2.5" Hot Swap Bay Mod

[Lady Fitzgerald]

As promised in my New Case thread, here is a fairly complete blow by blow of the mods I'm making to the Thermaltake ExtremeSpeed 3.0 which is a 2.5" HDD hot swap bay with two USB 3.0 ports connected by pass through cables. The bay was marketed as a way to get two USB 3.0 ports on the front panel back when USB 3.0 was too new for most cases to have front USB 3.0 ports and most MOBOs either didn't have USB 3.0 at all or only had it on the rear I/O panel; the swap bay was an extra bell or whistle to fill in the extra space. The USB 3.0 cables, instead of going to a 19 or 20 pin connector that would plug into a header on the MOBO, ended with type A connectors on the ends of two long cables that could be passed through the back panel of a case and plugged into USB 3.0 ports on a MOBO's rear I/O panel or into a PCI or PCI-e card that added USB 3.0 ports on the rear of the case.

Since I'm not actually going to use this in my new case (unless the built in swap bay dies), I've moved this mod to a new thread. The Thermaltake ExtremeSpeed 3.0 has been unofficially discontinued and is becoming scarce so I glommed onto six while I could.

Here is the little beast in all its glory as it came from the factory:



HDD power is via a 4 pin Molex connector on the end of a short cable and the SATA data cable is permanently attached; that is too rinkydink for my tastes so those have to go. The two USB 3.0 ports are unneeded along with their ridiculously long cables so they also need to go buh-bye.

Here is what one sees when the case is opened up.



The little white zip ties need to be snipped to liberate the cables from their bondage. The SATA data cable is a conventional cable that could be removed by lifting it up above its retaining bracket and simply pulling it out.





Here I've started removing the USB ports and cables. They are secured by two screws (one has already been removed).



To get enough wiggle room to get the USB ports out, the front panel also has to be removed. It's just held in by three clips.



The next thing to come out is the board with the SATA power and data connections on it. It's also held in by two screws (one also already removed).



The long bundle of wires going to the front panel is for the LED. It's only held with a little glob of hot melt glue and will fall out shortly.



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[Lady Fitzgerald]

The Molex cable has been cut so the tacky (literally) spaghetti (old school term for the sleeve around the wires) can be removed.





Being the cheap, old bi...broad I am, I just had to remove the pins from the connector body and save it for possible future use.





Now that everything has been removed, the three loops that the zip ties went through and the bracket that retained the SATA data cable need to be removed to make room for the 22 pin SATA data and power connector.



It looks rough but I had to scrape the surface to make sure it was flat.



This is a shot of the original opening the cables exited through but it's too narrow for the 22 pin male to male connector, shown in the following photo, to fit in so it has to be opened up a wee bit.



I had the darnedest time finding this connector. I wound up getting them from China. Based on the amount of time it took for them to get here, they must have literally come by a slow boat from China. There were no mounting holes so I had to drill them.



Layout lines (and an "oops") were deeply scribed into the plastic because I'm going to cheat and break out the plastic.



I started the cuts with a pair of dikes and twisted the plastic out with a pair of duckbill piers. It's a little rough but a knife and a file will clean it up nicely in no time at all.



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[Lady Fitzgerald]

Here, the opening has been cleaned up. The little black widget in front is a shim I cut to space the connector above the floor of the bay so there will be room for the connectors getting plugged into it.



This shows where the shim will go. It's laying loose there for now so I can use the connector to lay out the mounting holes in the bay floor.



The connector is temporarily in place ready for drilling.



I had originally planned on using a more readily available 22 pin male to female connector by opening up the female side and soldering wires for the power and data directly to the connector. It worked for the power wires but I couldn't get solder to stick to the wires in the SATA data cable. Same for another one I tried. Since I had learned on another forum how to make super short SATA data cables, I changed plans.



Here are the mounting holes, drilled and countersunk, as seen from the bottom.



After gluing the shim between the mounting holes, I filed the bottom of the rear opening so it was flush with the shim and it and the shim had a slight slope. The slope was needed to get the connector to set level.



Now the steel top cover rear opening is too narrow so it needs to widened.



The layout lines (and some more "oops") are scribed deeply into the metal since I'm going to do a wee bit more cheating.



Before cutting, I covered the top of the cover with low tack painters' tape to prevent scratching the paint.



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[Lady Fitzgerald]

Here is the weapon...er...tool of choice for cutting the metal. It's a file that has teeth only on the edges and hollow ground smooth on the faces and is used for filing narrow slits. I felt it was easier to use this instead of a cutoff wheel in a Dremel motor, especially for such short cuts.





