Engineer turns old hard disk drive into cotton candy machine

Well, here’s something you don’t get to write about every day — a Chinese engineer is receiving praise from all over the world for his ingenuity in turning an old hard-disk drive into a fully functional cotton candy machine. 

 
An engineer from China has turned an old hard disk drive into a fully functional cotton candy machine.

The gentleman, whose name has not been revealed in all of the many reports on the story, operates a data recover and hard drive repair center in China. Naturally, he had a hard-disk drive lying around the shop, and in a stroke of genius, found a new way to recycle an old component. 

 
Standard materials plus an old hard-disk drive was used to construct a makeshift cotton candy machine.

Upon posting photos of the new machine, he included instructions on how he accomplished the task. To the surprise of many, the project was remarkably simple. What’s more, he used common materials from around the shop, including a round metal tin, bicycle spokes, an aluminum soda can, and a plastic bowl.

The key to the contraption is the hard disk drive’s rotating platter. While most cotton candy machines spin at a rate of approximately 3,450 rotations per minute, the hard disk drive the engineer was using rotated at a speed of 5,400 rotations per minute – or higher!

Below is a series of photographs that he took throughout the course of converting the drive into the sweet-tooth machine:

First, he removed the cover of the hard-disk drive. 
 

Next, he drilled three holes in the rotating platter and three corresponding holes in the bottom of a metal tin.

He then cut a circular hole on the metal tin’s cover. 

 
After that task was complete, the engineer joined the bicycle spokes together and connected them to the rotating platter. 

Then he cut an aluminum can and folded it into a small open box, which he placed on the spindle itself. 
 

Next, the engineer connected the base of the tin to the rotating platter by welding it to the bicycle spokes. 

He cut out the bottom of a plastic basin and placed the hard-disk drive into the middle of the hole on a flat surface. 

Some solid fuel was added to the aluminum box . . . 
 

. . . and the round metal tin was filled with granulated surgar. 
 

The fuel was lit and the hard-disk drive was powered up. 
 

In just a short time, the machine began turning out cotton candy. 
 

Story via: micgadget.com
http://micgadget.com/24223/turning-an-old-hard-disk-into-a-candy-floss-machine/