[Mercifull]

I had a bit of free time this weekend so rather than sensibly working on my unfinished projects like the Minirad and Proton Pack upgrades I thought I’d have a crack at the possessed Sony Discman from Frozen Empire.

Now I want to be clear that I neither have the tools nor the talent for a screen-accurate replica and I also couldn’t justify current eBay prices for the yellow Sport Discman D-421SP. I did, however, have a broken CD player in my box of random electronics junk as well as having my old r/c transmitters from my model aircraft flying days.

Adam Savage did a cool behind the scenes recently and we got to see a fantastic shot of the inside of the real screen used prop. I was able to identify that it uses the following:

• Futaba T16IZ transmitter (approx £550)
• Futaba Ripmax R7008SB receiver (approx £100)
• Savox HV digital servo (approx £65)
• 2S Lithium Polymer battery (Approx £15)

Plus any other bits and bobs probably over £750 of parts not including props masters time to build.



But could I make one for more like £20? I already had the CD player, I already had the transmitter. But I’d need a smaller receiver and battery as the ones I had were too thick to fit in the CD player. I’d also need a new micro servo for space constraints as all mine were large and meant for planes.

After acquiring all the parts I needed I spent:

• Battery (£5.85)
• Micro receiver (£9.40)
• Servo (£3.72)
• Futaba to Molex adapters (£5.14)

Total £24.11 so a little over budget but that’s because I needed some Futaba servo connectors to mini Molex adapters for the receiver unit which I hadn’t considered. I also bought a second hand Spin Doctors CD for £2.34 from Music Magpie.

After a fair bit of tinkering with layouts, cable routing and snipping out all sorts of plastic pillars, posts and walls I had what I thought could work. I utilised the original battery compartment area for the rechargeable battery I am using, the receiver just pokes up slightly into the cut-out area due to height and the servo is at the back. Wires, where possible, are hidden under the front. I cut off some components from the original circuit board like the headphone jack port and knobs and glued them in place for some added realism to the device.



The hardest bit was then working out the distances needed for a full (or close to full) open and close. I 3D printed a small “horn” that is glued to the lid of the cd player and then connected to the servo arm by a bent paper clip. I had to snip the latch on the lid otherwise when it closes it locks shut and then the servo goes a bit haywire.





It is controlled via the elevator stick in my transmitter. I’d rather have gotten it working using the throttle because it has a ratchet to keep the stick in place but it would have required another splitter or something because on the micro receiver unit, the throttle channel (3) is a shared connection with the battery. I can keep the discman open or closed by simply powering off the transmitter with the stick up high/low. When power resume it opens half way.



It still needs a bit of tweaking and I want to use a stronger paper clip as the wire and more neatly bend it now that I know the right lengths but I’m generally very pleased. If I ever get a bunch more time again I might see how much of a big deal with would be to move this servo control over to the throttle channel. In the mean time, I can keep it closed by pulling the elevator stick down and then turning off the power to the transmitter.

[Mercifull]

So it turns out you can give power via ANY channel not just the throttle (3). So I swapped the mini molex adapter from connecting to the servo and the battery in channel 3 and vice versa. Now it works on the throttle

Still needs some more tweaks to get it to fully close. There's also an occasional twitch from the servo but this could just be because it was £3 as opposed to the £70 for the one used in the film haha.

[Mercifull]

I’ve just taken possession (if you’ll excuse the pun) of a new item of interest. Dare I press play?


Unfortunately… or rather fortunately… it doesn’t work. But that’s fine because I’m gonna gut it anyway and shove some flappy electronics inside. I might revisit the idea of ir sensor and arduino or I might just take out what I made for the silver discman and put it in here. I’d like to add those other elements though like having the flap at the front move and it sort of walk forwards. There’s some good imagery on the ghostbusters reference library now I’m sure I could 3D print some bits to make it work.

[Bison256]

The reason it won't play CDs is likely that laser is worn out, the same thing happened to my old PlayStation before I put a optical drive emulator in it. The other possibility which is a not mutually exclusive it's the capacitors went bad possibly leaking on the board.

[Mercifull]

You might be right, I’ve not actually opened it up yet. But regardless I’m going to trip the insides out. I need to fit an arduino in there, a servo, battery and some cabling to get it to do all the movement stuff so it’s all gotta go.