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CDROM control KITs VFD version

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#403
lestertrad said:
Okay. Can you tell me what the 14-pin and 7-pin connectors are called so I can try to find them? What type of connector are they? Are these Berg connectors?
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Just a PCB without any components.
 

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#404
I mean the connectors on the cable. The VFD display plugs into a 7-pin double female connector on one end of the cable. The other end of the cable is naked.

1) I need a 14-pin single female connector on that naked end?

2) What are these connectors called?
 
#406
Results of drive tests

Oh, well. So that means I can't put my existing LCD display on a cable either...

Here's the results of my tests:
Drives:
- Goldstar CRD-8240B April 1998
- Acer 640-172 Feb. 1999
- Goldstar CED 8080B June 2000 (CD/RW)
- Plextor PX760A Feb. 2006 (CD/DVD/RW)

- Goldstar CRD-8240B: Plays, but sometimes shows "Error Disc" display. Responds to some remote buttons in spite of error display. Oterwise works well, good sund. (This is supposed to be a refurbished unit.)

- Acer 640-172: Works pretty much as supposed to, but the sound seems inferior to the Goldstar CRD-8240B. Makes a "pop" sound when switching tracks, and when I press the middle bottom button, begins making a horrible humming noise. This is a drive that was in my computer for several years.

- Goldstar CED 8080B: excellent sound, but only plays the first track! Then it stops and displays the total no. of tracks. When individual track button is pressed on remote, displays track no. but then returns to display of total no. of tracks. And won't play.
BUT when uplugged from the CD-ROM kit, this drive plays normally! And since it is a two-button drive, I can use it perfectly well without the kit.

- Plextor PX760A: Works normally, excellent sound, but spins extremely fast, which is intrusive.
 
#408
Hi Huang,

Like Lestertrad, I am also interested in a cable. It is a 14-pin IDC type connector, is that right? The problem is that when I search for this type of cable, the normal type is 2 rows of 7 Pins, like this:

: : : : : : :

And we need like this, in one row:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It is needed if we are able to place the display where we want it. Do you know where to obtain? I can't find it on Digi-Key. Is this a part you might be able to source and put in your eBay store? I think many people would be interested.

I received the controller today, thanks. Can you email the users manual to randymosher at rcn.com?

Cheers,

--Buckapound
 
#409
Yeah, Buck, I sure would like to find a connector like that, but slowgay seems to think the only way is to solder the 14 wires to the pins. But then he has a little PCB with the proper connectors on it... Seems like you ought to be able to get board-type connectors and solder onto the pins using shrink tube to cover the connections...

Our stereo is in an ancient carved cabinet. The wife hates for the door to be left open. But it has a large crack in a door panel. What I wanted to do was put the IR receiver in the crack in the door and put the display up on top of the cabinet so we can operate it with the door closed.
 
#410
If you could get your hands on a single-ended cable with the right male (pin) connector end, you could desolder the pins from the board and solder the wires in there directly. A little bit of a pain, but at least that would get it to work.

I spent a few minutes on Digi-key and like I said, all the IDC type connectors seemed to be two rows of pins. I'll go back and take another whack when I have more time. It's easy to miss stuff in that giant book. One would think they would have what we need.

--Buckapound
 
#413
Thanks for the manual.

I've got the unit hooked up to a 5-year old Pioneer DVD burner and it's sounding good and working fine.

My ultimate goal is to make a portable player. The normal drives are a bit bulky, and so I bought a Plextor lap-top-size external drive, hoping to use it, as it would make for a smaller package. However, it has completely different (smaller) connectors, and further, the audio processing is done on the same circuit board as the I/O ports, so DAC would have to be external, which is doaqble, but further complicates the design.

Does anyone here have experience in this area. Is this arrangement typical for laptop drives? Are there laptop drives that use the standard 40-pin IDE connector? I suppose it would be theoretically possible to get the pinouts, and connect a cable to the relevant pins to control the drive while leaving the audio running through the drive's auxilliary board, but I really don't know what 'm talking about here.

Anybody have any suggestions? What would really be cool would be one more piece of hardware that would interface the CD-ROM controller through the USB port, making for a very simple hook-up, but now I'm just speculating.

--Buckapound
 
#415
But I don't think you can get digital out.
Click to expand...

Do you mean that the DAC is inside the drive and so, no SPDIF on any of the pins of the cable connector, or that there is no SPDIF stage anywhere and the signal finds its way to the analog audio output some other way?

Thanks for the info, glt. Do you know what the drive's smaller connector (with the plastic barier running down the middle and the contacts on either side of it) is called?

--Buckapound
 
#416
But I don't think you can get digital out.
Click to expand...

Do you mean that the DAC is inside the drive and so, no SPDIF on any of the pins of the cable connector, or that there is no SPDIF stage anywhere and the signal finds its way to the analog audio output some other way?

Thanks for the info, glt. Do you know what the drive's smaller connector (with the plastic barier running down the middle and the contacts on either side of it) is called?

--Buckapound
 
#417
When I was looking at slim (notebook) drives, I found some adapter in ebay (search notebook cd drive IDE adapter or something like that). Some adapters come with additional audio pins to tap the analog out of the drive. Some adapters did not come with the audio pins. But none had digital audio pins. I've never seen digital audio pins specified for a slim drive.

In addition I've opened one of those drives and looked at the controller chip and was not able to identify any digital audio pins. My conclusion is that the DAC is inside the controller chip and there is only analog audio output.

With regular size drives, you can have digital audio output and if you try hard, you can even tap on the I2S lines in the older drives where the controller chip was separate from the DAC chip. Hope this helps
 
#418
Anybody know a lot about laptop drives?

I've got a PlexWriter laptop drive plugged in through an adaptor, and it powers up just fine, but I'm stuck on the "Checking IDE" message.

I don't know whether the issue is that it is set to "slave" rather than "master." I found a three-position switch on the bottom of the board inside the drive, thinking maybe that was the purpose, but I've tried it in all three positions, but no success.

On an earlier page, someone mentioned doing some soldering to change the master/slave configuration on a laptop drive. Anybody know how to look for the proper place to do this?

The drive was purchased on eBay and the seller said it had been working.

Thoughts, suggestions anyone?

--Randy
 
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