Although there is a small custom LaCie firmware that's stored on an EEPROM (24Cxx type). Next step will be to try to dump that using a tiny EEPROM USB burner that I've ordered, leading to no loss of quality in that aspect either. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
It's about quality not speed
I've been investigating several chipsets, the following companies produce good quality chipsets; Texas Instruments (TUSB6250 USB), NEC (D720133GB), Cypress (CY7C68300-56PVC) and Philips (ISP1581). In the mean time I ordered several second hand, high quality enclosures. One of those was an older type LaCie DVD burner. I opened it up to see what the PCB was made of. It turned out to contain the NEC (now Renesas) D720133GB, which is no longer in production. The PCB implementation proved to be straightforward, and looking at the NEC D720133GB datasheet and performance, we clearly have a winner here. I investigated if the chipset is still for sale, it turns out it is! Once I found a reference NEC USB/IDE implementation (LaCie clearly did a one on one copy!) I knew I was on the right track, no need to reverse engineer anything in that aspect. Since then I've been sourcing all the components, filling in the dimensions and putting a schematic together (like LaCie a one on one copy of the NEC implementation). Here is a partial screenshot of what I've been designing myself:
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Haven't had a day off until now so I've tried to do some work in the evening hours. During my Christmas holiday (a week from now) I'll be able to actually do some designing and make some proper progress.
Uptill now I've been busy with the outline of the project. First and foremost the dimensions of the PS3 drive are not your standard 5.25". This means I cannot simply buy an of the shelf external enclosure and slap the drive into that. So I've been looking at several aluminum enclosure manufactures and see what the options are for customized panels.
I found tons of manufactures with loads of options so there is nothing to worry about, really. I'll leave that topic for now as it depends on the dimensions of the PCB board that will be fitted inside the enclosure.
And more importantly it's about the stability of the ripping process after all. The PS3 drives that support SACD have a 60 pin IDE compatible connector. IDE (PATA) is ancient technology, so I currently see two options here; #1. design a PCB myself (with the help of Patrick :)), #2. buy an of the shelf 3.5" IDE enclosure and design a small PCB that converts the 60 pin IDE connector to a standard 40 pin IDE connector. The latter has my personal preference as I'll be able to buy an already tested and proven IDE enclosure that comes with power-supply and a PCB that can be fitted into our custom made enclosure. But what's a good chipset? We should definitely not end up with the JMICRON JM20337 it has the worst stability issues I've come across. I would also like the power-supply to be fitted with an IEC connector so the power-supply can be used everywhere. For testing purposes I've ordered an enclosure that's fitted with the Initio INIC 1511 chipset, it's not expensive but stable. So I'll first concentrate on the 60 pin <-> 40 pin converter. More to come..
Uptill now I've been busy with the outline of the project. First and foremost the dimensions of the PS3 drive are not your standard 5.25". This means I cannot simply buy an of the shelf external enclosure and slap the drive into that. So I've been looking at several aluminum enclosure manufactures and see what the options are for customized panels.
I found tons of manufactures with loads of options so there is nothing to worry about, really. I'll leave that topic for now as it depends on the dimensions of the PCB board that will be fitted inside the enclosure.
And more importantly it's about the stability of the ripping process after all. The PS3 drives that support SACD have a 60 pin IDE compatible connector. IDE (PATA) is ancient technology, so I currently see two options here; #1. design a PCB myself (with the help of Patrick :)), #2. buy an of the shelf 3.5" IDE enclosure and design a small PCB that converts the 60 pin IDE connector to a standard 40 pin IDE connector. The latter has my personal preference as I'll be able to buy an already tested and proven IDE enclosure that comes with power-supply and a PCB that can be fitted into our custom made enclosure. But what's a good chipset? We should definitely not end up with the JMICRON JM20337 it has the worst stability issues I've come across. I would also like the power-supply to be fitted with an IEC connector so the power-supply can be used everywhere. For testing purposes I've ordered an enclosure that's fitted with the Initio INIC 1511 chipset, it's not expensive but stable. So I'll first concentrate on the 60 pin <-> 40 pin converter. More to come..
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