[HARD MOD]I successfully added 500 gb HD and kept all batteries

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goodintentions

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
2,540
729
So, I've added a 500 gb hard drive to the dock while keeping the battery.

That's right, all batteries, all parts are still there! The only difference is I've rearranged all the inner crap around to make the 500 gb fit. Asus, if you're reading this, take notes :D

Anyway, here are the pictures. Remember that all I've removed are some plastic pieces that serve no other purpose than to keep things in place. All electronic parts are still there. It's like trying to work out a piece of puzzle. Well, I've finally found a combination that works!

Well, here are some pictures. Now, I have a laptop-tablet hybrid with a 500 gb hard drive and 16 hours of battery life!

A side note, I really really tried to figure out a way to add more battery on top of this. No possible way.


IMG_20110902_144838%20%28Small%29.jpg

P20110829011111%20%28Small%29.png

IMG_1211%20%28Small%29.JPG

IMG_1213%20%28Small%29.JPG

IMG_1214%20%28Small%29.JPG



Added by edit.

By the way, constructive negative feedback are welcome. Non-constructive vague, misleading generalizations are also welcome but with an attitude of annoyance. I did this hardware mod fully aware that I voided my warranty. What can I say? I'm adventurous like that.

Like some people have mentioned before while doing a tear down of the dock, there's just a lot of unused room in there. The problem is those unused room are scattered all over the place. What I have done is move the electronics around so that everything is still there + a 500 gb hard drive.

I highly recommend against this hard mod for everyone else but me. If you're going to do this, I take no responsibility if you screw up. The mod requires some very delicate soldering. So, please, don't follow my foot steps.

Anyway, as far as I'm concern, I'm the only person in the world as of this moment with a tablet-laptop hybrid that has a 500 gb hard drive. Damn, I feel special :D

Added by edit (9/2/2011)

So, I just added in a tiny switch to turn on and off the hard drive. Here are some pictures. Those of you who want to do this mod, glean what you can from the pictures :)

IMG_20110902_125334%20%28Small%29.jpg

IMG_20110902_142317%20%28Small%29.jpg

IMG_20110902_151832%20%28Small%29.jpg

IMG_20110902_145412%20%28Small%29.jpg

IMG_20110902_153223%20%28Small%29.jpg


Edit.

I am now offering to do this mod for people. If you want me to do this for you, you need to buy the hard drive (hdd or ssd, doesn't matter, make sure it's usb), send your dock and drive to me + $75 via paypal + a return stamp. I promise I will be extra careful with your stuff. Hit me a pm if you're interested. Also, you have to tell me if you want me to put in an on/off switch for you. I live 2 minutes from radio shack. If you do want the switch, add $2. In the package, there should also be a letter with your name, address, and exactly what you want. And please if you're going to send me the keyboard dock, make sure you send me a functional one. I will test out every aspect of the dock before I do anything. If anything is wrong with it, I will send it right back to you. So please, do not try to scam me into buying you a replacement dock.

If you're poor, like a college student, talk to me. And if you're that guy who introduced himself as a businessman and then went on to try to negotiate down to $40... really?

For those who are handy dandy with your hands, I have posted more than enough info for you to replicate what I've done. If you cannot do this mod with the current info, then it's best that you don't try.

I do ask people 5 things, though.

(1) Make sure you consult me first about the hard drive you want. Don't just send it to me. I need to make sure it will fit!

(2) I need you to be absolutely sure you want this mod done to your keyboard dock. This mod will void your warranty.

(3) I need you to not regret after it's been modded. I take no responsibility for any buyer's remorse from you.

(4) I promise you that I will be extra careful with your dock. After experimenting with my own dock, I have developed much safer ways to do this mod. I'm almost 100% sure I can do this without messing up your dock, since I now know the dock inside out. I know every little part that's involved. I know exactly what wire goes where. However, there's still a risk involved. I need you to understand that.

(5) Don't be a whiner. I hate whiners. This is a transformer. It will never become an ipad. Jesus christ, if I hear one person complain that this mod did not turn their transformer into an ipad...

Anyway, think it over and if you still want this mod done, hit me a pm or email. If I don't respond to pm, then try again with email.

And by the way, this is not a business I'm doing. This is more like a favor. You try getting best buy or some other store to do something similar to this for you and see how much they charge. In other words, I have no money. Please don't try anything funny to scam me. Trust me, I've nothing for you to scam out of.

Before you guys send off your dock to me, I need you to check if your sdcard is still in the slot. There are 2 reasons why you should take your sdcard out before you send to me.

There are some things on your sdcard you'd rather not have me or anyone else see. For instance, someone just sent me 16 GB of gay porn. Not going to mention any name *ahem* . Next time this happens, it could be you and your spouse in a naughty video.

