Turning an Utrium Tape streamer into a CD Transport

AVForums

Help Support AVForums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Bravick

AVForums Veteran
*
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
395
Reaction score
16
Location
Kimberley
Hi all,

Thought I would share this puzzle. No rocket science to it, so not realy a full on diy project. Maybe it inspires someone.

So I have this Quantum Ultrium LTO 2 external scsi tape streamer in mint condition that is a remnant of the era when we still used tape streamers to perform backups on servers.

I still have 3x Creative IDE CD Rom's stashed for this project since 1999. They are 60x (and 56x) CD Roms that comes standard with remote control and basic face panel controls for play, pause, skip etc. It also has analogue outs (not important), headphone out (semi usable, but not with 300 Ohm Sennheisers) and TTL level SPDIF outputs. What makes them even more special, is that they have a glass lens for the laser and not plastic like the later drives.

The internal tape streamer and the cd rom is the exact same size, so it's a no brainer. Internal psu is very good. The chasis is rock solid with copper strapping over the drive.

I swopped the drives and programmed my Logitech Harmony 650 with the Creative 18oo codes, and low and behold - instant cd transport.

The need realy arised from me wanting a half size cd transport for my expanding headphone system. The JLH headphone amp, Millet Minimax, Dac and Mede8er 500X2 are all half size. Got tired of taking the Arcam out of the main system. A Raspberry Pi3b with Allo Digione signature will replace the Mede8er soon.

Things to do:

Buy a decent controller later on that incorporates a display etc. For now it works fine on a basic level, thanks to the Creative's built in functions and remote. They are R300 - R400 odd on fleabay.

Make a new face panel that has room for the above display, buttons etc.

Replace the noisy fan with a new 12v one running at 7v.

Built the TTL to SPDIF converter as per Rod Elliot. Maybe add the Lampizator tube buffer for SPDIF. Plenty of room to experiment.

Change the CD Rom colour from the standard cream colour to black.

Make a new rear panel for the SPDIF connector and maybe stereo rca's. The current back panel attaches with 4 screws.

The bottom line is - it works as is and was a 30 minute job so far. The final touches will take some more time.

Attached is some pics (from the net) of what I started with. Will post pics of the final product once I'm done. Should be by sunday.

Pic's of internals to follow as well.

Regards,
Gideon
41c7d21c96041b6102085f480216bb1e.jpg
796720fbd1908d46902fac6a1226e73b.jpg
0fe1fe9e621a86a79dae181b9839575e.jpg
b4ae20f59ee59df50e89b548845c266f.jpg


Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 
Top