Making My Own 3.5" → 5.25" HDD Bracket
2020-05-12 22:01 - Making
I haven't used my 3D printer in quite a while. This is the time, it's tough to get things these days. I'll save the long story of many failed attempts and tweaks to get it working again, but I just have done that.
I've had an extra drive in my home server for a while, since I upgraded the main set from a three-drive single parity to four-drive double parity setup. And nowhere good to put it. It's the remote backup for my Mom's files, on the server I keep at her place which is itself the remote backup for my own files. It's been awkwardly perched, upside down, on a piece of cardboard. I've got four unused 5.25" bays in that case, so it should go there!
I found a nice, compact design for brackets to fit a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay online and printed a set out. My printer makes "hairy" prints, with fine strands everywhere, due (I think?) largely to its design. And at least while I'm using up the ton of free ABS filament I got, bed adhesion is tough so I tend to print with a brim. First step was quickly cleaning up all that cruft, which is shown in the second picture. They're not pretty (I picked fast rather than high quality print settings), but they'll work.
Next, I drilled out all the holes. Half large enough for a screw to fit cleanly through, so they could screw into the drive. The other half exactly the right size to grab the threads of the screws, the outside holes are for holding the whole thing into the case. I did a test fit (the third picture) and it worked well enough, after a little more adjustment with the hole position. Then it was straightforward to pop the drive in a proper location, and screwed down!
In that last picture, you can see one of my main drives, currently tucked into the floppy drive slot, so the mounting holes don't line up well. I might make a second bracket to hold that one, too.
