- Joined
- Dec 28, 2009
- Location
- under a heatsink
Well, I thought this would be a nice contribution to the community since it's a such an easy yet awesome looking mod. This tutorial will take you step by step through modding your DVD Drive.
* follow these very carefully, and make sure you have adequate equipment! Also, this is going to void your warranty and will put your drives operating ability at risk. This may damage your drive!
Okay, so the goal of this mod is to put an acrylic window on to the top of the drive so you can see it operating. Obviously this is pointless unless you can see the top of the drive in the case or whatever.
Step 1: Prep
This one of the most important steps to this mod (as with any mod!) Make sure you make all the proper preparations before actually doing anything.
Here's a checklist:
- get a DVD Drive
- get some masking tape
- get a Dremel with cut off wheels or an equivalent tool
- SAFETY GOGGLES (trust me, you'll want them!)
- safe, clean, well ventilated work space
- vise/c-clamps or something to securely hold down what your cutting
- metal/plastic compatible glue
So once you have all that you're going to need to start making sure your drive is actually compatible. If you peel off the top off the label on the top of the drive, you'll notice a little aluminum disk or circle. This is where the disk top is. It is important to note what this little guy does... more on that later. In order for your drive to work with my method (my method ensures that the drive will be usable for a long while after); look at the size of the aluminum disk. It needs to be fairly small so not to take up space on your window. 2in in diameter is best. Let's take a look at 2 different drives, one that'll work, and one that wont.
#1 This drive will work:
Why? Becuase the top of the disk is flush with the rest of the drive case, and there's no weird groves to work around.
#2 This drive will NOT work:
Why? This drive has way too many weird grooves in it, and the disk in the middle is way too big!
So hopefully you've figured out if your drive is going to work or not. So now that we've got a good drive we can move on!
* follow these very carefully, and make sure you have adequate equipment! Also, this is going to void your warranty and will put your drives operating ability at risk. This may damage your drive!
Okay, so the goal of this mod is to put an acrylic window on to the top of the drive so you can see it operating. Obviously this is pointless unless you can see the top of the drive in the case or whatever.
Step 1: Prep
This one of the most important steps to this mod (as with any mod!) Make sure you make all the proper preparations before actually doing anything.
Here's a checklist:
- get a DVD Drive
- get some masking tape
- get a Dremel with cut off wheels or an equivalent tool
- SAFETY GOGGLES (trust me, you'll want them!)
- safe, clean, well ventilated work space
- vise/c-clamps or something to securely hold down what your cutting
- metal/plastic compatible glue
So once you have all that you're going to need to start making sure your drive is actually compatible. If you peel off the top off the label on the top of the drive, you'll notice a little aluminum disk or circle. This is where the disk top is. It is important to note what this little guy does... more on that later. In order for your drive to work with my method (my method ensures that the drive will be usable for a long while after); look at the size of the aluminum disk. It needs to be fairly small so not to take up space on your window. 2in in diameter is best. Let's take a look at 2 different drives, one that'll work, and one that wont.
#1 This drive will work:
Why? Becuase the top of the disk is flush with the rest of the drive case, and there's no weird groves to work around.
#2 This drive will NOT work:
Why? This drive has way too many weird grooves in it, and the disk in the middle is way too big!
So hopefully you've figured out if your drive is going to work or not. So now that we've got a good drive we can move on!