If I take the dock apart with the sdcard still in there, the sdcard slot will stop holding in the sdcard. There is a little tiny pin in the sdcard slot that's responsible for clicking and keeping in your sdcard. When I first took my dock apart, I forgot to take out the sdcard. The pin flew out. It took me a whole saturday to put the pin back in there.

In other words, I now officially hold myself NOT responsible if I absentmindedly take your dock apart before checking the sdcard slot. And I absolutely do not want to spend another saturday putting another one of these tiny pins back into the sdcard slot.

Added by edit.

So, to recap. Here's what you need to include in your package.

(1) Your docking station. I can't mod it over the internet yet. Still working on it.

(2) HDD.

(3) Shipping label.

(4) A letter stating the following:
[a] What you want me to do.
Do you want an on/off switch or not?
[c] Which usb port do you want me to use? If you are right handed, then I'd hook it up to the left so you can use the right usb port all the time. The usb that is hooked from will only work when you have the HDD turned off.
[d] Your porn collection. Be like one of the users here and send me a dock with an sdcard card inside that has 16 GB of gay porn. Sharing is caring!
 
Last edited:

goodintentions

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
2,540
729
Awesome! great work- Any pix of how you soldered the connectors?

Yeah, since I had 4 arms, I used 2 to solder and 2 to take pictures :p

Actually, no I don't have any picture of the soldering. All I soldered was the usb connector from the inside. This is one of those hard drives that doesn't need an extra power connector. All it needs is a usb connection.

The other reason I'm not putting anything up regarding the soldering job is because I don't want newbies to screw up their dock. If you know a thing or two about soldering, then you should know what and where to solder. If you don't already know, you could end up burning the board and chips.

Added by edit.

Between the OP and this post, I opened up the dock and put in the magnet for the auto sleep and auto wake thing. Almost forgot about putting that thing back in. I had to remove it to move other things around.
 
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Roach2010

Inactive Recognized Developer
Sep 1, 2008
834
2,259
Glasgow
Awesome mod, I want to do it. Which hard drive did you use?

Also is that a big dent in the top half of the dock I can see in the last picture?

Any tips on opening the dock in a way that avoids avoid damaging it? I'm an expert at soldering but I'm OCD about my dock looking untouched when I am finished.
 
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Roach2010

Inactive Recognized Developer
Sep 1, 2008
834
2,259
Glasgow
I can't see it being too good for the drive in the long run.

Sent from my Leedroidified Htc Sensation.

I'm already thinking about this. It's would be a simple mod to hook up a small switch that sits where the obsolete USB connector is. This could be used to turn the drive off when not required.
 

Beards

Senior Member
Nov 3, 2008
4,282
886
Yes... Heat is my only concern (hence why I mentioned it).
The space the drive takes would also lessen the flow of air.

A lot of testing would have to be carried out for it to be deemed safe.
Definitely needs something to monitor the drive and switch it off when not needed.
 

SparkyRih

Senior Member
Jan 19, 2011
552
74
Roermond
What about the battery life? especially when you undock the tab... or does it stop spinning when you undock, or when it's idle for some time?
 

stuntdouble

Senior Member
Apr 1, 2009
1,799
543
Redmi Note 10S
Nicely done. I seriously doubt it still gets 16hrs battery life though. :) Also it's interesting to see what's actually inside the keyboard dock. These are the first pics I've seen of it. I never could figure out how to pop mine open without removing those bottom rubbery feet so I could always return it if needs be, so gave up trying to open mine up.
Also those bits of plastic you removed, well I'd assume you have lost the rigidity from any flexing/contortion of the unit, but looks like it all might be worth it for the extra capacity. Nice job.
 

gtsfrost

Member
May 7, 2011
35
1
well its possible to throw in an SSD instead of a HDD. mind checking on how long the battery life will last? and just wondering its a 2.5" or 1.8" hdd was used?
 

tlxxxsracer

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2010
1,548
425
Knoxville
Wonder and I bet you could install hard drives from ipods or other mp3 players. They would be smaller, lighter, less power, but maybe a little slower. Not sure how the power, data connections would work though :confused:

What about using a SSD? LOL!! :p:cool:

Im really good with a soldering iron- rewired my whole computer PSU and custom cables for it. Please PM me with how to do this.. Id be interested in checking the mod out for when I get my TF
 

goodintentions

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
2,540
729
Dear all, I ain't telling nobody how to do this. Again, this is way too dangerous and I wouldn't want anyone to risk it. I really don't want to be responsible for something that might happen. Especially when this ivolves taking the battery cells apart and solder them together in such a way to fit the design. If you want to do something similar, you figure it out.

