ragen-fio
Member
I remember seeing this mod for a KSM-213C optical drive replacement on AliExpress a few years ago, and it always intrigued me, even though having an external drive is quite inconvenient. Later, I found a not so clear diagram showing how to install it, and thanks to the laser head's datasheet it was easy to understand how it worked.
The mod itself works pretty well, and I haven't encountered any issues reading discs, except for the sled mechanism, which is very slow. I believe this is due to the gear ratio being more suited to an audio player than a console, where the laser head has to move much more and therefore the sled needs to be faster, or on an audio player the motor works with an higher voltage.
My first attempt was with an adapter made with two 16 pin FPC breakout board connected with some AWG 30 wires to convert the pinout of the PS CD drive to the one of the KSM laser head, plus some wires for the power. Some times later, since I'm learning to design simple PCBs, as my first project, I designed an adapter to connect that optical drive to the console without any soldering. Due to its limitations It's not a groundbreaking mod, but it did, nonetheless, help me learn some of the basics of PCB design.
While waiting for the PCB to be made and shipped from JLCPCB, I made some adjustments, both aesthetically and functionally, to create a new revision. However, as of now, it's already fully functional.
When I receive the new PCBs, I'll share the Gerber file in case anyone is interested.
The mod itself works pretty well, and I haven't encountered any issues reading discs, except for the sled mechanism, which is very slow. I believe this is due to the gear ratio being more suited to an audio player than a console, where the laser head has to move much more and therefore the sled needs to be faster, or on an audio player the motor works with an higher voltage.
My first attempt was with an adapter made with two 16 pin FPC breakout board connected with some AWG 30 wires to convert the pinout of the PS CD drive to the one of the KSM laser head, plus some wires for the power. Some times later, since I'm learning to design simple PCBs, as my first project, I designed an adapter to connect that optical drive to the console without any soldering. Due to its limitations It's not a groundbreaking mod, but it did, nonetheless, help me learn some of the basics of PCB design.
While waiting for the PCB to be made and shipped from JLCPCB, I made some adjustments, both aesthetically and functionally, to create a new revision. However, as of now, it's already fully functional.
When I receive the new PCBs, I'll share the Gerber file in case anyone is interested.
