll check it out tonight.... Looks cool!