ESPer-CDP

While the FTP/NAS playback went nowhere — I have just wrapped up a 2+ month long move from Hokkaido all the way to Tokyo, with a job change at the same time — at last I have finally gotten a working changer drive with a working SPDIF port that would let me test the changer support of the firmware.

It is less finicky than the TEAC, albeit with more Quirk Flags enabled — then again, I presume any drive from the early to mid DOS era will be like that. If I manage to find the time to get it more stable, though, I might drop it in my primary unit instead of the regular drive I have in there, or build another one — now that I have more than one room, I could use more than one stereo, too :-)

More of a proof of concept than anything else, the thing crashes too much and the FTP client library needs quite a bit of work in the error handling department. But it does kinda play from my NAS!

The case is done, the software doesn't crash most of the times, I think that's good enough to call it complete for the time being! More photos under the cut.

The tray open looks somewhat like this:

The radio mode, somewhat like this:

(Of course, all the logos are placed just for fun without any certification [seriously, for a one of a kind hobbyist build?], except for the Crap From The Past logo — this one I actually got the permission for! :P)

Wouldn't be my build without a messed up datecode too!

This is actually the second attempt — the first one, that's in my rack right now, also has a second pair of RCA jacks for audio passhtrough when turned off, and a detachable power cable. Somehow our local Hard Off ran out of other power supplies so I had to reuse a GameCube power brick. Cheap and reliable!

Lyrics now have a border around them to clearly distinguish them from the metadata screen.

Which looks somewhat like this — layout shifted around a bit but the general gist is the same.

Upfront shot with the About menu open, where you can see a bit of the sad burn-in on the display.

At first I wanted to make a case out of sheet aluminium, custom made at a local case manufacturer.

Then I thought maybe I need to just 3D print something, 'cause of course I didn't buy the IPEX-equipped ESP32s this time so WiFi won't pass through the aluminium.

(Here's the Onshape workspace, by the way, in case you need the PCB sizes or a decently accurate SFF-spec CD-ROM drive size model)

But in the end, ultimately, I just bought a bunch of MDF sheets that looked like they were a suitable size, and some corner brackets which happened to fit perfectly, and here I am again making a 1970s case for a 1990s device rebuilt in 2025.

The PSU is now internal since I demolished an old broken DVD player which happened to have a suitable one, and despite having the insulation sheet on the primary side of it I'm still thinking I should probably do some fire-retardant coating on the inside, just in case.

Well that's just wonderful. A CD player that scrobbles my discs directly to my Last.fm account! :P

I'm starting to lose momentum and use AI generated code for this. Albeit I think it's not awful, but not good either. You can find the commit in the WIP github: https://github.com/vladkorotnev/cd-player/commit/4ed21f539889a2d5c68b7d00df741be7b8e5ac7d

Then again, the whole menu system is horribly unoptimized (allocate all things on the stack then copy, copy, copy!!), and yet it's completely human, no AI used! :P

Maybe one day I'll have the energy to fix it, for now I just wanna have a working thing!!

On which note it's mostly done I think, with the WiFi settings menu now in place. The only remainder is the radio URL input and selecting the CD track by number, and we're done!. Program playback, etc, maybe some day, but not for the first release.