# CD player build log.



## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

Hello. This will serve to document my HTPC build. I wanted a htpc for YouTube and perhaps very light gaming.

Earlier this year I was at a Goodwill when I spotted this: 



A dirty and very very old CD player for the grand sum of $4. The back says DOM 1992. I had plans in mind from the moment I saw it, so I picked it up. Took it home and while it did work, it was part of a modular system and has absolutely no volume control on its own without the other units, so the volume was far too low to be useful, although it did work.



First step was to clean it up and remove everything from the inside. I even removed all of the emi shielding from the inside to reduce the risk of something being shorted.

Next I test fit components in the inside. Although ATX fit, I went with matx because of leaving extra room for other parts. I initially used a 760g motherboard. I didn't go itx because of cost and my only itx board was already in use elsewhere.

Next, I drilled holes in the bottom and screwed in standoffs in the appropriate positions for matx boards. Because you really can't thread anything into mdf, I used some glue to secure the standoffs.

Then, I had to cut an io cutout at the rear. This is really the worst part of the project. I don't have an angle grinder and my Dremel wouldn't cut it. I ended up butchering it with tin snips, but the job was done. While I was at it, I drilled some holes in the rear of the unit to mount an SSD to.

As I wanted this to still have CD/dvd playback ability, i test fitted a sata optical drive.

Next I needed a power supply. I tried test fitting ATX units, and they would not fit. I did measurements and sfx units would not work either, both with or without the odd as they were all too thick.

I was reccomended a Delta DPS400AB 1U server PSU. It is a 400w 80+ gold unit that has standard ATX connectors and most importantly is absolutely tiny. It is quite high quality by the looks too. Japanese caps, ball bearing fan, etc.

I test fit that and cut a power cord in half to make the cable come out of the original hole in the metal. I used several layers of heat shrink and tape after soldering.

I also rigged up a PC case button to the original power button to turn on the PC.




But, this had many, many problems. As you can see, there is no room between the odd and the PSU to actually hook it up. The heat of an fx4130 (125w) was another problem. The vrm wasn't really suitable, nor was the cooler, expecially with 0 airflow. I couldn't exactly mount a beefier cooler due to height limitations. I sidelined the project for months.

I have recently revisited it, and I will type that we an update.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

Recently I got some motivation to get it done, and I also acquired an AMD A8 7600 apu with a basic ASRock fm2+ board. This would have acceptable CPU performance with graphics better than your run of the mill Intel hd. Plus, I thought it might solve my heat problems as it's 65w. Unfortunately it didn't include an IO shield.





I still had the optical drive issue. I really wanted a functional CD player still, and no matter what I tried, a 5 1/4 inch odd wasn't going to fit. 

I tried to fit an laptop odd and had to get a bit creative, but it would work. I took off the faceplate from a spare optical drive and glued it to the front of the CD player. I took the front of the tray and mounted it to the tray of the laptop drive. 





That takes me to about where I am at now. Here are some photos.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

Here are the problems that I need to work on. Its still very much a wip.

Thermals. The 65w chip hasn't helped. The power supply has a 40 fan that is actually fairly quiet once it idles down, but as soon as you do anything to heat up the CPU even slightly, everything gets too hot. The PSU fan turns into a jet engine and the CPU fan goes full speed. The power supplys casing gets burning hot to the touch. I am going to try to add a fan or other ventilation.
I need a sata to slimline sata adapter to power the laptop ODD.
I need to properly mount the odd and PSU. The PSU is mounted on wood blocks taped in place. The odd is mounted on pieces of a cut up Amazon box, just for test fitting.
One foot is missing and is being propped up by a spent roll of electrical tape currently.
Here are some things I'd like to do in the future but aren't really problems.

1) overclock the memory. Slow ram and an apu don't mix.
2) rig an lcd where the old screen used to be on the CD player. The original lcd really won't work.
3) make the other buttons at the front have function in Windows. At the very least, I'd like the open/close button for the odd to function, as the button on the odd does not.


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## FreedomEclipse (Oct 23, 2021)

A suggestion if i may?



Add a row of Noctua 40 or 60mm fans where i have marked out in red on the case. Hook them up to a fan splitter or a fan controller that can be controlled via PWM and tweak the speeds or just let them do their thing.  A few of them should provide enough air flow.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

FreedomEclipse said:


> A suggestion if i may?
> 
> View attachment 222103
> 
> Add a row of Noctua 40 or 60mm fans where i have marked out in red on the case. Hook them up to a fan splitter or a fan controller that can be controlled via PWM and tweak the speeds or just let them do their thing.  A few of them should provide enough air flow.