No, I'm not being a jackass. I just don't want to be reponsible for the extinction of the human race.
 

goodintentions

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
2,540
729
I'm already thinking about this. It's would be a simple mod to hook up a small switch that sits where the obsolete USB connector is. This could be used to turn the drive off when not required.

Again I'm a civil engineer not an electronic. Could you give me an idea on how this is done? I'm already this far.
 

goodintentions

Senior Member
Aug 14, 2010
2,540
729
Yes... Heat is my only concern (hence why I mentioned it).
The space the drive takes would also lessen the flow of air.

A lot of testing would have to be carried out for it to be deemed safe.
Definitely needs something to monitor the drive and switch it off when not needed.

Heat actually isn't a problem in this case. The hard drive was in 2 layers of air tight casings when I took it out. Before I opened up the dock, it was also air tight.

Don't think of the hard drive as a conventional hard drive. This one uses a lot less power and produces a lot less heat. In fact, I purposely left it on for hours and still haven't felt any heat.

Before I did the mod, I tested the hard drive out with the connections. What I found was that the hard drive only goes on when (1) the tablet is docked and (2) the tablet is on. If either one of these conditions is not met the drive is off. Even if the tablet is docked but it is sleeping the hard drive would still be off.
 
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  • 45
    So, I've added a 500 gb hard drive to the dock while keeping the battery.

    That's right, all batteries, all parts are still there! The only difference is I've rearranged all the inner crap around to make the 500 gb fit. Asus, if you're reading this, take notes :D

    Anyway, here are the pictures. Remember that all I've removed are some plastic pieces that serve no other purpose than to keep things in place. All electronic parts are still there. It's like trying to work out a piece of puzzle. Well, I've finally found a combination that works!

    Well, here are some pictures. Now, I have a laptop-tablet hybrid with a 500 gb hard drive and 16 hours of battery life!

    A side note, I really really tried to figure out a way to add more battery on top of this. No possible way.


    IMG_20110902_144838%20%28Small%29.jpg

    P20110829011111%20%28Small%29.png

    IMG_1211%20%28Small%29.JPG

    IMG_1213%20%28Small%29.JPG

    IMG_1214%20%28Small%29.JPG



    Added by edit.

    By the way, constructive negative feedback are welcome. Non-constructive vague, misleading generalizations are also welcome but with an attitude of annoyance. I did this hardware mod fully aware that I voided my warranty. What can I say? I'm adventurous like that.

    Like some people have mentioned before while doing a tear down of the dock, there's just a lot of unused room in there. The problem is those unused room are scattered all over the place. What I have done is move the electronics around so that everything is still there + a 500 gb hard drive.

    I highly recommend against this hard mod for everyone else but me. If you're going to do this, I take no responsibility if you screw up. The mod requires some very delicate soldering. So, please, don't follow my foot steps.

    Anyway, as far as I'm concern, I'm the only person in the world as of this moment with a tablet-laptop hybrid that has a 500 gb hard drive. Damn, I feel special :D

    Added by edit (9/2/2011)

    So, I just added in a tiny switch to turn on and off the hard drive. Here are some pictures. Those of you who want to do this mod, glean what you can from the pictures :)

    IMG_20110902_125334%20%28Small%29.jpg

    IMG_20110902_142317%20%28Small%29.jpg

    IMG_20110902_151832%20%28Small%29.jpg

    IMG_20110902_145412%20%28Small%29.jpg

    IMG_20110902_153223%20%28Small%29.jpg


    Edit.

    I am now offering to do this mod for people. If you want me to do this for you, you need to buy the hard drive (hdd or ssd, doesn't matter, make sure it's usb), send your dock and drive to me + $75 via paypal + a return stamp. I promise I will be extra careful with your stuff. Hit me a pm if you're interested. Also, you have to tell me if you want me to put in an on/off switch for you. I live 2 minutes from radio shack. If you do want the switch, add $2. In the package, there should also be a letter with your name, address, and exactly what you want. And please if you're going to send me the keyboard dock, make sure you send me a functional one. I will test out every aspect of the dock before I do anything. If anything is wrong with it, I will send it right back to you. So please, do not try to scam me into buying you a replacement dock.

    If you're poor, like a college student, talk to me. And if you're that guy who introduced himself as a businessman and then went on to try to negotiate down to $40... really?

    For those who are handy dandy with your hands, I have posted more than enough info for you to replicate what I've done. If you cannot do this mod with the current info, then it's best that you don't try.

    I do ask people 5 things, though.

    (1) Make sure you consult me first about the hard drive you want. Don't just send it to me. I need to make sure it will fit!

    (2) I need you to be absolutely sure you want this mod done to your keyboard dock. This mod will void your warranty.

