PC Peripherals How to Transform a CD-ROM Drive into a Car CD Player

E

Eazy

Skilled
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/71

To be used as CD player, the CD-ROM drive doesn't need to be connected to the computer. This way, it is possible to easily transform a CD-ROM drive into a Car CD player. Sounds crazy? Not so. With this tutorial you will be able to have a CD player in your car without spending almost anything.

The CD-ROM drive to be use may be of any type, from the first models ("1x") until the most modern ones ("60x"). The only prerequisite is that the drive needs to have is an earphone plug and volume control. And practically all CD-ROM drives have that.

There are two great advantages in transforming a CD-ROM drive into a Car CD player. First, who will want to break your car window to take CD-ROM drive? And, secondly, since any type of CD-ROM drive can be used, you may take an old drive that is just dusting away in your house (for instance, a 2x drive from an old 386 computer), which brings the cost down to almost nothing.
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the major problem we faced was in the event of a pothole ..... unfortunately there are too many in indian roads ..... it skips some times if there is too much vibration ......
 
Well couple of down-sides to this method:

1. Your CD is bound to skip since your regular CD-ROM drives arent designed to handle bumps/shocks.

2. Dont forget, you still need an amplifier to run the output of the CD-ROM drive into (unless your cassette player has some form of auxillary input.)

3. As per the page, a bit of circuitry is needed to get the desired 12v, 5v line from the car battery using a 7805 regulator (or perhaps even a 723 regulator)

4. Your audio quality depends significantly on the headphone jack output of the drive, which in most cases is pretty low/average. Most CD-ROM drives use pretty low quality DACs in this section of the drive.
 
@Eddy - You just cant compare a CD Player to this setup.
Cmon this costs nothing just a CD Rom and and IC.

Where as a professional Audio CD player will cost more than 5K.

How can you compare.
 
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Well you dont need a really High Watt Amplifier for this.

If you do this, then your bound to have only 2 6 by 9 speakers @ the back :p.

If you are ready to spend 11k for woofers and speakers, then youd rather pay 5k for a good Deck.

This is just for a person who doesnt have enough money to upgrade his whole system.

Quality is low eh. Sad :(.
 
I was on a shoestring budget last year....

Unfortunately, the 1000/- spent on this setup wasn't really worth it for the simple reason that a CD driver without skip protection is useless on Indian roads
 
I think you'd be better off getting a cheapo portable CD player (which usually has some amount of skip protection), and then running the output from there. No voltage worries either! :)
 
I think you'd be better off getting a cheapo portable CD player
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Naah...they have sucky skip prtection...I tried taht option too...Doesn't work too well....

Actually, I ended up spending 1000 (on the cd drive) and 1500 (on a cheapo player) +another 500 odd on the cassette adapter + power supply (7805, 7812 and a car adapter for the cheapo cd player)

All of this went down the drain as I had to finally buy a 7K sony xplod MP3 cd player with the initital 3K just gone down the drain.....

Trust me on this..I have burnt my fingers twice.....

If you really want to do it cheaply, get a decent skip protection discman (Sony) or an equivalent Panasonic/Aiwa as a few of my friends use that in their car with good results....
 
It is useful only if you have an existing car cassette deck with line in facility. otherwise it is not worth the hassle.
placing the cdrom drive below the drivers seat somehow reduces the vibrations and the consequent skipping a lot.
Had tried it years ago hence the conclusion about placement ....

for those interested in playing mp3's and VCD a better option / mod will be to get one of those cheap vcd decoder cards (Rs. 350 ~400 approx.) it is a very small card (about 3~4 x 2 1/2 inches) and has everything built in except for amplification.
but instead of 7805 Voltage regulator you will need an another 7808 regulator since the decoder card requires +5V and +8V to function.this card can be fitted inside a pc cdrom case with some intelligent modifications.
and if you spend another 250 bucks you can get a display module (color) with remote sensor. the card, as i have mentioned before , has everything built in including I/R remote , lcd display support etc.....it is just a matter of hooking up the relevant wires.

ps: the same thing can be done to a dvd rom too. you get dvd decoder cards for about Rs.650 (mediatech chipset). it has everything builtin too including dolby digital (5.1) support / output, composite video output etc.....the complete works .....

NB: you get good branded "pioneer" , "blaunkpaunt" car CD mp3 players (rated output from 18 x4 to 50 x4) for around 4K to 5K in the grey market here in mumbai.
some good koreans oem's are for around 3.2K to 4K
and some chinese ones cost .... well depends upon ur bargaining power ....
 
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