Drill holes in the base?


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## freeagent (Oct 23, 2021)

Pretty Sweet! At first I thought this was a repair.. and I was like.. don't bother.. find a nicer unit.. but you turned  her into a pretty nice unit!


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

Just did this really quick. It is right above the exhaust to the PSU. Idea is the PSU draws air from where the CPU is, and this exhausts it from the PSU, rather than it just recirculating in the case. 

Fan hub is mounted to the top.


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 23, 2021)

Sorry to possibly add more work but have you thought of purchasing something like this to splice into the media controls?


			Amazon.com
		

Great job btw


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

Luckily it isn't multiplexed or anything. I'm not sure what the transistors or resistors are doing though. I guess I could use something like that but I'm not sure it would be easy to rig to work.


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 23, 2021)

They should just be momentary switches I would just scratch out the traces and piggy back from the original solder points to the switches in whatever media controller I was using.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

Well it was thermal throttling for a bit because the SATA cable for the fan hub was stuck in the CPU fan. Oops.

One fan grille overtop the fan later, it's not throttling. Its not exactly running cool, at about 10c below tj max under full load and fan at 100%, but it's passable. A bit of the issue is simply that there isn't much clearance between the CPU cooler and the the top cover. I don't think I can do much about that, though. Its a random oem cooler from an am2 PC that looks beefier than the cooler that the a8 would have been bundled with.

But I think I still need to improve airflow. I'll try some fans in that spot. The PSU is quieter but still loud now.

I don't have any other 40mm fans, but I do have a few 60mm ones. 

I could do 2 or I could do 3.


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 23, 2021)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> I don't have any other 40mm fans, but I do have a few 60mm ones.
> 
> I could do 2 or I could do 3.


Could mount them vertical and have them blow over the board


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

ThaiTaffy said:


> Could mount them vertical and have them blow over the board



They wouldn't have anywhere to get air from though


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 23, 2021)

You would still need to vent the bottom then.

I just tend to point fans at things rather than place them and hope for good airflow is all.


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## FreedomEclipse (Oct 23, 2021)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Drill holes in the base?



Top of the case but the fans obviously positioned inside pulling air into the case.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

I don't think I can do it on the top without it looking like rubbish, so I want to put them on the bottom or vertical


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 23, 2021)

Got a bit of airflow now. Not much, but better than nothing. I don't think pointing the fan at the motherboard is going to do much different than this, and it will be harder to mount that way. I'm just hoping the PSU+40mm exhaust fan combined with some fresh air coming in will improve temperatures at least a little, so the CPU cooler isn't sucking in the hot air it just spat out.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 24, 2021)

Adding the 2 intake fans and connecting them all to a hub set to 100% fan speed helped CPU temperatures. However, they are a bit noisy and the PSU fan keeps ramping occasionally which is very loud. I'll ignore that for now.

I do want to add something else to the list. Make it safe. Top priority. Currently my solution for powering the PSU was to cut a PC power cable on half, shove it through the hole where the original cable came from, and solder it back together. However, the metal is digging into the heat shrink. There are several layers so it will take forever to wear through enough to matter, but It still worries me. the metal surrounding it is NOT grounded, and having that live wouldn't be ideal.



My plan is to take the plug below (from an old PSU) and mount it to the metal chassis, and be sure to ground the chassis with a screw or something.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 24, 2021)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Drill holes in the base?


How tall is that chassis? I was thinking instead of 40-60 mm fans, if a 80-120 mm fan fits, that can draw air in from the side that would help temperatures.

By the way does the original display and buttons work?


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 24, 2021)

eidairaman1 said:


> How tall is that chassis? I was thinking instead of 40-60 mm fans, if a 80-120 mm fan fits, that can draw air in from the side that would help temperatures.
> 
> By the way does the original display and buttons work?


I suggested buying a cheap usb multimedia controller and piggybacking into it with the original buttons.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 24, 2021)

Nope, 80mm fans are too large to sit vertically. The chassis is not very tall at all. In fact I was going to use my stock cooler from an athlon 64 and it wouldn't fit.



eidairaman1 said:


> By the way does the original display and buttons work?


