Blixzit Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Ok so I have a 160 GB My Book External HDD from Western Digital. It's the one seen here: I have mine sitting on my desk horizontally. Every time I plug it in and see the green ring light up, I keep getting this idea in my head. Would it be possible to mod the ring display so it would light up in a way that represents how much space is being used/free space is on the disk? Kind of like the Xbox 360 with the 4 controller display... but more accurate than just 4 separate 25% spaces. To have it show exactly the percentage of space used/free around the ring. It's kind of hard to explain what I'm thinking of. If anyone can help me out with this, that would be great. I think it is possible, just have to get some creative minds together. Would make for an awesome mod segment for the show! Let me know what you think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curbob Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 my first thought is that you'd have to replace the one light on it with 8 LEDs or more depending on how many segments you wanted it split into. You may also have to run one of the software packages that display settings of your system, this may be easier to write an "addon" that will control the LEDs per how much drive space you have used. (I have one of the software packages on my system at home but the name escapes me right this moment) Cool idea .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 You'd need a controller to interface them with the PC. It'd probably be easiest with a parallel port, though you could use serial/USB (the latter being the most difficult and expensive). Idea's pretty simple, as suggested above, perhaps 8 LEDs or something (4 green, 2 yellow, 2 red?, 6 blue, 2 red?) connected to the appropriate port with some simple software to perform the (very) simple maths required to show % on 8 LEDs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DingleBerries Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Wouldnt it be the same concept as the flash drives that show how much space is being used? I saw a mod similar to this on HackaDay a while back.. I'll try and dig it up for you later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blixzit Posted October 17, 2008 Author Share Posted October 17, 2008 Thanks for all the great feedback. One of these days when I have the time (time = money), I'll see what I can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodaria Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 The new My books have this feature built in. I have a 1 TB one that has it. too funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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