Enclosure for drive bay

[n1mr0d]

This probably has been brought up before, but after seeing the HxC emulator (SD version) in action in several youtube videos, i was wondering if it was possible to put the lcd screen in a 3.5" enclosure. I think it is not desirable to have the unit 'dangling' outside the case, at least for aesthetic reasons. There are a number of floppy emulators on the market, such as the Ipcas and its clones from Gotek, but these devices a use some kind of partitioning scheme.

The dimensions of a 3.5" drive are 4"x1", so the lcd has to be smaller. A search on the farnell website yielded four 16x2 modules made by Batron. These have a dimension of 53x20mm, so it has 5mm width clearance inside the enclosure.

lcddim.PNG (56.44 KiB) Viewed 4953 times

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Maybe there are some chinese companies that can manufacture the enclosures for us. If so, it would be the perfect replacement for the old floppy drive.

[Jeff]

We are looking for a case solution.
The main problem is the cost of the box solution... I think that this will make the device overpriced...
For the moment the most affordable solution is to buy an 20$ chinese floppy emulator, remove the board inside and put the hxc floppy emulator board inside

[n1mr0d]

Lotharek is already offering a cased solution for about 100 euros, but poorly executed in my opinion. Such an external solution only makes sense using it with a machine which has a drive at the sides.

the most affordable solution is to buy an 20$ chinese floppy emulator

I was also thinking of this

[Jeff]

Lotharek is already offering a cased solution for about 100 euros, but poorly executed in my opinion. Such an external solution only makes sense using it with a machine which has a drive at the sides.

Yes 100euros. But this is almost too expensive for a floppy emulator...

One solution is to make an detachable/external LCD solution to be compatible with most situations : floppy disk drive, Horizontal or vertical position...

The other point is that we only need a bracket to fix the floppy emulator and something to make a front panel...
By "Bracket" i think about something like this : http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416NFsatbxL.jpg

[n1mr0d]

One solution is to make an detachable/external LCD solution to be compatible with most situations : floppy disk drive, Horizontal or vertical position...

I think the majority of devices use the standard drive dimension

[Jeff]

One solution is to make an detachable/external LCD solution to be compatible with most situations : floppy disk drive, Horizontal or vertical position...

I think the majority of devices use the standard drive dimensions.

Did a quick photoshop with the cheap gotek solution (lcd drawn to scale):

hxclcd.png

Still to find the manufacturer of this case