The SunFlopper: a mini heliostat made from a floppy drive

Brian writes –

This is still pretty much a work-in-progress, but I did manage to create a successful heliostat (sun tracker) from the above TEAC model FD-235HF 3.5″ floppy drive. This procedure will likely work just fine, with a bit of adaptation, on any drive new enough to have CMOS logic on its chipset. This particular drive (probably a lot of others) only needs a single 5V DC supply. It has two boards, one with the stepper and main logic, and one with the spindle. The first is the only one needed, and it draws 0.1 Watt with the motor off, and 1 Watt with the motor running, so it should be easy enough to power with a cheapo hobbyist 5V solar cell if stand-alone operation is needed, perhaps a sub-watt one if a large capacitor is supplied to build up enough juice for a motor step over time…

The SunFlopper: a mini heliostat made from a floppy drive – [via] Link.

Gotta do something with those old floppy drives!

Related floppage:

HOW TO – Reusing a floppy stepper motor – Link.

Readymade’s CD covers from old floppy discs… – Link.

HOW TO – Make a floppy disk bag – Link.

Floppy Disk Enterprize – Link.

3.5 inch floppy diskette sculpture – Link.

SD/MMC card in floppy edge-connector – Link.

Huge floppy disk – Link.

CD/DVD cases made with old 5 1/4 floppy disks – Link.