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.