Electronic – arduino – How to spin an old HDD motor

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I've stripped out an old IDE (40 Pin) HDD from 1998 for use in a POV display project (Gr. 12 Computer Engineering), and I've been trying to spin it up.

The problem is that the HDD motor is brushless DC, so it requires more than just a ground and source connection. Our electronics has a max output current of about 200mA (555, transistors, other ICs), so I can't work with those.

Connecting the HDD with the PCB to the PSU will only turn the motor on for about 15s before it shuts off.

The HDD is completely stripped with only the motor and the PCB screwed into the base. The motor has 4 pins. From the time I spent playing with it, there's 1 pin for ground, and 3 other pins that I think is for the 3 pairs of coils.

HDD information:

  • Fujitsu MPB3043AT
  • 12V DC 0.32A
  • 5V DC 0.5A

Materials:

  • Arduino Uno
  • Old HDD
  • PSU
  • Breadboard
  • 9V battery
  • 1.5V batteries
  • 74HC164 8 bit sihft registers
  • 555 Timer IC
  • 3904/3906 Transistors
  • Capacitors, resistors, potentiometers

What options do I have to get the motor to spin (Preferably without the PSU, but I'm open to options with the PSU)? Is there a pin on the IDE that will allow me to turn it on/off?

UPDATE 1: I fiddled around with the IDE cable. When I connect pin 27 (IO Ready) to pin 2 (Ground), the motor started spinning as if I just plugged it into the PSU, but only for about 10s. And I had to wait a few minutes before I can get it to spin again using this method

UPDATE 2: Turns out the motor is only 5V and not 12V, that should ease things up a bit

Best Answer

Most of the HDD motors are BLDC (brushless) motors. They can be driven by brushless ESC. Cheapest would be to buy hobby RC ESC and drive it by PWM. Something like this would be fine. (turnigy plush 25A).

25A means that it can be used to run motors up to that current without damaging ESC. You could find lower current ESC as well (but this one is cheap enough).

ESC consist of three wires, there are no 4 wires ESC. You need to measure resistance between pairs of wires and connect only wires with higher resistance. One with lower resistance leave unconnected.

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