Silicon Chip CD Controller

Has anyone noticed the arrival at Jaycar of an audio playback adapter for CD-rom drives? Head to Jaycar's website and search for KC5459.

It is based on a Silicon Chip article from Nov & Dec 2007.

It relies on the analogue output from the drive but I'm extremly curious about the prospect of using the digital output instead with the board controlling the basic player functions....

Power is provided to the board by a wall wart......I'm not certain if it also provides power to the drive but I suspect so.

Sixty five bucks.....so I reckon I might take a run at it.

Much more elegant and already assembled and tested with VFD display

http://eshop.diyclub.biz/product_info.php?cPath=1_198&products_id=436

What sort of response is 'Much more elegant...'?

...does that make it any better?

I'm aware of your expertise when it comes to these things but a comment like this ain't that informative.

A bit like the diyclub.biz website really.....

Yes, I must admit that when the article came out in SC I was interested in it, although I haven't built one. Redgum used to have a CD player which used a CD-ROM drive to play the CD's, and it got quite a good review some years ago in Australian Hi-fi. The good thing about something like that is when the CD-ROM fails, they can be readily replaced very cheaply.

What sort of response is 'Much more elegant...'?

...does that make it any better?

I'm aware of your expertise when it comes to these things but a comment like this ain't that informative.

A bit like the diyclub.biz website really.....

With "elegant" I generally mean smaller. The board is more compact and it is using better display then the depicted Silicon Chip version. I do not know about features. Also comes assembled and tested - the only thing you need is a decent 5V PSU. I guess all of that can be described as elegant, especially considering the price.

Very interesting. Combine it with a good DAC for a nice diy cd player.

Computer power supplies r cheap, especially 2nd hand!!!!

You should not use a computer SMPS if you want decent sound. Build your own linear 12 and 5V rails even with LM78XX regulators they will be heaps better then a switcher, esspecially a computer one. They are very noisy and without stable regulation. I have a thread with some pics how I did my CDROM conversion.

Agreed.....the only reason I'd use a switchmode is just to get it up and running.

I have acquired the kit and it looks like a fairly straightforward exercise - the board is double sided so is considerably smaller than that posted above plus the LCD is better looking and backlit.

This is a project that I won't get round to for months yet......way too many more important things to do....I bought it because Jaycar kits have a history of disappearing quickly especially if they are a tad esoteric.

I have Decky's thread bookmarked for the future.....

I've been keen on that kit since it came out.

The question i have is what is the digital out from an IDE cdrom? Is it spdif or something else?

The question i have is what is the digital out from an IDE cdrom? Is it spdif or something else?

It's SPDIF......but not SPDIF. Essentially, instead of having an SPDIF voltage of something like 1.2V the CD-ROM thumps out 5V.....which is something that quite a number of DACs can not handle.

There are a couple of options. One is to buffer it with a simple circuit - easily found on the interweb. The other is to use a DAC that can handle such a voltage. A few of the DIY DAC's can (I think) but also many of the pro audio DACs can too - like the Behringer SRC2496.

CDROM digotal out is a TTL level SPDIF signal. 5V instead of +/-0.5V. There are several ways how to deal with it. I used an optical Toslink interface (removed the receiver first) on the DAC-AH board because the Toslink receiver output is the TTL level signal. In between the CDROM and the DAC input a used a pulse transformer to isolate ground of the DAC from the "not so clean" CDROM ground.

If one needs a 0.5V Spdif the way is to use a hex buffer to increase the current, followed by a voltage divider that will drop the voltage down to the right level and everything followed by a pulse transformer for isolation.

Everything you need to know is here:

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html

Anybody ever get around to building this CD controller? I picked it up from Jaycar the other day for $64.95 (KC5459).

Waiting for my soldering iron to come down from Canberra.

Yeah. But it is sitting a drawer in the shed waiting for me to remember to get the power supply to get it to go....I think I bought one from the tip shop. Too easily distracted I am!!

Anybody ever get around to building this CD controller? I picked it up from Jaycar the other day for $64.95 (KC5459).

Seems to have evaporated off their website.

Cheers,

Alan R.

Maybe if someone has the kit and the associated binary (or even better asm code) perhaps they would be willing to post. The Silicon Chip article could be scanned if anyone could get their hands on it. The circuit seems simple enough and could be modified to do even more than orignally intended!

I might be able to scan (Brother multifunction dependent) however there were 2x left at the Jaycar in Sunshine. The product code is KC5459 and was featured in the November/December Silicon Chip mag. The sales rep told me they usually remove items from their online site that are a few years old....

The reason I looked at this project was to mimic the Redgum Audio CD player.

http://www.redgumaudio.com/au/rg_frame.html

Maybe........even.....try putting a BDrom in it (IDE if I can find one) and see if it will work?

However, I am still waiting for my Solderer to turn up :-)

I’m a newbie on this site and was attracted to it when I Googled “Jaycar KC5459 Kitâ€.

