DIY Clock From Broken Hardrive

Hi, I'm falconbob2. I am now 15 and going to CCS.

This project began about a year ago when I was disassembling a broken hardrive to learn how they work. Looking at how perfectly reflective the surface was blew my mind. I knew I wanted to make a clock out of it but also did not want to buy a clock kit online. Earlier this month, my relative was throwing out an old desk clock his work gave him that he no longer wanted. I realized that the clock would be the perfect size and shape for making the Hardrive clock and finally had a use for the broken hardrive sitting in my drawer.

Needed:

Hardrive

Old Clock/Clock Kit

Exactoknife

Tweezers

Screwdriver

Sandpaper

Optional:

Calipers

3D Printer

Microfiber Cloth/Polishing Rag

The Hardrive was already disassembled by the time I began building the Clock. While I was taking it apart last year, I made sure to save all the screws as well as the spacer rings. I also made sure not to scratch any of the hardrives as those would not come out with polishing.

I began by unscrewing the two screws that held the face of the clock and the back panel together. The two parts popped out of the hole in the clock stand and the back panel was disconnected. After that I popped off the glass cover and took off the plastic dial. This left me with just the clock mechanism. I took of the four clock hands (alarm, hour, minute, second, in that order) and set them aside for later.

While doing a dry fit of the clock mechanism, I noticed that the clock hands rubbed on the face and could not move. I solved this by bending the hands 90 degrees right and then 90 degrees left to give the hands more distance between the face and its path. Unfortunately the alarm hand and the second hand did not fit inside each other without rubbing. I decided to keep the most important hands, the minute hand and the hour hand, and completely remove the alarm hand as I wasn't using that feature anyway. The second hand acted as an endcap holding the hands in place. I fixed this by clipping of the hand while leaving the center as an endcap and as decoration.

After noticing there was no flat space to mount the clock mechanism, I decided to CAD some standoffs in Tinkercad. With more complex shapes I would use Fusion 360 but as this was a simple job, I decided Tinkercad would be easiest. I measured between the board and the back of the clock face with digital calipers and measured a gap of 6.5 mm. I measured the board and found three flat spots about 6mm by 6mm. I then created the design in CAD and sliced it on Cura slicer 5.2.

Files are attached bellow:

I also needed a stand to make hold up the clock. I knew I wanted a ~22.5 degree angle for the display and I also knew that the the stand needed to go as far back as it went up. I began by making two support pieces that lay off the back and stabilize the stand. These were both 60mm by 15mm by 6mm. I then added an adjoining piece that connected the two measuring 60mm by 10mm by 6mm. I then made two more pieces that came out from the two at the base at a 22.5 degree angle. I then carefully selected the shapes so that they would be easier to 3D print and made them into two parts seen above.

I originally designed the stand as a single part but eventually decided that it would be easier to 3D print if it was a two part piece. Normally that would make the part less strong but because I was not putting much pressure on it, it would be okay.

Files are attached bellow:

To build the clock face I started with one of the disks inside the Hardrive. There was a mounting ring to the motor inside that makes the disks spin inside. This was held on by a mount that friction fit the two together.While I was taking the hardrive apart I saved the screws.

There were various colored screws that were color coded for different parts of the drive even though they were all the same size.

There was also twelve screw holes. To make the "marks" to tell time, I took the different screws and screwed them into the mounting ring in a pattern I like. I then hot glued the mounting ring to the disk.

After I built the clock face. I attached the standoffs to the clock mechinism with hot glue to three open spots on the back of the board. I then used 200 grit sandpaper on the disk to give the hot glue some surface to stick too. After that I hot glued the mechinsim to the disk. I then attached the clock hands in the proper order and finished the core of the clock.

To assemble the stand, I put hot glue on the two 3D printed pieces and held them together for about thirty seconds. This step has to be done on the first try as the heat from the hot glue can deform the printed parts and can make them warp. I then cut out the excess glue with an Exactoknife.

Before I attached the clock to the stand I made sure to use sandpaper on the back. I used 200 grit sand paper but it shouldn't matter that much. This is just to create a surface for the glue to stick to as the disk is so smooth. I then put hot glue on the stand and pressed it onto the disk and held it for around thirty seconds. It is important to do this fast as the glue dries quickly on the cold metal.

Left is before and right is after.

As I was working and building the clock the face got dirty with fingerprints. To fix this,I used a microfiber cloth and rubbed in circles around the entire face. I did not use any polishing fluid. This made it completely reflective again, removing all of the fingerprints.

One future improvement would be to add some more casing to the back of the clock. The clock works perfectly how it is but I don't know how confident I would feel if it dropped from my bookshelf. I think I would probably add some triangle bracing to support the clock stand. Another way to make it stronger is to find a better mounting method as opposed to hot glue. The hot glue is holding perfectly fine but it would be nice to make a case that would inclose the clock unit as well as stabilize the battery.

Another Thing I would like to add in the future is longer hands and engraved numbers on the disk. I have several spare disks (as the drive used to be eight terbytes) and I think it would be cool to actually engrave numbers onto the disk at a later point once I have access to a laser cutter/engraver. This would also require longer arms that I could design and cut out of thin sheet metal as well.