    (3) I need you to not regret after it's been modded. I take no responsibility for any buyer's remorse from you.

    (4) I promise you that I will be extra careful with your dock. After experimenting with my own dock, I have developed much safer ways to do this mod. I'm almost 100% sure I can do this without messing up your dock, since I now know the dock inside out. I know every little part that's involved. I know exactly what wire goes where. However, there's still a risk involved. I need you to understand that.

    (5) Don't be a whiner. I hate whiners. This is a transformer. It will never become an ipad. Jesus christ, if I hear one person complain that this mod did not turn their transformer into an ipad...

    Anyway, think it over and if you still want this mod done, hit me a pm or email. If I don't respond to pm, then try again with email.

    And by the way, this is not a business I'm doing. This is more like a favor. You try getting best buy or some other store to do something similar to this for you and see how much they charge. In other words, I have no money. Please don't try anything funny to scam me. Trust me, I've nothing for you to scam out of.

    Before you guys send off your dock to me, I need you to check if your sdcard is still in the slot. There are 2 reasons why you should take your sdcard out before you send to me.

    There are some things on your sdcard you'd rather not have me or anyone else see. For instance, someone just sent me 16 GB of gay porn. Not going to mention any name *ahem* . Next time this happens, it could be you and your spouse in a naughty video.

    If I take the dock apart with the sdcard still in there, the sdcard slot will stop holding in the sdcard. There is a little tiny pin in the sdcard slot that's responsible for clicking and keeping in your sdcard. When I first took my dock apart, I forgot to take out the sdcard. The pin flew out. It took me a whole saturday to put the pin back in there.

    In other words, I now officially hold myself NOT responsible if I absentmindedly take your dock apart before checking the sdcard slot. And I absolutely do not want to spend another saturday putting another one of these tiny pins back into the sdcard slot.

    Added by edit.

    So, to recap. Here's what you need to include in your package.

    (1) Your docking station. I can't mod it over the internet yet. Still working on it.

    (2) HDD.

    (3) Shipping label.

    (4) A letter stating the following:
    [a] What you want me to do.
    Do you want an on/off switch or not?
    [c] Which usb port do you want me to use? If you are right handed, then I'd hook it up to the left so you can use the right usb port all the time. The usb that is hooked from will only work when you have the HDD turned off.
    [d] Your porn collection. Be like one of the users here and send me a dock with an sdcard card inside that has 16 GB of gay porn. Sharing is caring!
    3
    Dear all, I ain't telling nobody how to do this. Again, this is way too dangerous and I wouldn't want anyone to risk it. I really don't want to be responsible for something that might happen. Especially when this ivolves taking the battery cells apart and solder them together in such a way to fit the design. If you want to do something similar, you figure it out.

    No, I'm not being a jackass. I just don't want to be reponsible for the extinction of the human race.
    2
    You're most likely right, which is unfortunate.
    Strange though. The seller has sold 49 these (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/256GB-US...ash_Drives&hash=item45fcc29b06#ht_2782wt_1139) and still has 100% positive feedback.

    EDIT: Make that 50 sold. There was 47 sold when first found that page. He must be doing something right... ;)

    Because most people are dumbasses. There are fake hard drives floating around from china. They are not real. They have been rewired to say however big the faker wanted to say. Your data will be lost once its real capacity is passed.
    2
    How can you make a post about such a substantial mod on a hack/mod/developing forum and discourage anyone else from trying it? Seems a bit conceded if you ask me. There are PLENTY of people on this site that are not "faint at heart".

    Because I know most people are not up to something like this. You can go ahead and try this if you want. I can't stop you. But take my word for it, this really does take some very delicate soldering jobs. Do you feel confident soldering pinhead size places on a board? Do you even have the equipment?

    Also, take a look at the following thread on me modifying my car to mount the tablet.

    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1192291

    Read the subsequent comments telling me what an idiot I am for putting that in. In fact, I have no doubt that you at this moment think I'm an idiot for doing that mod with my car even though I explained in that thread very clearly that I checked many times to make sure the mod is out of the way of the air bag and air bag deployment area. Go ahead and read the rest of that thread. See how people started desperately looking for a reason to criticize that mod because it seemed scary.

    Well, this mod is 10 times scarier than that car mod. I simply don't think most people are up to something like this.

    But if you really want to try this out yourself, tell me and I will post step by step instructions on how to do this. Take a look at my viewsonic g tablet for dummies site linked in signature. I am very good at writing instructions for dummies.
    2
    I am currently testing the battery life. Started off fully charged both tablet and dock. Set the brightness to full. Have a timer running down from 16 hours. So far, 2 hours have passed. No noticable heat coming from the dock. Just checked the hdd. Still working 5 by 5.