Guide Re-wired DVD Activity LED and Eject switch -Guide

http://www.zapwizard.com/MediaPC/DVD_Eject_Led

Ok here is the next two mods I did to my Pioneer Slot DVD.
Re-wired the Eject and Activity LED to the Audio Connector on the back of the DVD drive.
This drive will end up in my Media PC
Another VERY clean, perfectly working mod.

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The LED will end up wired to another circuit, to provide even more enhancement.
The Eject switch will be re-located to another part of the PC.

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The DVD Drive: A Pioneer 106S Slot Loading DVD
Very nice, rock solid stable. Dyed black in a previous mod

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First the Eject switch.

Using a continuity meter I found that when pressed the switch shorts it's pin to ground.
If the Switch Pin is shorted to ground, the DVD ejects.
So we only need to solder one wire from the Switch Pin to our Jumper,
as it is very easy to find a ground on another part of the board.


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The LED is wired from +5Volts, though a 360Ohm resistor to a transitor.
When that transistor is activated the LED wire is shorted to Ground (Through the resistor)
The LED then lights. Again we only need to solder one wire to the LED pin,
as we can get 5volts from another part of the DVD's PCB.


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Where am I re-routing the wires?
To the audio Connector, no one uses these anymore (If you turn on Digital Audio Extraction in windows)
The two outside pins carry the Audio, and the Two inside pins are Ground

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So you need to cut the traces on the board in order to get the Switch Wire, LED wire, and +5Volts onto the connector.
Make cuts with an Exacto-Knife where noted in the picture.
DOUBLE CHECK THE CUTS using a continuity meter.
Especially double check the middle cut, as we will be re-wiring +5 Volts to a pin that used to be wired to Ground.
If there is any connection left from this pin to the PCB, you will most likely fry your power supply or the PCB

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Once the cuts are made, you can solder on the wires from the LED, Switch, and +5Volts.
The ground for the Switch is already wired for you.
I got +5Volts from the main power connector at the back of the drive.


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Once wired up you should have something like this

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Now using a common CD audio cable you can access your
Eject Switch and LED from the back of the DVD Drive.
Plus you have no ugly wires or extra jumpers to worry about.
Very clean modification.


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Once completed you can wire the Eject and LED any way you wish.
This mod also does keep the original LED, and eject switch intact.

 

Now we just need to see it mounted.

At least this guide didn't suggest your try to read LEDs in your DVD-ROM

 

this is perfect for the desk intigration project i was about to start thanks ZAP you the man

 

gr8 job! Really nice!

That was exactly what I was looking for! DVD here I come!

 

is this mod for your media box?

 

Very nice. Keep up the good work.

 

Yes, the only other thing will be ViperZ's lighting mod.

 

doh! my speed reading skills are fadin'

 

me can use this for me xbox - pc mod usin the eject button on the front of the xbox and the activity led as well love u zappy! saved me a lot of time and poking around and posiblle a couple of dvd drives in the process

 

Thanks for the guide! I'm gonna be using this for my MacToPC project

 

If I only want to relocate the eject-button, then I could skip everything that has got anything to do with soldering the LED-cables without that being a problem, right?

 

Yes, just ignore the LED stuff.

 

Zap-Just like the last poster,
If I wanted to just do the eject portion, could I just solder an extension wire switch to the gnd and switch of the existing switch? Thanks

 

Yes, you can solder directly to the switch with no problems.
I like tracing the wire further back so that I don't have a long loose wire inside the drive.

 

most intresting use of those (previously) useless headers on the back of the optical drive. i don't like the idea of having my drives soldered to one another or anything else. i like having the option to unplug them and take them out when im working on the computer. as usual good idea there zap

 

i tried something like this on my cd burner but for some reason the drive kept on opening and closing. i made sure my soldering job wasnt shorting out on the case or anything but it kept on happening. has anyone else had this problem or know how to fix it?

thanks

 

The wires to the switch may be picking up RF noise and activating the eject.
Does it seem random or does it constantly open/close.

If random it's probably RF, and a 10K pull-up resistor could fix it.
If it's constant then it's probably a short somewhere.

 

just off topic zap, why did u cancel the media pc project?? it was going so well and it was gonna be great!!!

Snood

 

It was going to be great, but it wasn't going so well.
The truth: I lost interest after I got free DVR with my digital cable, and the media PC would only be able to do analog cable, and require lots of software work.