News: Hack hard drives into working speakers

Hack hard drives into working speakers

Old Hard Drive + MP3 player = Music

This equation just doesn't make sense. If you're an iPod addict, the HD element is redundant! Well, take a second look at what constitutes a speaker and what a hard drive is made of. They are more alike than you'd think.

Rip apart a junked hard drive. solder extension wires to the two tiny wires on the drive head. Second, connect a wire to the underside spindle motor terminal. Route them parallel for maximum clarity.

The MP3 player provides the tunes in the form of an electrical signal. Like a traditional speaker, the hard drive vibrates resonating the tune of your fancy. The point of this hack is not to replace your Bose system, so keep the 'this sux' comments to a min.

If you're in need of a slower (meaning no video) version, we highly recommend this version from our buddies at Instructables.

This hack has seen its share of celebration, but it origins can be traced to the AfroTech article here.

Make a hard drive speaker system

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7 Comments

Its cool but seems really pointless to do.

good... i just want to know.. is that same place we have to solder every time??? i mean inside the hard disk...

no it's different in every hd, but always a tiny couple of wires on the head of the drive

What is the logic to why this works? Anyone know the science? Not sure about this resonance thing.

Thats cool but why does it work

how the heck did u think about this? very cool thou

It's not actually the head, but the swing arm. The coil at the end of the swing arm is sandwiched between two very strong magnets, so when the signal from the music player is piped through, the sing arm vibrates with the varience in voltage, and the paper cup acts a lot like a speaker cone.

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