Jason’s Blog

When I began to think about how I might do the tech side of this project, there were many options. I could use PD, I could use a sound chip, I could take apart a digital answering machine… The route that I decided to go with is a common cd player. This is how I wired my cd player to work with the logochip.
Step 1: I went to walmart and bought a $10 cd player that I didn’t care if I fried it.

Step 2: I took the cd player apart to see how it works. I noticed that it uses push buttons to send a signal telling the cd player to ‘play’ ’stop’ ‘vol up’ ‘vol down’ etc. I used a garden variety volt meter to learn what electronically the cd player is doing when I press a button. For most of the buttons, when no button is being pushed, +3 volts is flowing through the buttons. When you press a button, for less than a second, +3 volts goes to 0 volts.

 Step 3: I attached wires to the bottoms of the buttons so that I could plug the buttons into the breadboard.

 Step 4: To control the cd player with the logochip, you need to send a quick ground to the button. when the port on the logochip is set as an output, it is not sending any voltage, so if the cd player button is plugged into that port it doesn’t do anything, but as soon as you send a ground to that port, the button is activated.