Re: Restoring my Vulcan HD - Progress report

["atfphotography@gmail.com" <atfphotography@gmail.com>]

On Aug 9, 3:51 pm, Steven Hirsch <snhir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This has been an interesting project.  The MeanWell power supply arrived last
> week.  Good news is that it's nominally small enough to fit in the Vulcan
> chassis.  Bad news is that most of the PCB components on the AC input side of
> the board had to be removed and/or relocated in order to clear the power
> connector and on/off switch.  A bit tedious, but not rocket science.  The
> input connector and PCB mount fuse are gone, to be replaced with hard-wiring
> and an inline fuse holder.  A couple of caps had to be unsoldered and laid on
> their sides.  Biggest hassle was the air-core inductor.  I had to extend all
> the leads and sort of stand it up in the air between the switch and the AC
> input connector housing.  The PS is now mounted on the chassis bottom and
> clears everything at the end.
>
> The original fuse holder on the side of the chassis will have to go
> completely, since it interferes with the power output header.  I'm planning to
>   slice off the external portion of the holder and super-glue it into the
> square hole to preserve appearances.  There's plenty of room for a small
> inline holder internally.
>
> The cooling fan needs to be replaced with a thinner version in order to clear
> the PS heatsink.  Fortunately, it's exactly the same hole spacing as a
> commonly used PC CPU heatsink fan - plenty of them in the junkbox.
>
> Last problem is the location of the hard drive power connector.  With the
> Molex connector plugged into the drive, it will not clear the power supply
> output connector :-(.
>
> So, here's the part I need some feedback on:  If I turn the drive upside down,
> the power connector clears with plenty of room to spare.  What I am not sure
> about is the wisdom of operating the drive long-term in this orientation.  In
> years past, drive vendors specified orientation as one of the physical
> mounting parameters, but I cannot find anything on the Conner CP3104 that gets
> to that level of detail.  I believe Seagate bought out Conner, but they have
> next to nothing on their website under Conner and absolutely nothing on this
> model.
>
> Any opinions on running the drive upside down?
>
> Steve

Hello,

I remember seeing pictures of the Seagate ST-125-A 20 megabyte drive
that specifically showered _not_ to run the drive upside down. It's
not the same model but at least something similar of the period.

Would it be possible to get one of the molex connectors that is a 4
pin with the right angle? I remember some of my external hard drive
cases have these so they can get the drives to fit.

ATF