Fail Of The Week: [Caleb’s] Phosphorescent CD Player

October 17, 2013 by Mike Szczys 35 Comments

When [Caleb Kraft] was in full production for Hackaday he pumped a pile of awesome videos. But not every project worked out. He’s been a fan of the Fail of the Week posts, and sent in his own recollection of a project gone wrong. Above you can see his phosphorescent CD player. He prototyped the project in May of last year but technical issues and looming deadlines meant it never saw the light of day. We’ll fill you in on his fail after the jump.

Editor’s note: We need more tips about your own failure! There are a handful of submissions left in our reserves, but to keep this topic as a weekly column we need help tracking down more failed projects. Please document your past failures and send us a link to the write-up. If you don’t have a blog to post it on you may do what [Caleb] has done and email us directly. Remember to include any images and links to video which you may have.

Continue reading “Fail Of The Week: [Caleb’s] Phosphorescent CD Player” →

CD Phonograph Brings Old-time Charm To Modern Music

March 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 23 Comments

phonograph

[Jozerworx] had always wanted to build a CD player that looked like an old-time Victrola Phonograph player, though he never seemed to be able to find the time to do it. With all of his other projects out of the way, he decided to finally get started on building his phonograph.

He went garage sale hunting and found the perfect base for his project – an old wooden box adorned with tarnished brass hardware. He started in on the project immediately, dismantling a cheap CD player and mounting the motor/laser assembly on the top of the box. The CD player internals were installed inside the wooden box, along with a small audio amplifier stripped from a portable iPod speaker.

A brass horn was fashioned out of an ornament, in order to complete the phonograph feel, but also to act as a passive amplifier. He then mounted a series of switches on the top of the box to allow him to control the CD player’s basic functions.

[Jozerworx] says that it sounds decent, though there are some things he would change. He plans on switching out the audio amplifier and possibly the speakers at some point in the future. He is also still keeping his eye out for a larger, and more effective horn.

Steampunk CD Player

February 5, 2011 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

This custom CD-player enclosure may not be your style, but you can’t deny that the fabrication techniques are top-notch (translated). This starts with a portable CD player and a set of amplified speakers. A brass plate serves as the base for the electronics, with the CD player internals mounted from the underside. The brass dome that covers the spinning disk also started as a sheet of metal, with quite a bit of work (translated) going into shaping and smoothing to achieve these results. The base and speaker boxes exhibit some fine woodworking, and there’s even additional electronics for lights, control buttons, and to drive the two analog meters. A lot of thought went into each component of this build and that’s how you put together a masterpiece.

[Thanks Polossatik]