I am going to try to get it working at some point.



ThaiTaffy said:


> I suggested buying a cheap usb multimedia controller and piggybacking into it with the original buttons.


I may try that, but something like an arduino would be much more configurable and enable me to do things like make the optical drive open by the open/close button, and perhaps use it to display something to an lcd. But there is one problem. I don't know how to code an arduino  

I took a trip to everybody's favorite discount tool store and got some cheapo metal cutting wheels for my Dremel. I cutout a hole for the rear power plug. I also drilled out holes for the screws to mount it. I also used the cutoff wheels and a grinding bit to slightly clean up the horrible butcher cuts for the IO shield cutout.

Tomorrow I am going to pick up some black spray paint and solder. Ill paint the rear metal black and hook up the plug.

For safety I'll have the metal grounded to the ground pin of the plug via a screw.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 27, 2021)

Yesterday didn't go so well.

Paint got ruined because of the information on the can not matching reality. It said "dry to touch in 20 minutes, safe to handle in 1 hour" I let it longer than that before flipping it over to paint, but it stuck to what it was setting on and ruined the paint.

Wire wheel and then some alcohol to prep, and paint again.

I went to solder the cable and the plastic holding in one pin melted, causing the pin to be at an odd angle. When I plugged in a cable it broke.

New day, new socket.









Black paint at least helps to hide my butchered IO cutout a bit. The cutout for the power cable came out nicer (still imperfect) since I had the proper tool for the job.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 27, 2021)

The PSU the second jack came from had 2 80mm fans with grilles over them. I mounted one on the CPU fan. It will replace the Ill fitting 92mm fan on there rn.





Now that I think about it, I'll go spray paint that black.


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 27, 2021)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Yesterday didn't go so well.
> 
> Paint got ruined because of the information on the can not matching reality. It said "dry to touch in 20 minutes, safe to handle in 1 hour" I let it longer than that before flipping it over to paint, but it stuck to what it was setting on and ruined the paint.
> 
> ...


I stopped soldering IEC sockets years ago for this reason, soldering might be better than spade crimps but a bad joint is worse.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 27, 2021)

ThaiTaffy said:


> I stopped soldering IEC sockets years ago for this reason, soldering might be better than spade crimps but a bad joint is worse.


Yup cold solder joints lead to high! resistance


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 27, 2021)

eidairaman1 said:


> Yup cold solder joints lead to high! resistance


Yep exactly a good solder joint will most likely melt the plastic, a bad solder joint will melt the plastic, spade crimps ftw.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 27, 2021)

It's all assembled but I need some ideas for how to ground it properly. 








I covered it in hot glue for both some strength and added insulation. Looks kinda crappy but it works.

I tried to ground it by the convenient scree right below it (bare metal underneath where it contacts) but this has a problem 





Board can't be installed. Any ideas on how to ground it so that the board still fits?


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 27, 2021)

Screw it in here with the cable running parallel to the back of the case?


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 27, 2021)

I had considered that but for some reason thought it wouldn't work. I sanded down the area and touched up with a sharpie to make it look less bad.






While there is not much on the underside of the motherboard there, I do want some way to insulate it though. There isn't any locking with this screw, so it could back out. Any ideas?

Edit, had to really crank the screwdriver to get this srew in, but its in. It came from holding on the grounding to a psu


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 27, 2021)

Get your bukkake on and hot glue it


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 27, 2021)

After hot gluing that, I'm going to buy a right angle power cable and replace the plug on the internal cable with the right angle plug. otherwise it isn't going to fit easily now.
In the meantime, I'm going to mount the dual 40mm intake fans properly. I might have to get a bit creative though, since i cant REALLY thread screws into the material the base is made of.


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## ThaiTaffy (Oct 27, 2021)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> In the meantime, I'm going to mount the dual 40mm intake fans properly. I might have to get a bit creative though, since i cant REALLY thread screws into the material the base is made of.



Rubber pull-through's?


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Oct 27, 2021)

Don't stretch enough


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Nov 1, 2021)

Just went ahead and purchased a slimline sata to full size SATA adapter, as well as a right angle cable to cut the right angle plug from.

I'll find some more creative way to mount the fans.


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## Vayra86 (Nov 1, 2021)

Ghetto Modding, this.

I love the idea and now I want something similar.

Tape deck would be good fun too. USB ports under those hatches? 

