Car cd player in a pc??
 

Was running a whole bunch of 3dmark benchmarks the other day, and thinking they should have included some music as once you've seen the tests run for the thousanth time they can get pretty boring, but i guess that would impact slightly on performace...

I went to put a cd in to listen to, but since my burner doesnt have a play/stop button it wasnt gonna work without using a software player. So i plugged my portable cd player into the line in and used that, but it doesnt have a seperate vol control for the line out, so without adjusting my speaker amplifier, or the windows vol control theres no way to change the volume...and the sound quality from it isnt all that great.

Anyway, this got me thinking. I've got a fairly decent sony cd head unit in my car that doesnt get used since i cant drive it, thinking it might just fit into a 5 1/4 bay i went and measured it, and its too big, requiring some minor mods to the case to get it in there. The other issue is power, it draws up to 10 amps @12v, if its using its built in amplifier, but with that disabled it would probably need less than 3 or 4 amps to run it, so it would be possible to run one from a decent power supply. The problem is that it needs a constant 12v line for its memory. It might be possible to run a converter from the 5v standby line though.

I figured this would be a pretty kickass addition to a pc, as with that i'd be able to listen/record those new copy protected cd's that dont work in cdroms, and have a completely independent audio source that could just plug into a spare input on the soundcard. It'd also look pretty cool too.

Am i dreaming or would this be possible??

That would be really cool! Don't know if it's possible though... I'd think you'd need an extra power supply though!.. anywho.. GOOD LUCK!!!!!!

Re: Car cd player in a pc??
 

Is there room in the case for a second PSU, a smallish brick type would do.

UJ

Not really. I do have a spare 300 watt ps, though theres no way it'll fit two ps' into my case. I could mount the power supply and head unit outside the case, but thats not really what i wanted to do...may as well just put an inline vol control from my portable and use that instead...

I might still need to get a full tower after all.

That's a fantastic idea. With a lot of effort I'm sure you could do it. What would be really cool would be to build your own case and incorporate the player and 12x CD changer into it so it was completly uber :cool:

if its a sony aftermarket piece, it prolly has line outputs. the amps needed might drop simply if youre not using the speaker outputs. plug the line outpus into your soundcard. also, you could simply get a 12 volt AC adapter and do some ghetto soldering and make that work. prolly easier on the PSU than the alternative.

if youre willing to throw a little time at it, it would work just fine.

Hey Atmo, why don'y you look into one of the micro PSU devices. Actually, on second thought...just drill a hole in the back of your case, and pass the power through that. GL with the idea :up:

yeah, wasn't there a screenshot in the "when case mods go well" thread that had a picture of a tower with a car cd player in it? im pretty sure there was. so do it! and then let us all see :)

I've found a problem. The head unit needs a constant 12v line for the memory, i've already thought about running a converter from the 5v stand by line, which should work...But if the power goes off, or if the power supply is switched off it will lose power and will have to have everything reset each time i move the thing.

That means im gonna need a battery for the memory. One of the small home alarm backup batteries would be sufficient, but would require a charger...unless i can run the charger from 12v it will have to be powered from outside the case....something i dont really want to do.

So basically this will require a second psu, a whole lotta mods to the case to actually fit it in, plus a battery and charger...

Seems like it might just be too much stuffing around. :hang:

but it'd be damn cool when it is done...:D