Ever saw a open hard drive from the inside?

I did, and I take some pieces out and use it as a magnet. It's a super strong magnet too

Yep, i have 10 more to unmount.

This is the 3rd and I already found what I wanted, one without corners (screw mounts higher then the disk) so I can use CD-Roms to stick sand papper. Most people stick the sand papper to the plate and can only use it 2, 3 times... :p This way I only need one, and lots of old CDs...

Pieces you get:

2 powerful magnets,

metal plates,

ball bearing ring (I'm gonna use them on my machines)

A motor (If anyone knows how to power it without the board, meaning connecting wires directly, even using an Arduino I would appreciate). Still, you can use a power supply to power it, but it turns off after a few minutes. Good for a sandpaper sharpener, not good for a turning lathe.

A few Inox scews, Very good for machines that use magnets, as Inox doesn't magnetize easily (depending on the purity, what magnetizes in a metal is the ferrite. If there is no ferrite, as on Inox, Aluminium, Copper, .... a magnet won't stick to it), which are very expensive to buy.

PS.: If you know more stuff I can use... like the chips, I don't know If any would be helpful on any other projects.

@GyroGearloose it should be a standard dc brushless motor

I have the magnet and the pointer with the copper wires as a spiral in my collection. It looks cool

Every broken HDD I ever had, has been opened and taken the magnets out. They are now holding my tools on the wall of my garage.

Ok, I'm not at home now... would someone please look for tutorials on how to run the hdd bushless motors for me? would appreciate very much. Thanks

@cafecortado WTF?

Cortado com que? Faca? Bagaço?

@GyroGearloose Found this being done with an Arduino.

It assumes that the brushless motor is 3 phase (4 Pins) but it should be expandable to more phases.

http://theamateurprogrammer.blogspot.com/...

It also explains to find out which pin is common.

I think with that you should be able to control it precisely enough.

@RadiatorTwo Fuck man, If I could I would give you 100++ , that's exactly what I need... was hoping for a tut that I would have to convert to Arduino, this looks to have everything, even the testing part (the one that I couldn't get into my head) ... Thank you

I'll post my projects when I do something with them :p
Also it's time to start doing tutorials.

@S-Homles-MD: The (IMHO) cooler variant of a HDD clock: cut a slot in the disk and add a RGB LED (or some of them) behind it. Add a microcontroller for the motor controller and the LED timing and you've got a pretty HDD POV clock.

@GyroGearloose: The electronics aren't of much use, at least for newer HDDs. The ICs are highly specialised you probably won't even find any documentation for them. In older ones, there's at least some 74-series glue logic and maybe even power transistors. I think I once opened one which had a dedicated motor controller (with documentation available).