Back-lit DVD's on Slot Drive
Well I bet you thought you did all you could to your
Pioneer Slot loading DVD drive?
Here's one more mod for this awesome drive.
This mod is an idea I came up with while playing with
LED's.
When you put a Superbright LED behind a CD the whole CD lights up.
Plus the effect depends on the angle the view is looking from, so the effect
moves as you move.
It also has a very nice effect when ejecting CD's and DVD's
-This drive will end up in my Media PC
The DVD Drive: A Pioneer 106S Slot Loading DVD
Very nice, rock solid stable. Dyed black in a previous mod
The LED, a Superbright Red LED
(These aren't even the brightest LED's in this system)
Running at 30mA through a 100Ohm resistor at 5Volts
At first I thought I would have to make a circuit to turn the LED on and off
whenever you inserted an DVD.
If not, it may interfere with the Laser (Which is also red).
But upon opening the drive I saw two micro switches at the very back of the
drive.
SW1 (top) is activated when no CD is in the system. And SW2 (Left) is activated
when a CD in inserted.
On the connector RED is SW1, BLUE is SW2 and White is Ground.
Well we can use these switches to make our LED automatically turn off when you
insert a CD.
By wiring the ground pin to the RED wire, or SW1.
When a CD in inserted into the system SW1 is disconnected from ground,
therefore making the LED disconnected from ground, turning the LED off.
The only thing left is to wire the Positive wire through an Resistor to +5volts.
I did this at the main power connector, which was right near the LED
(Note the extra wire on the resistor above was cut off before running)
With the LED on and secure you can use needle nose pliers to aim the LED out the
front of the drive.
This takes a little bit of testing to get the proper effect, centering, and
maximum intensity
Without a CD inserted the drive looks like this, you can barley see the RED
through the dust filter.
But insert a CD and you get a brilliant, bright glow across the whole CD.
With a very nice spectral effect that changes as your viewing angle changes.
From above you can see the whole CD it lit up
The overall effect is insane in person, and will leave your friends guessing how
you did it. (Tell them about me of course)