Like many who have played with computers over a period, I have quite a few CD/DVD drives about the place and when I saw this Jaycar kit on ebay a few months ago I thought I’d give it a try. At around $40 the kit was unused and complete. The processor in this kit was pre-programmed so the kit did not have the extra components for programming via computer.

I only got around to assembling it a couple of days ago and have used an external drive case to house the drive and supply power to the drive and the controller. I have also used a regulated 12V plugpak to power the controller.

Unfortunately, I’ve found some drawbacks with the kit, and the idea of using it to make a reliable CD player with cheap, easily replaceable drive units.

Of the six drives I had available, Sony (2), Asus (2), Pioneer (2) and a Gigabyte, only the Pioneer DVD-RW 109D and the Gigabyte GO-W0404A were recognized. Both are DVD-RW drives. Even these drives are not recognized every time the device is powered up and a re-start is sometimes needed.

I was able to setup my Marantz CD remote to operate the device but frequently on power up I’m faced with the “Setup Remote†screen and have to go through the setup again.

Being able to use cheap, easily available computer drives was a possibility a few years back but is really no longer a proposition. Most new drives available today are S-ATA. If you find a new ATA drive it costs extra.

I’m a bit disappointed with the project so far. If I can, somehow increase the reliability of the device it may be worth proceeding with, but for now?

I've been toying with the idea of getting one of these ones. At only US$19.95 with a remote...

Thanks for the link Earle, I'm a glutton for punishment so I've ordered one!

Having it's remote supplied could mean that it's more likely to work consistently. We'll see.

No worries donh, let us know how you go with it.

Cheers, Earle.

I've been toying with the idea of getting one of these ones. At only US$19.95 with a remote...

G’day Earle, my CD drive control unit arrived this morning well packed in a Tupperware type box. No instructions of any sort but it had all the cables connected and appeared ready to go. It’s a lot neater and more compact than the Jaycar kit.

The DC supply connecting block is marked + and – but doesn’t indicate any voltage. It had to be either 5 or 12 Volts DC so I chose to start with 5 Volts.

I connected the IDE cable and switched on. The screen came up with a message with the name of the designer and version number and then “Checking IDE†but failed to recognize the drive (which had been recognized by the Jaycar kit). It seemed to recognize a second drive but didn’t identify it by brand etc.

At this point I found that the remote control didn’t do any thing, the play button on the front seemed to work but none of the others did. Then the display came up with some English and Chinese (?) characters and then went blank. It’s still blank! So I’ve finished up with a neat looking piece of useless junk.

I don’t mind taking a risk on these things if the price is cheap enough to chuck it if it doesn’t work. Over the last few years I’ve bought a few cheap Asian products like RF remote controls etc. and they have all been pretty useful and seem reliable.

What with this purchase and another, much more expensive one, it’s not been a good week for me. I bought a Valab DAC from Taiwan and I’m having trouble with that too. However, that’s another story.

Cheers, Don.

G’day Earle, my CD drive control unit arrived this morning well packed in a Tupperware type box. No instructions of any sort but it had all the cables connected and appeared ready to go. It’s a lot neater and more compact than the Jaycar kit.

The DC supply connecting block is marked + and – but doesn’t indicate any voltage. It had to be either 5 or 12 Volts DC so I chose to start with 5 Volts.

I connected the IDE cable and switched on. The screen came up with a message with the name of the designer and version number and then “Checking IDE†but failed to recognize the drive (which had been recognized by the Jaycar kit). It seemed to recognize a second drive but didn’t identify it by brand etc.

At this point I found that the remote control didn’t do any thing, the play button on the front seemed to work but none of the others did. Then the display came up with some English and Chinese (?) characters and then went blank. It’s still blank! So I’ve finished up with a neat looking piece of useless junk.

I don’t mind taking a risk on these things if the price is cheap enough to chuck it if it doesn’t work. Over the last few years I’ve bought a few cheap Asian products like RF remote controls etc. and they have all been pretty useful and seem reliable.

What with this purchase and another, much more expensive one, it’s not been a good week for me. I bought a Valab DAC from Taiwan and I’m having trouble with that too. However, that’s another story.

Cheers, Don.

I contacted the seller and, after a few e-mails and photos of my connections, he's sending me another control board.

The supply connection IS marked 5V but it's tiny and I didn't see it to start with.

Keep you posted. Don.

Hi Don.

Sorry to hear about the controller, but good news the seller is sending out another. Pretty rare these days.

Thanks for the update.

Cheers, Earle.

G'day Earle,

The new controller board arrived today and works OK as does the remote. These things seem to be a bit unpredictable in recognising drives. Pioneer 109D is ok as is an Asus CD writer/rewriter but one drive that was recognised by the Jaycar kit was not.

If you're going to muck about with computer drives, this is probably a better bet than the Jaycar kit.

I'm not a trained electronics tech. but I'd like to find out how to feed the Digital Out into a normal DAC. Any ideas?

Regards, Don.