Turning Dead Drives into Speakers?

An anonymous reader writes "Why pay 500$ for Klipsch's latest speaker system? You can make something that looks way cooler for the price of a DIY amplifier and some HDDs out of a dumpster. It doesn't sound quite as good but who cares!" Next week we'll show you how to turn a laundry basket and a speak & spell into your own segway.

Comments

My 1541 drive was a speaker too!

[October_30th]

I remember that my C64 1541 diskdrive could be made to play tunes, too.

Too bad it caused serious head misalignment after a while.

Re:My 1541 drive was a speaker too!

[Wraithlyn]

Ah yes.. the good old 1541, I remember it well...

WHIRRRR... CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK.

It used to get confused about where the head was positioned, so it would move it a long distance until it physically collided with the edge of the platter to re-align itself. Fruits of reading "Commodore DOS" back to back ;)

A new call to the Police..

[ViciousMark]

"Yes Police? Could you pay a visit to my neighbor. It's 4am, I'm trying to sleep, I have work in the morning, and he just bought a 200 gig hard drive, and a keg of beer."

On the same site...

[rjw57]

On the same site is a cool HOWTO of how to make an old monitor into a cardboard + plastic model of the final level from Doom ][. Just follow this link.

Re:On the same site...

[mindriot]

Even better: afrodot.org :-)

lives in my dorm

[altaic]

He lives two floors below me-- it's pretty wild. It doesn't actually need to spin the platters, though, and that not how the sound is created; the noise comes from moving the heads over the platters. Hard drive heads move via by a coil like those in a speaker, which he drives with a home-brewed amplifier. Similarly, he did it with a cpu fan, which yielded much more quiet results. Headphones, anyone? =)

Printer calling contests

[MarkusQ]

Many years ago we used to have a yearly "printer calling contest" (sort of like hog calling contest) at a local pub. Contestents would immitate a printer, and listeners would try to guess the make (& model, & even in one case someone got the serial number, though this was sort of a set-up).

This was back when computer geeks were very rare, so we were just one more group that shoved a few tables together in the corner, ordered beer, made funny noises, laughed, ordered more beer, rinse, lather, repeat.

-- MarkusQ

These videos prove once again...

[ivan256]

...that college dining hall trays make excelent mounts for home brew electronics projects!

DIY

[MullerMn]

Next week we'll show you how to turn a laundry basket and a speak & spell into your own segway.

Warning!: This will reduce the value of your speak & spell and laundry basket.

Umm... REPOST

[Jhon]

Been there, done that. GOTTA be a better way to check for stuff thats been reposted.

-jhon

Re:Umm... REPOST

[Jhon]

Found it:

Here!

-jhon

Re:Umm... REPOST

[Megane]

I think this one has even been reposted twice. Mark your calendars for six months from now, folks!

Re:Um, wrong topic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the junked hard drives have to work. If you use broken hard drives, the amplifier will cause the loose magnetic particles in the broken hard drives to signal a channel directly to the operator's brain, rearranging your neurons according to the sound being amplified which will cause you to become confused, and your memories will become jumbled, randomized, and replaced, and you will start to speak in tongues. I've also heard that if you use broken hard drives for this project, that it's possible that your liver will turn inside out (something to do with frequences being emitted on certain broken hard drives). This complication is more rare than the brain side-effects, though. I'd recommend you use strictly working hard drives to avoid these issues.

Instead of speakers

[Guppy06]

Since this is a four-month old story, how about we discuss turning old HDDs into speakeasies instead? With hookers! And blackjack! In fact, forget the disk drives!

Profit!

[bellings]

I have a plan! Here it is:

1. Add a decent search engine to slashdot, and use it to eliminate duplicate stories.
2. ...
3. Profit!

Re:Far worse than a repost: complaining about it!

[langed]

I believe the point here is not that this one article is a duplicate, but that this is a growing trend on our beloved Slashdot. A brief look at the articles today:

• This article repeats Feb 2, 2002 First by Hemos, today by CmdrTaco
  
• Jet Exhaust Affects Weather by Hemos repeats Peer-Review Process Confirms Contrails Climate Effect by timothy, Aug 8; a mere 3 days later.
  
• Rat Mind Control repeats Remote Controlled Rats both posted by timothy

3 in one day does seem a bit extreme, at least to my way of thinking.
Perhaps the concept proposed by a previous poster (to help catch "duplicate" stories) might be a good idea.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but as I recall, /. is heavily based in SQL. Thus it could be fairly trivial to check something such as this, presuming that the articles' links are entered into the SQL database.

This, of course, shows the beauty of Open Source, though:

• I am a programmer.
• I have an itch.
• I'm going to scratch it.

Slash is freely available. I think it would be nice, in the true spirit of Open Source, to simply develop a link search and submit a patch.
In fact, since I just spent all this time complaining and finding the links, I just downloaded it. I'll commence work on a patch immediately.

Re:Um, wrong topic?

[b1t r0t]

If you use broken hard drives, the amplifier will cause the loose magnetic particles in the broken hard drives to signal a channel directly to the operator's brain, rearranging your neurons according to the sound being amplified which will cause you to become confused, and your memories will become jumbled, randomized, and replaced, and you will start to speak in tongues.

...and when it gets really bad, you start reposting Slashdot stories.