Old mechanical hard disk drive- an excellent tool to demonstrate oscillation experiments

Abstract The scrapped old hard disk drive (HDD) includes a spindle motor and a voice coil motor (VCM), which can be modified to the adjustable oscillator in three ways. VCM arm can vibrate at a specified frequency due to its special structure, making it suitable for demonstrating oscillation experiments such as resonance and standing waves that require precise frequency control. The HDD spindle motor can be easily modified into a simple crank mechanism to produce standing waves with various harmonics. The spindle motor and VCM can be modified to a crank–rocker mechanism, generating mechanical vibration. These three small-volume, portable vibration modules can all be used to demonstrate some vibration phenomena such as standing waves within a limited table range, and they can generate longitudinal and transverse waves simultaneously.