Here is the file in action. It goes surprisingly fast.



Both cuts are done.



Here's where I'm going to cheat. I'm using a pair of duck bill pliers to bend and break the metal along the scribed line (sorry for the lousy photo).



A little rough but nothing a file won't quickly clean up.



All cleaned up.



A Black Sharpie does a good job of hiding the exposed metal.



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[Lady Fitzgerald]

This is the punch down connector I'm going to use to connect the four wires that originally went to the 4 pin Molex connector to the SATA power side of the 22 pin connector.





Here, the punch down connector has been plugged into the 22 pin connector to help determine the length to cut the wires. The 22 pin connector is crooked because some dolt put it in upside down and bass-akwards; it will get fixed later.



The yellow lead is 12v and the red lead is 5v. The two blacks are ground. A Molex connector uses the wires in the same order shown. A SATA power connector has a slightly different order and normally has five wires. The fifth one is 3.3v and, when color coded, is normally orange. Fortunately modern HDDs and SSDs don't need the 3.3v so I just won't worry about it. The SATA power terminal closest to the locater lug is the 3.3v connection. The remaining order is ground, 5v, ground, and 12v (black, red, black, and yellow)



I'm using my handy dandy little 4" vise grip to hold the connector in place. The yellow lead is in position for punching down into the connector. Normally, all one needs to do is punch down the wire, insulation and all, into the connector and the connector will bite through the insulation to the conductor. However, the wire felt like it was going in too easily and I wasn't confident the connector "teeth" were making contact with the conductor. I was reluctant to strip all the insulation off for fear the teeth wouldn't get a good enough bite on the conductor to keep it from pulling out so I compromised. I stripped off enough insulation to insure a good connection but left enough to ensure the wire wouldn't pull out



My 4 pin fan connector pin removal tool is perfectly sized for punching down the wire. Please forgive lousy photos but my hands were busier than a one armed paper hanger.



All four wires are punched down but something's wrong.



The connection for the black lead between the red and yellow leads got a wee bit mangled so I'm going to have to pull the wires and try again with another connector.



That looks much better.



Popping on the cap finishes the job. Before I found a source for this particular type of connector (it can handle larger wires than most punch down connectors), I had salvaged several from my old Corsair PSU cables. Some of the caps had their prongs damaged when I pried them off. although I have found a source for these connectors (and stocked up on them) that have feed through caps like this one and ones with dead end caps (for a connector at the end of a cable), I opted to use the damaged caps for this project since the connector will be contacting only plastic. Enough of the cap prongs are intact I don't need to worry about it ever coming off so I get to use up the damaged ones. Have I mentioned I'm cheap?



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[Lady Fitzgerald]

The connector on the shortened SATA cable felt looser than I liked so I put four layers of Scotch tape on top of the connector here to tighten it up. I did the same on the SATA data connector on the 22 pin connector.



The ends of this board fits in little slots but was a little looser than I like so put some Scotch tape on the ends to shim it a bit. Some slack is needed to ensure alignment with an inserted drive so, with the tape, it feels better now.



The little board has been reinstalled and the SATA power connector has been plugged in.



Here is the might midget SATA data cable I described in my New Case thread. Cute little bugger, isn't it?



The mighty midget installed. The S curve gave me some leeway on the length of the cable; otherwise, getting exactly the correct length would have been a nightmare and headache all in one itty bitty little cable.



Here, the front cover has been reattached. Even though it clips in, it's easily dislodged, so I superglued it in. As predicted, the LED also came loose so I superglued it back in. I also taped down the leads going to the LED so I wouldn't have to play dodgem with them. The screws holding the little board also have been installed.



I slipped a HDD in just to make sure everything cleared correctly. It did. Yay!



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[Lady Fitzgerald]

Here's the front and rear after the cover has been reinstalled.





This is the 3.5" to 5.25" bay adapter the swap bay will be mounted in. I found these used on FleaBay. The front cover pops off, making painting them easier.



This is the face plate that will cover the holes left by the removed USB 3.0 ports. I didn't notice until after I had taken the picture I had painted the wrong side! Yeesh! Fortunately, I got the other five right so I just need to repaint this one.



This is an inside shot of the faceplate on the adapter. It has a recess around the inside opening; the new faceplate fits in that recess.





It's hard to see in this shot but I put double sided Scotch tape on the back of the new faceplate. When placed in the recess in the adapter's faceplate, it will align perfectly with the swap bay (more or less) and help keep it in place.



Here is the swap bay installed in the adapter.





