Homebrewed In-Dash CD-ROM Player

DrD8m writes: "Hardware is changing faster every day, It's very sad to throw away old hardware. This is an example for recyclying it. It's a Computer Audio CD Car Player HOWTO. Using an old computer CD drive in your car. Easy to do and Cool! Are there any projects like this? I'm sure there are, but I don't want to be a N.A.S.A. engineer to do it." This is the best kind of online instruction -- well-illustrated, no guarantees, creative re-use.

Comments

Potential problem

[Tim Macinta]

Car CD players are usually built to withstand shock, whereas my CD-ROM drive tends to skip when jostled. Is there a way to dampen the shocks from pot-holes, etc. when using a CD-ROM drive in a car? (I don't know if the site in question answers this as it seems to be slashdotted.)

Re:Potential problem

[po_boy]

I reccommend wrapping your tires in bubble wrap so that it absorbs the shock for every appliance in your car.

Why bother? Better stuff exists.

[GeorgieBoy]

I mean, sure, it's geeky and all, and it uses a piece of old hardware, but I think this is a lot cooler

Empeg, as it started out in a homebrew fashion, is far more interesting device. Seems that Diamond has purchased that though, as it's now the RioCar.

Useful as a cup holder too

[Small Hairy Troll]

And if it isn't playing a CD, the cd tray can hold your mocha frappachino.

These buffers are violating copyright....

[nyet]

The RIAA needs to investigate this assertion that data is copied in digial format into consumer CD player memory, sometimes MORE THAN ONCE!

This is a blatant violation of the copywrite holder's rights.

This is THEFT pure and simple.

Anyone know of an IDE to CF converter?

[ikekrull]

Had a thought the other day - Why not get a cheap MP3 player that takes CF cards, and attach an IDE HDD to it instead. Since CF cards look like ATA devices, there shouldn't be any major modifications necessary, should there? Since there are CF-to-IDE converters why not the other way around? ANyone got any clues?

Re:Turn your P4 into a space heater!

[VAXman]

Well, you wouldn't know if you read that article, since it was false. Thermal throttling has never even been observed on any P4 system in the field; I have never gotten my P4 system above 39 degrees, while the throttling point is 75. Besides, you can turn the feature off using IA32_CS_MISC_ENABLES (this is documented in volume 3 of the Pentium 4 manual). Of course, I'm certain that you didn't even bother to check, and are more confortable showing your ignorance on Slashdot.

Turn your P4 into a space heater!

[zaius]

It's even got the fans pre-installed, all you need to do is aim it in the right direction!

CD Player Link

[TheLer]

Heres another example of reusing youre CDROM

Sometimes you by Force overwhelmed are.

Don't need the computer, anyways...

[MadCow42]

I guess the good thing is that most computer cd-rom drives don't need to be attached to a computer to play CD's... simply hook up the power, and push play.

Shock is definately a concern, but nothing a little creative mounting wouldn't overcome.

Personally, however, I still like hooking up my MP3 player to the system instead... no shock concerns, easy to mix and match tunes, etc. If it wasn't for the sticker-shock on Flash cards, it'd be ideal.

MadCow.

The street finds it's own use for things

[Mall0]

While this is a cool little hack, but if you are interested in going all the way to frankenstein mp3 decoding car audio system glory check out www.mp3car.com

Emergency Mirror for the article

[DrD8m]

I'm sorry, our server could not afford such traffic, here it's link to a little mirror for this article
http://www.terra.es/personal/sorgocondenado/Comput erAudioCDCarPlayer/

Tips

[D4rkm1lk]

This site is good, but here's some even better tips:

(I've been using an old CD-ROM in my car for ages, here's my experience)

• there's no need to stuff around with heatsinks! Just mount the 7805 so that the back of it is firmly against either the CDROM's housing or a good piece of metal in the dash. This dissipates the heat well enough, and electrically there's no worries in a negative earth car. (almost all cars in the last 20 yrs.)
• Not all CDROM's are created equal. Experiment with different drives - some are excellent! I've got a "Diamond Data" 12x, which actually seems to have a (small, only fraction of a second) anti-skip buffer, and you can see the disc rotating at 2x. It also has nice big rubber shockers inside!
• "alternator whine", the enemy of any in-car electronics can be particularly bad for these. (you can tell if it's this because it only happens when the engine's on, and changes pitch with engine revs.) Use a capacator across the power supply, but there's no need for ridiculously big one like for stereos. If it's still too bad, use a coil as well, these are commonly available at car shops as "noise suppressors".
• experiment with different bumps: most CDROM's are good at withstanding bumps in some directions and not others. Test yours on the bench first, using just the computer's power lead and headphones. figure out which bumps are worst. Then when you mount it in the car, try and allow for some padding in that direction.
• security: I deliberatey removed the flip-down cover from where the tray comes out of. It still works just fine, but it looks like a detachable face unit without the face! (but let's face it, if someone does nick it, it's cheap to replace)

• Mine has been happily working for about 2 years like this, and with some rags at the sides as padding it's better over the bumps than my friend's cheap car stereo.!

IDEA: (for the enthusiastic, probably even a money-making idea): It would be possible to use a microcontroller to send the play command to the IDE port, i'm just not sure how much of the bus you'd have to implement or how expensive it would end up being.

Good luck! (but be careful...that site describes what can happen)