Drive Bay Drawer Unit (and Badge Mount)

This design can be used without adding a badge, but it will result in a recessed drawer front. Alternatively, you can use the space for a badge design of your own.

After resizing Reactron's HAL9000 badge (Thing 579607) to tart up the front of my ancient PC case, I was in full smug mode. But something was niggling me: There was wasted space behind the blanking plate that could be put to better use in my space-limited environment.

In this age of rendundant disc drive bays, I figured that I couldn't be the only one to notice this wasted space, so I did a quick search of Thingiverse. Sure enough, there were a number of different drawer units designed by others.

They were all great designs, but I wanted to keep my new HAL badge as a feature. I also wanted to use all of the available space (some only use half), and I wanted the fixing hardware kept to the bare minimum.

Although the internals of my PC average around 3 years old, the case itself dates back to the mid 2000s. This was when rectangular blocks of hearing-aid beige were finally giving way to aesthetically pleasing use of colour and shape (and not before time, either!).

So my case has a distinctive bow-front design that allowed me to use the top of the drive bay recess to incorporate a very useable handle. Moreover, it doesn't stick out like the proverbial sore opposable digit, and avoids putting a dirty great 'ole in the front (presumably for things to fall out through!).

Other than that, there's nothing particularly revolutionary in the design (it's just a drawer, after all!). I deliberately left out putting fixing holes into the drawer case, because I had alignment issues on my first couple of tries. It's possible that my drive bay has become bent at some time in the past, or the case is shoddily made. Either way I could only get 3 holes to align at any one time. I found that I could force them to fit, but it made the drawer stick.

In the end I did away with the printed holes, and simply drilled and tapped the sides once I had it all in the right place. This does mean it needs packing washers to space the bolt heads out to prevent them fouling the drawer but, at the moment, I haven't added these and it hasn't moved yet (so far!).

The only part that needed printing support was the drawer front. I tried several aligments, and concluded that the the way I have oriented it in my STL seems to give the best compromise between support and unsightly filing necessary on visible surfaces.

More annoying is that there appears to be something funky going on with drawer front's lower face. It seems to slice in a slightly unexpected manner that suggests it's not square. It was fine until I watermarked it, so I guess I distorted the surface when I added this. It prints OK though, so I don't think it's an issue.

The drawer assembly clips together well enough (some fine adjustment may be required, so needle files at the ready, chaps) that adhesive isn't necessary. But, once I was satisfied that it all worked as it should, I applied cynoacrylate anyway to make sure it would stand up to abuse.

The plan was to use the HAL9000 badge that I had previously scaled from Reactron's design. But, because I'd made it a friction fit for when it was just attached to a blanking plate, it now stopped the drawer from closing.

Rather than print another badge, I slowly filed down the mating faces of the two badge pieces until it was a perfect fit. Yes, it has altered the letter spacing a smidge, but I don't think it's enough of a difference to be noticed by anyone (barring an OCD purist with a vernier in their mitts, that is!). Glued in place, it looks exactly the same as when it was just wedged onto the blanking plate.

So that's it. I don't know if it will be suitable for anyone else (I can't imagine anyone else too cheapskate to buy a new case after all these years), but it's here if you can use it, and the SketchUp file's there for those who want to remix it.

10-10 till we do it again, we gone, buh-bye!

Category: Computer