I just got two IMOD-3 kits.
Microreview: Great!
Minireview: Great, only one minor quibble: there are three mounting slots to screw the HD
to the IMOD. The one nearest to the 44-pin connector is slightly off, at least as far
as my two (different model) IBM Travelstar drives are concerned. However, the far two screws
fit nicely, and those screws plus the 44-pin connector hold the drive in nicely.
There's a bright LED on the board that fits behind the 'telephone' light pipe. You won't
have to remove the telephone LED from the mboard if you don't want to, the IMOD's LED is
bright enough to be quite visible.
The board is well insulated and well shielded. It fits very nicely into the I-O.
More:
It has the following connectors:
+5/gnd, the right spacing and size pins for the power cable for a Lasagna fan/heatsink.
44 pin connector for the 2.5" drive. (Duh.)
40 pin connector and standard HD power cable.
The reason for the last set (40 pin + power): you mount the drive to the IMOD and you
can then just attach it directly to your main system through the 40+HDpower line; when you
have finished formatting/transferring data, detach the power and 40 pin cable, plug it onto
the 44-pin header on the IO, and you are done.
The one quibble I have about this is that I can't get to the master/slave pins on my
hard drive once it is mounted on the IMOD, so in one case I ended up having to unscrew the
drive from the IMOD anyway. Oh well.
Other things:
It came nicely packed in a white packing box (around 5x7x1). The IMOD was wrapped in a
protective sheet.
Also included: One Y cable, and one bag with mounting hardware (2 insulated standoffs,
2 screws to screw the IMOD through the standoffs to the mboard, 3 screws to mount the HD
to the IMOD).
Oh yeah, there are only three slots to screw your HD to the IMOD. More than I needed,
anyway.
Final note: I hope he keeps making these (profitably) as long as there are I-Os to be
hacked.
-Steve
