Project: Macintosh DVD Player

I got an old Macintosh for free from computer lab at my school, and deciding that I couldn't do anything worthwhile on it, nor did i feel like fitting a PC inside of it, I decided to make a DVD player out of it. This project is not done, I have finals next week and I don't have many tools here at school, but here is the start of it.


Here we have the Macintosh Centris 610, which had a production run of about 6 months, not very popular.


The CyberHome CH-300s DVD player. This small dvd player is very inexpensive and is easily unlocked to be region free. It retails for $40 but I got a broken one on ebay for $3.


This is the 'broken' DVD player, a common problem with this DVD player is that the power supply often overheats and dies. Luckily it uses 5v and 12v DC so I can use a regular power supply to replace the busted one.


Since I will be using the power supply from the mac, all I need from the DVD player is the drive and circuit board underneath.


This is the mac already stripped on the inside of its motherboard and plastic holders for drives, along with its floppy drive removed. The only thing needed is the power supply.

The dvd drive will be stealth, behind the middle bay. I plan on using a QT110 touch sensative switch with the sensor behind the apple logo to eject the drive. The IR sensor will be behind the floppy slot. I think those are all the details. I won't be able to work on this for a few weeks as I stated above, but if anyone has any questions or wants to see more pictures, just post. Also if you have any ideas you thing would go well with this retro mac dvd player, please post them too.

 

Thats awesome, im trying to get an old mac server from one of our labs... I hope that this turns out nice, though i wouldnt want a mac anything sitting on my tv...

 

nice idea

are you going to paint the case of it or will it be in its original colors?

 

one word:

 

Thanks for the replies. As for painting the case, it will be its original colors. The idea is to make it look like an old mac, unmodified, hence the touch sensative eject rather than having a button on the front of the case. The only thing I will probably be painting is the remote. I want to vinyl die it beige like the case and then paint a little classic mac logo on the top.

 

I just used my multi-meter to check the voltages of the power supply and the 5v line is 5.18, but the 12v is more like 10.7. Anyone think this is a cause for concern? I'm going to check where the 12v line on the DVD player goes to, maybe it can handle the 10.7v.

 

The motors won't be able to spin at the correct speeds so far below spec. You may need to buy a replacement PSU, possibly something in a 1U or TFX12V specification.

 

yeah, I just checked the original power supply for the dvd player and it was outputting over 19v on the 12v line and only 4v on the 5v line. I think i'll just try this power supply and if it doesn't work it can't do as much damage as the original power supply being hooked up to it. if this doesn't work i have a low profile dell power supply i could try.

hope it works, right now i've only spend $3 on this project and being a poor college student i'd like to keep it that way

edit: oh, and the motor that spins the drive is controlledby a chip that probably regulates the voltage supplied to the motor, so i don't think there will be a problem with the speed the cd spins at.

 

update: w00t, it works with the power supply supplying 10.7v. I have it plugged in and running a movie, i think i'll watch a full movie tonight before i put it in the case.

edit: i will not be posting any more as I have achieved the coveted "69 Dude!" sig ;-)

 

haha that is a pretty cool idea i want to see how it turns out.

 

19v on 12v line? holy crap! I'm amazed that didn't kill it... that's like 60% over! I was thinking of picking up one of those players myself (small, cheap, etc)... at least I'm forewarned

 

why do you think its so common for the PSU to die in these players? cause there cheap.

 

well I heard that the newer ones might be better, but I'd just pick up a broken one on ebay and replace the power supply, cause they're even cheaper.

as for replacing the psu, you could use any computer pwer supply, but perhaps an xbox or dreamcast power supply would work too, I don't know how big the power supplies are on these systems. I mention the xbox and the dreamcast because the xbox probably uses 12v and 5v since its like a computer, and the dreamcast because its so small.

 

yeah, I'm glad i read reviews before i bought one, almost spent $40 on one at best buy. but if you get one on ebay and replace the power supply as i stated in my above post, it will hopefully last, and it's a kick-ass player, i made mine region free so i can watch my dvds from the UK

 

Slow updates, got finals on thursday and friday to study for. Here is a pic of the cable I made to plug the DVD player into the standard moldex connector:

And here is the drive mounted in the case:

I was just going to glue the front panel onto the drive, but I couldn't find any glue in my house that I thought would hold it. I thought hot glue would come off too easily, but I figured I'd try it anyway and it worked great... but then I had an alignment issue when the tray closed

so i think i'm going to mount the front 'door' to the panel, with a spring to keep it closed, and the dvd drive ejecting will open the door