Getting more eyes on the problem

[unixronin]

Friends,

I need assistance finding something very specific. Having failed so far, I'm trying to get more eyes (and more existing knowledge of what's available) to work on the problem.

What I need to be able to do is to mount two 2.5" solid-state disks into the 3.5" hard disk cage in a Thermaltake Element G case.  What I need in order to

Comments

[jhetley]

Tap and die set? Heli-coil?

(Says the ignorant . . .)

[unixronin]

Hmmmmm, you have a point. The most recent set of adapters I tried are a fairly thick aluminum extrusion; I could try re-drilling and tapping the existing M3-0.5 holes for a 6-32 thread.

I wish computer manufacturers would just standardize on ONE DAMNED SIZE...

Drill and tap

[edm]

"The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from" (which isn't original to me, but the Internets don't seem to know a definitive source). (Over here in metric land I'd have liked them to standardise on metric sizes/threads, but 30 years of history says that isn't likely. Finding #6-32 1/2" screws to mount into thick HP style drive sleds was hard here

Re: Drill and tap

[unixronin]

Oh, I have lots and lots and lots of M3-0.5 screws. That's not the problem. The problem is that the drive cage in the Element G case does not rely on screwing drives into the cage, it relies on screwing rubber bushings to them with specially shaped screws, then sliding them into the cage rails.

All but one of the adapter styles I've found is too thin sheetmetal to retap, too, a detail I temporarily forgot above. The metal on the adapters that came with the SSDs is more like 0.5mm than 1.5mm, let alone 3-4mm.

However, I think I've come up with a solution: a 9/64 drill, and eight 6-32 Nylok nuts.

I really don't think the industry has fully thought through the issue of mounting SSDs and laptop drives in high-end PC cases yet. Even the cases that provide specific mounting points for SSDs generally only provide one.

[mrmeval]

I think you need to make or buy a thread adaptor.

http://www.thorlabs.com/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=1745

You will need to take some accurate measurements and see if those fit or have them make you some samples or flatten drill and tap a 6-32 so the M3 will fit.

[unixronin]

I'm not sure there's any way to make that work. I need to fit a larger machine-thread screw into a smaller hole in very thin sheet metal, and I don't see how that's going to fly.

I suppose the fallback option if all else fails, since I can get at the inside of the included adapters, is to drill the M3 holes out to 9/64" and buy some 6-32 Nylok nuts. In fact, thinking about it, that might actually be the simplest solution.

[otherbill]

If I understand this problem correctly, the holes in the drive cage are sized to fit #6-32 screws, while the adapter uses M3-0.5 screws.

A Google Image Search on the Thermaltake Element G case seems to indicate that the holes in the drive cage are not threaded; the screws simply go through the hole and thread into the drive (or in this case, the adapter).

If I understand the third photo you referred to, the M3-0.5 screws are slightly smaller in diameter than the #6-32 screws.

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but I fail to see the problem in using the smaller screws in the larger holes. As long as the head of the screw won't fit through the hole, it will still hold the adapter in place.

Where's the problem? (Once the case is closed, nobody will know but you.)

[unixronin]

That's because you can't see enough detail on the case photos.

The HEAD of an M3 screw will pass through the Element's disk mounting rails and not touch either side. As I said, the case uses special shouldered screws with a rubber bushing. The screws (with their bushings) attach to the drive, then the drive slides into the rails and latches in place. It is not a screw-in drive mounting; it is a slide-in drive mounting using bushings that screw to the drive, rather like those on a classic Sun floppy drive. You can't mount it at all using M3 screws. It simply won't work. The drive will fall out of the rails.

Oh, also, an M3 screw won't tighten enough in a 6-32 threaded hole to hold up a sheet of paper. But in any case, I don't have 6-32 holes that I need to put M3-0.5 screws into, I have M3-0.5 (0.118") holes that I need to put 6-32 (0.138") screws into. With .020" of mechanical interference, that'll destroy both sets of threads, and I don't have an unlimited supply of these special screws.