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Video Disk Recorder

The Remote Control Unit consists mainly of an infrared receiver and a four digit display, all controlled by a PIC 16C84. The printed circuit board was designed so that it fits neatly behind a 5.25" drive bay cover. For easy manufacturing of the board all top layer tracks have been layed out so that they can be implemented by wire bridges, thus allowing a single layer board.

Data is transferred between the Remote Control Unit and the PC through the IrDA connector, which can be found on most modern PC motherboards. This connector also provides the +5V power supply.

The complete schematics and board layout as well as a bill of material and the controller software can be found in the download section.

The next two pictures show details about the assembly of the unit. A hole has been cut into the drive bay cover, allowing the display frame to fit into it. The frame has two screws extending from its back, which are used to hold the printed circuit board.

The final unit, viewed from the back side...

...and from the front side

Here's how the Remote Control Unit fits into the 5.25" drive bay. Note the cable that is connected to the board at the right side. This is the connection to the motherboard's IrDA interface, and as can be seen it is plugged into the board from the bottom side. This means that connector CON1 should have pins that extend far enough through the board to allow this to happen. Unfortunately (as can be seen from the above picture The final unit, viewed from the back side...), I forgot to do that, so I had to solder some extra pins to the bottom side of my board - don't make the same mistake!

This picture also shows how I have installed the hard disk. Originally I mounted it into the casings 3.5" hard disk mounting frame, but the disk's running noise - though very silent - was transferred into the metal case structure and caused some unpleasent sounds. So I took some plastic foam material and cut it into pieces that now hold the disk in place. Since there is no more direct metal connection between the drive and the PC casing, the whole unit now runs very silent.