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Monday 1st October 2007

Make an analogue hard drive meter

Give your state-of-the-art Core 2 PC a retro makeover with an analogue hard drive gauge, complete with LEDs and a bouncing needle.

Whether it's a part of a car dashboard or flicking along with the music on your hi-fi, an analogue gauge's bouncing needle looks great, regardless of what it does. This is why I thought that an analogue gauge would make a great hard drive activity meter, especially placed next to an old Cooler Master Musketeer.

This gauge simply monitors whether the hard drive is active or not, so the gauge goes up when the drive is working, and down when it isn't. However, you'll still see a lot of needle movement if your hard drive is chugging away, accessing data quickly, so the needle isn't going to top-out all the time.

What you need

You can pick up most of the necessary parts cheaply from www.ebay.co.uk, but we've also included the Maplin (www.maplin.co.uk) part codes to make life easier, or the part codes from other suppliers in some circumstances.

• Analogue gauge - We used a VU gauge from an old stereo, but other gauges can be picked up from eBay, or new for £3.69 from www.conrad-direct.co.uk (part number 120146-62).

• Pair of white LEDs (GV65V) - For lighting the gauge. You can use a different LED colour if you prefer.

• 3.5mm heatshrink (PB23A) - Insulates any bare wires and connectors, and makes your work look neater.

• 100K potentiometer (UH27E) - Stops the gauge from maxing out all the time. We used a different potentiometer in this guide, but the UH27E works in the same way.

• Resistor pack (N63BH) - A mixed bag of resistors, including the 500ohm for the white LEDs.

• Hard drive LED plug and wires from an old case, or a 2-pin LED header from www.kustompcs.co.uk (part ref 2001).

• Molex connector (JW64U) - To supply power to the LEDs.

• Soldering iron and solder - For soldering the connections.

• Wire - A few random bits from an old PSU will suffice.

• Heat gun - For heating heatshrink, although you can also do this with the soldering iron.

• 3mm drill bit and drill - For mounting the LEDs to the back of the gauges.

• Hot glue gun/sticky tape - For general sticking and keeping everything in place.

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