First Amiga Mod, fitting a laptop DVD-RW into an A1200

[Dazxy2001]

Ive been toying with the idea of installing an optical drive into an A1200 for sometime now and finally decided to take the plunge. After much deliberation about how to set about it with drive position etc I decided to follow other peoples examples and place the drive pointing out the back near the lefthand corner.
To start with after a few test fits I decided to removed a few mms from the lip at the rear of the case along with a couple of latches with the results looking like this...

Having done this the drive door closes flush with the bottom edge of the case with the drive body resting on the trimmed ledge... There is a step in the case which is behind this. I will be filling in with a velcro strip that I am using to secure the drive.

Next I went on to cut out the slot into the upper half of the case.

This I did with a dremel type tool using a small toothed cutter.

Ive included a picture here showing the adapter Ive decided to use to convert to a standard IDE interface, I picked this up from Maplins this morning.

I couldnt make my mind up how to go about mounting the hard drive and 4 way interface due to space constraints and wishing to keep the the clockport clear for future expansion. I would of used a CF adapter but Ive had problems finding a CF card that doesnt leave a dull glow on the hard drive activity LED... all except a 256MB card which I use for PCMCIA transfers...
So I came upon the idea of using velcro to stick the drive to the top of the DVD drive... to allow extra clearance in the top part of the case I had to remove part of the top grill slats from the inside of the cover.

Heres a photo showing a test fitting of the drives...

And heres a second photo showing what is basicly everything connected up, only remains for the wiring to be tidied and the 4 way IDE adapter secured into position.

And lastly a photo showing the rear of the A1200 with the drive fixed in place.

 

[sblurter]

Job well done mate I like it.

 

[johnim]

yes well done mate

now just unclip the front of the dvd an spray it

 

[Phipscube]

Great Job! Nice and clean, and a good idea with using the bottom of the case. Also Nice to see someone else hacking in a hard drive and mounting it around the optical drive

 

[Dazxy2001]

Thanks guys it was an interesting project to do.

Great Job! Nice and clean, and a good idea with using the bottom of the case. Also Nice to see someone else hacking in a hard drive and mounting it around the optical drive

Thank you I got inspiration from your project

 

[DonAmiga]

great stuff also that looks like a nice slim standard IDE interface from maplins which is always handy

 

[Dazxy2001]

great stuff also that looks like a nice slim standard IDE interface from maplins which is always handy

Thanks
Yea I had a couple of adapters already but they were basicly only held by the socket on the back of the drive and were a little wider in height than the drive itself, the one from maplins is ideal and is secured with two screws that came with the adapter. The drive/ adapter is resting on the pcmcia socket with a velcro strip making up the height on top of GAYLE making it both level and secure

 

[johnim]

also mate it might be a good idea to put some sort of insulation under the 4 way ide adapter

 

[Dazxy2001]

also mate it might be a good idea to put some sort of insulation under the 4 way ide adapter

Its got a plastic base its just roughly positioned in the photographs while I was deciding how to route the cables.

 

[DonAmiga]

great stuff also that looks like a nice slim standard IDE interface from maplins which is always handy

Thanks
Yea I had a couple of adapters already but they were basicly only held by the socket on the back of the drive and were a little wider in height than the drive itself, the one from maplins is ideal and is secured with two screws that came with the adapter. The drive/ adapter is resting on the pcmcia socket with a velcro strip making up the height on top of GAYLE making it both level and secure

Cool I'll have a look in maplins next day Im in town

 

[Dazxy2001]

great stuff also that looks like a nice slim standard IDE interface from maplins which is always handy

Thanks
Yea I had a couple of adapters already but they were basicly only held by the socket on the back of the drive and were a little wider in height than the drive itself, the one from maplins is ideal and is secured with two screws that came with the adapter. The drive/ adapter is resting on the pcmcia socket with a velcro strip making up the height on top of GAYLE making it both level and secure

Cool I'll have a look in maplins next day Im in town

Heres a linky http://www.maplin.co.uk/slimline-cd-to-desktop-ide-adaptor-36947 Its one of those things that`ll be available cheaper online etc I guess but I dont mind paying a little more to get it straight away

 

[johnim]

normally the ebay ones are thicker

 

[QuillOmega0]

My concern is the motherboard traces to the floppy power socket, can they handle the extra amperage to drive the cd drive and the floppy?

 

[roy_bates]

you should be ok taking power from the floppy port modern drives dont use that much power,if your worried you could take it from the power port by the rf.

 

[ndial]

Awesome mod mate!
Well done! Paint it in white and this will look amazingly beautiful!
While I ve seen this cdrom mod quite a lot on A1200 systems, I must ask what whould be the benefit of having an internal or even an external cd rom on a 1200 miggy?
I m asking because I m having thoughts too for a mod like this

 

[Phipscube]

Thanks guys it was an interesting project to do.

Great Job! Nice and clean, and a good idea with using the bottom of the case. Also Nice to see someone else hacking in a hard drive and mounting it around the optical drive

Thank you I got inspiration from your project

Nice one! Glad it helped

I double whats said with you soldering some wires under your board from the main power connector to the floppy header. At least the +5V. You may find that now and then your drive doesn't read when spinning up even though it is low current. Also if you plan to put anymore hardware in then the link wires will be a great boost generally.

 

[alexh]

Well done. But I do wonder about the reason to fit an optical drive in an Amiga these days? To play CD32 discs?

 

[portarinos]

Because it can be done!

 

[alexh]

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

Going to all this trouble, butchering your A1200 case, just for data storage you can get by far easier methods doesn't seem worth it.

Playing CD32 disc games would be the only exception I can think of.

 

[Dazxy2001]

Phipscube: Im going to look at drawing the power from around the input socket for the drive

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

Going to all this trouble, butchering your A1200 case, just for data storage you can get by far easier methods doesn't seem worth it.

Playing CD32 disc games would be the only exception I can think of.

I did it for a few reasons,
Its an Amiga Tech case, and well I dont like the badge anyhows and the butchering is at the rear so no one can see it.
Reduced clutter on my desktop, No SCSI squirrel lying round leaving the PCMCIA port free.... Im left handed and having the port on that side interferes with using the mouse.
If I went the IDE route I`d need to have a ribbon hanging out the case to the drive :/

ndial, Alexh: CD32 games are pretty low on my reasons for using an optical drive tbh I have a pile of magazine cover CDs for one, then theres the Fred Fish archives, Aminet sets, DOOM Wads, stuff from binary newsgroups, the list goes on and on