Scrapped DVD Player Turns Into A Full Featured Clock

[Dmitry] really went the distance with this project. It started as a broken DVD player scrapped for parts, and turned into this clock with way too many features. That link is a pretty a dry technical collection of the work. You’ll definitely want to have a look at it, but we’d suggest first watching the demo video after the break which is initially much more exciting.

The donor DVD hardware included a Vacuum Fluorescent display which is the nugget which [Dmitry] was after. But that board came along with some other nice things, like an integrated IR receiver. He also chose to use the PSU from the device. An Arduino is used to drive the clock. We’re not sure where he found it, but the video shows the service manual for the DVD player which must have a been a real help in interfacing with the display. The white dome on the right is a PIR motion sensor. It brings the device out of sleep mode when someone is in the room.

The case is laser-cut and started as cardboard to ensure everything fit as designed. The enclosure makes it a showpiece, but the features of displaying day, date, time, and temperature make it functional as well. Since the VFD is alpha-numeric we think this could even see future upgrades to be used as a new-mail/tweet/IM alert as well.

14 thoughts on “Scrapped DVD Player Turns Into A Full Featured Clock

    1. You know, I took apart a DVD player a few years ago, it was very wide, no idea why, so I popped it open to see the innards. I had the front control board for the display and buttons, that connected to a small board that connected to an IDE DVD Drive, popped it into my computer, and had a nice DVD drive. Still no idea why it was so wide, it was so empty! Don’t know why it wouldn’t read DVD’s anymore either…

  1. i have a old cheapo sears brand 5.1 suround all in 1 dvd/raido/alarm clock system. dvd drive is shot as is its remote ,id love to strip it down to just the amp/raido parts.make for a nice 5.1 amp for puter

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