Its also higher, you could probably fit full size stuff in there.


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## ThaiTaffy (Nov 1, 2021)

Vayra86 said:


> Ghetto Modding, this.
> 
> I love the idea and now I want something similar.
> 
> ...


Lan system in a 80s ghetto blaster would be cool


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Nov 1, 2021)

Oh, I forgot to mention. I got a RPI Zero 2 W from adafruit. I want to try some fun stuff with it, but after that I want to end up using it's gpio for making the front buttons work. Probably power it from the internal USB 3 header, if not a splice off the power supply. Voltage should be quite stable.



Vayra86 said:


> Ghetto Modding, this.
> 
> I love the idea and now I want something similar.
> 
> ...


I have a vintage reel-to-reel tape recorder in the basement, but it's far too nice to tear apart for this, so I opted to buy the CD player.

Original I actually went to the Goodwill in search of a vcr since they are usually larger, but they didn't have any and this CD player is fairly large.


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## droid-I (Nov 2, 2021)

> Drill holes in the base?


Interesting build project. A masonite base board as you have there, surely no harm adding some air went through there also. Reminds me of old tube radios, they have the "backplane" perforated.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Nov 4, 2021)

Still waiting on the right angle power cord and slimline sata adapter, but I can work on the buttons now at least.


I have seen some software that runs on Raspbian that should let me use the GPIO as a keyboard input for the CD player. I have a micro SD but am not sure how to write Raspbian to it since I can't find a micro SD to USB adapter for my computer. I did have one but it broke awhile back if I remember correctly. I could buy a micro SD to full size adapter and shove it in my laptop, but for the meantime, I was wondering...

Is there any way I can use an Android phone with a micro SD card slot to write the iso to the micro SD? Not sure how


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Nov 7, 2021)

Got some stuff done!

1) Added hot glue to cover the ground screw.
2) Soldered a right angle power cable end onto the inside power cable. Helps clearance.
3) I trimmed down some plastic on the front bezel. This allows the fans to be mounted flatter. Unfortunately the fans have to be as exhaust. I flip them over as intake, the screw holes on that side of the fans have a bigger diameter which the screws cannot thread into. I figure some airflow is better than none, so I mounted them anyhow. Covered the bottom up with tape to make it look better.
4) Scratched out all of the traces on the front board and removed the extra components. Now I will just connect some wires to each button directly. 

I have ordered a pin header to solder to the pi, and a micro SD to SD adapter so I can write Raspbian to the card.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Nov 7, 2021)

Next steps:

1) I need to make a platform for the optical drive that isn't cardboard so it can be mounted properly.
2) Modify the current PSU platform. Its currently on a block of wood, which can stay, but it just needs a way to be mounted to the PSU. I can mount it to the case by running some self tappers through the base of the unit.
3) Prepare the pi by soldering on the GPIO header and getting the appropriate software situated. 
4) Wire the front buttons up to connectors that can hook onto the GPIO of the Pi

I will also check the thermals with the current fan configuration and see if they need some adjusting or if they are fine. If they aren't great, I will seek out a better low profile CPU cooler and some better case fans. After that I'll work on some tuning in bios. Undervolting CPU/IGPU, overclocking ram for better performance, tuning fan profiles.


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## micropage7 (Nov 7, 2021)

RyzenMaster.sys said:


> Yesterday didn't go so well.
> 
> Paint got ruined because of the information on the can not matching reality. It said "dry to touch in 20 minutes, safe to handle in 1 hour" I let it longer than that before flipping it over to paint, but it stuck to what it was setting on and ruined the paint.
> 
> ...


nice, but some components that not use much copper is harder to get soldered, maybe you could sandit a little and using flux


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Nov 7, 2021)

Could have tried that, but I got it on second attempt. I'm using rasin core leaded solder which makes it easier a bit.

I just did a quick thermals test, and it's looking fairly grim. Better than before as It's not throttling, but the CPU alone runs 20c hotter with the lid on than off. The PSU fan is quieter now, but not idle.

I am going to try to make some changes to improve airflow further.


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## RyzenMaster.sys (Nov 10, 2021)

Got the pi up and running with Raspbian and I think this would be what I need.









						Pi Peripheral
					

Landing gear down and strobe lights active. How to add physical buttons, switches and dials to control computer actions with a $10…




					simon-aubury.medium.com


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