Just for excrement and merriment, I slipped a HDD in it.



I now have four of these finished and two more to go. I tested the prototype by pulling the 3.5" hot swap bay from my computer so I could use its connections but I'm too lazy to do that again so I ordered a USB 3.0 to 22 pin SATA cable so I can just plug one end of the cable into the back of the 2.5" swap bay and the other end to a USB 3.0 port to test the others. I should get it Thursday.

And now for the part you all have been eagerly awaiting (well, both of you, anyway):


The End.

 

[NoN]

A lot of work done for that 2.5" bay...It had ended up to be well made and you took care of painting of the parts too!! I was first afraid after you posted the picture of the Power & Data connector Sata totally burnt by the iron solder...but you've made it with another one.

Well done, Lady!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

A lot of work done for that 2.5" bay...It had ended up to be well made and you took care of painting of the parts too!! I was first afraid after you posted the picture of the Power & Data connector Sata totally burnt by the iron solder...but you've made it with another one.

Well done, Lady!

Thanks, NoN! Yeah that first connector was...ah...a bit of a disappointment. Even though a bit ugly (ok, butt ugly), it would have actually worked if I could have gotten solder to stick to SATA cable wires. At least Plan B worked and I didn't have to come up with a Plan C or worse(I've had some projects where the alphabet ran out letters for my Plans). And I didn't have to resort to Plan 9 (we know how that flopped).

 

[NoN]

Ha Ha...i would like to see a resort of a kind of Plan 9!

Story Line:
"A Lady resurrecting a couple of dead Sata connectors to fight against 2.5" bay bomb "Thermaltakobytes" that might blew off her drives with the original modding plan she'd planed"

By LadyFitzgerald!!

And I didn't have to resort to Plan 9 (we know how that flopped).

Beside humor it was an informative thread to me. Looks you have other ones to mod too...keep us in touch!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Ha Ha...i would like to see a resort of a kind of Plan 9!

Story Line:
"A Lady resurrecting a couple of dead Sata connectors to fight against 2.5" bay bomb "Thermaltakobytes" that might blew off her drives with the original modding plan she'd planed"

By LadyFitzgerald!!

And I didn't have to resort to Plan 9 (we know how that flopped).

Beside humor it was an informative thread to me. Looks you have other ones to mod too...keep us in touch!

:roflmao:And you think I'm funny? Good one!

I have two more that need modding but they will be identical so reporting on them will be boring other than, maybe, a quick shot of me testing the latest ones with the cable I ordered (and has been delivered to my mail service; I'll pick it up tomorrow).

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I modded one of the two that still needed modding today. One more to go! I'll probably get to it on Friday.

 

[Dude]

Great job Lady F, I am always impressed with your quality mods

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Dude!

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I tested the prototype by pulling the 3.5" hot swap bay from my computer so I could use its connections but I'm too lazy to do that again so I ordered a USB 3.0 to 22 pin SATA cable so I can just plug one end of the cable into the back of the 2.5" swap bay and the other end to a USB 3.0 port to test the others. I should get it Thursday...

I received the cable today and used it to test the five swap bays I modded so far. The cable is intended for running a 2.5" drive off a USB 3.0 port but I saw no reason why I couldn't use it to test the swap bays.



For testing the swap bays, the cable worked like a champ! As far as I'm concerned, the time and effort it saved me when testing the swap bays paid for the cable, even if I never use it for anything else (and I'm sure I'll find another use for it someday, maybe even its intended use). I just plugged it into the USB 3.0 hub on my desk and plugged each swap bay into the cable. Four of the five worked; one didn't . I opened the dead one up and managed to isolate the problem to the mighty midget SATA cable inside. It was one of the earlier cables I had problems with getting the little cable retainer to line up properly before I hit on a way to guide the little bugger into place. When I swapped out the existing cable with the one that was destined for the last swap bay to be modded, it then worked properly.

Apparently, the little "teeth" in the connector managed to snag enough conductor to work when I tested it while the cable was still straight but lost contact when I bent it into the S shape. When I removed the offending connector, the "teeth" were bent beyond straightening so I "stole" a connector from a spare cable (thank God I bought plenty of spares to cover the "learning curve"), snipped the end off the damaged cable, and installed the stolen connector on the fresh end. I tested it when I modded the last swap bay (pictured above) and it worked just fine and dandy.

I noticed one odd thing when testing the swap bays: five of them had blue LEDs that lit up when a drive was inserted in the bay. The sixth one's LED was red (or green; I'm color blind and can't tell). It's no big deal, just kinda weird.