[PLUG-TALK] Ancient hard drive as spacer

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Tue Oct 6 00:42:00 UTC 2020


Fastidious readers stop here.

I needed a 1 inch thick rough-surfaced spacer for the
bottom of a water drain pan.  I have way too much old
computer detritus.

An decades-old 2GB SCA-interface hard drive from a
long-ago-recycled Sparcstation 20 is just the right
size.  I glued it to the bottom of the pan, circuit
board facing up.  

If there is any confidential data left on the drive
(which I cannot read but the Bad Guys might), water
immersion won't improve readability.

The tantalum capacitors on the board no problem;
they won't be heated above boiling, and tantalum 
pentoxide does not react exothermically with water
or air.

What old electronics should I abuse next?  In junior
high, I blew up low value resistors in switched wall
sockets (10 ohms makes a wonderful flash and bang),
but I've learned better uses for those.

Keith








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