The Porkman luggable music player
Why oh why would anybody want to do this anyway ?
There are off course many extremely cheap cd music players on the
market, and indeed, cheap and nasty CD portable players can be had for
$30 or less from the many assorted cheap and nasty shops. They are
allright provided that you dont care if they fall apart after a few
days.
My need for the Porkman arose
when I was transcribing old vinyl records into CD format for my elderly
parents, for whom the ritual and palaver and dexterity required to play
a old fashioned vinyl record had become too much and I was asked to do
something about it. My general purpose radio/tape/cd player was
unable to play nearly all the music cds that I had created, so I had to
burn them on faith alone. It is a fact that many cheap CD music
players cannot read CD-R or CD-RW disks, especially the cheap "blue"
disks. Maybe your "hi-fi" cd player cannot playCD-R or CD-RW.
I have often come across cd rom
drives in discarded pooters in skips or on council hard rubbish
collections. The plain old readers that nobody wants anymore
still make perfectly good CD players. Look out for the rarer type that
claim 48 speed and have a dedicated play button, volume control and
headphone jack. They nearly all will correctly load and read all CD-R
and CD-RW media. The audio output quality is not spectacular from
the little headphone driver amplifier but it is adaquate for all but
the most demanding audiophile. The old CD drive needs nothing
more than DC power being 5 volts and 12 Volts to operate. Units
without a play button really are useless, let them continue their
journey to landfill. It is also worth investing in better
headphones, the more money you spend on headphones the better the sound
you get. The $12 cheap and nasties are not worth $12. Spend the $70 old
dollars for a entry level Sennheiser, you will not be dissappointed.
Its not worth presenting a circuit, it is self evident. A 5V and a 12V
three terminal regulator step down voltage from a mystery 15V plug
pack. The 5V regulator gets quite hot so give it at least a token heak
sink. RCA jacks on the low level audio output are suitable for
driving "hi fi" amplifiers or other consumer sound equipment.
Surface mount components on a PCB made by the dremel method.