3.5 inch bay inserts

sdmcnitt · Post by **sdmcnitt** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:34 am

LCD inserts seem like they would be cool and fun but...
I only have one FDD bay open.

Does Matrix Orbital make a 3.5 inch bay insert? Or, any mods that have crammed a "regular" one in there??

Seems like it would be a popular mod with all the FDD bays that go without drives these days.

Willie92 · Post by **Willie92** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 10:58 pm

I don't believe that MO has a pre-made 3.5" insert made.

However, that's exactly what I'm hoping to do with my LDC since I've got room for two of them and it would see that a 4x20 can fit in there quite well.

BUT I've got some other projects to finish first. But I'm confident it can be done...

airjrdn · Post by **airjrdn** » Tue Nov 04, 2003 11:08 am

I emailed MO about a turn key 3.5" drive bay solution and their response was basically that there isn't enough demand to warrant them providing a solution.

Personally, I don't agree with that. With the number of single 5.25" and single 3.5" drive bay machines being sold right now (Shuttle, GBox, ECube, Ice Cube, etc.) there has to be a big market out there. People don't require a floppy drive any more, but a CD/DVD drive is required. This means, for all those machines, there's an open 3.5" drive bay begging for an LCD.

Has anyone gotten an MO LCD installed an looking nicely, that's willing to share details on what they did?

Here are pictures of the machine I'm wanting one for. Any helpful info at all would be greatly appreciated.

Pictures

sdmcnitt · Post by **sdmcnitt** » Mon Nov 10, 2003 2:11 pm

...that's exactly what I'm hoping to do... BUT I've got some other projects to finish first. But I'm confident it can be done...

Lemmeknow when you get something going. I was looking into a "piggyback" rig on top of my shuttle to put some 5.25 LCD displays and media readers.

sdmcnitt · Post by **sdmcnitt** » Mon Nov 10, 2003 2:13 pm

airjrdn wrote:...their (MO) response was basically that there isn't enough demand to warrant them providing a solution.

I make the same argument that you did to the above response-- with all the empty FDD bays out there I think they have a market.

For now, I am looking to pimp something together.

Post by **Henry** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 12:03 pm

To develop a custom LCD would cost ~$15,000 USD +/-, add another ~$2k for the bay insert development costs... it's big chunk of change for something that only modders want, as selling a display like this OEM would not be realistic. Now if two 3.5" drives were used that would be a different story... but the number of people with two free 3.5" drive bays isn't that high... I could be wrong... but doubt it.

airjrdn · Post by **airjrdn** » Wed Nov 12, 2003 8:38 pm

I thought there were already LCD's that would fit, there just wasn't a solid mounting solution.

Is this wrong?

sdmcnitt · Post by **sdmcnitt** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 1:19 pm

airjrdn wrote:I thought there were already LCD's that would fit, there just wasn't a solid mounting solution.

Even if there is something close, perhaps it could be modified to fit.

airjrdn · Post by **airjrdn** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:26 am

Any update here? Meaning, has anyone made any headway on fitting an MO display into a single 3.5" bay fairly easily?

sdmcnitt · Post by **sdmcnitt** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 2:33 pm

airjrdn wrote:Any update here? Meaning, has anyone made any headway on fitting an MO display into a single 3.5" bay fairly easily?

I have been looking (not too hard) and monitoring this thread but no luck. I still think it is a good idea and has a market.

Best I have seen for the empty FDD is at this link

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... 81091c0593