I needed to add an extrnal 5.25″ CD/DVD writer to my main PC for burning (mostly) retro CDs.
I already had a CD/DVD writer in my PC, however, it didn’t work well with the blank Verbatim CD-R’s I purhased in bulk so I figured I should give another writer a go. I tested another burner in another CD and it worked perfected with the same CD-R.
Since my PC has a proprietry case that only supports laptop-like CD writers I could not add a standard one to it. Hence, the need for the external CD writer.
So, I purchased one of these USB external powered SATA connectors. But unfornutely upon delivery I found out that they put a wrong SATA adapter to the package – it did not have a socket for 12V DC that powered SATA connectors usually have.
I thought, well, surely it would not be too hard to add power to the unpowered SATA connector providing they are all standard. The fact that the seller did send me a 12V DV adapter helped to make up my mind to have a go at making a powered SATA by myself.
Here is what my unpowered adapter looked like inside. The +12V DC was not used at all as expected. You can only visually see the +5V wired up.
The pinout of a SATA power connecter is (from left to right):
- +3.3V – 3 pins
- Ground – 3 pins
- +5V – 3 pins
- Ground – 3 pins
- +12V – 3 pins
So, what I needed to do was solder the +12V from the DC power adapter to the three 12V pins of the SATA power connector and the other wire from the 12V DC adapter to the ground of the SATA power connector.
Once I closed it all up and hooked it up to the external CD writer, PC and power point it worked perfectly!
I 3d printed a external enclosure for a 5.25″ CD writer. You can find the STL file here.
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