is this a good way to use polymer caps?

[jackywhatever]

I have some unused polymer caps lying around, decided to try them on 4 pin outputs on a PS, parellel to my DVD rom. nothing bad seemed to happen. maybe or not, my digital multmeter shows a kinda more stable voltage.

I am not good at physics. Is this a good idea at the first place? Can anybody comment on this?

If I am interested in giving better power to my DVD rom, should connect the caps parellel or in series to the device?

[Khron]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

If that's the connector that's supposed to plug into the dvd-rom, that's not really gonna work

If that's on a flying lead, that eventually ends up at your dvd-rom, all that length of cable will render the possible advantages, useless.

They would be most effective if soldered on the input connector on the dvd-rom's pcb, but i doubt there's a lot of room left in there. If your drive hasn't been giving you trouble, what are / were you trying to achieve, if i may ask?

And power supply caps go in parallel with the load.

[jackywhatever]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

If that's the connector that's supposed to plug into the dvd-rom, that's not really gonna work

If that's on a flying lead, that eventually ends up at your dvd-rom, all that length of cable will render the possible advantages, useless.

They would be most effective if soldered on the input connector on the dvd-rom's pcb, but i doubt there's a lot of room left in there. If your drive hasn't been giving you trouble, what are / were you trying to achieve, if i may ask?

And power supply caps go in parallel with the load.

thank you for your input.
I use the device for retrieving WAV from CDs, where accuracy is important. Fluctuations in voltage will degrade the signals quite badly, and I see this happen in my work. I already recapped my PSU, but with all with same capacitance as it was. so just wondering if there is any better way in getting more stable voltage from a PS.?

[POM_MJ]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

if you are using same PSU for system and DVD-rom device, noise always happend from the system due to power consume dynamically by CPU,RAM,HDD,etc.
you may use another PSU for DVD-rom separately to reduce that noise.

[jackywhatever]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

is it possible to use a voltage regulator?
how difficult it can be>?

[POM_MJ]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

normally, CD/DVD-rom device are using +12V and +5V from PSU by a MOLEX connctor, the computer's PSU have no output greater than 12V to be used to enter voltage regulator circuit for 12V and 5V output.

another way, use any PSU for the CD-ROM which has play/stop button (without computer), you may be get clear sound.

[Khron]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

Retrieving WAVs? As in "ripping"? I highly doubt you'll improve sound quality with caps and such, since it's all DIGITAL... (That's one of the differences between vinyl and CD's ) Now, if you were ripping vinyls, a re-capping might've helped the turntable and/or the audio interface.

But feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

And it's quite likely the controller inside the dvd-rom might have some regulator of its own, so... Unless you're ready for some "on-board surgery"...

[Scenic]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

getting WAVs from Audio CDs is digital ripping.
it either works (drive reads the data), or doesn't work (drive doesn't read data at all).

no such thing as fluctuations in the quality..

the only possibility where this could help would be if you go the oldschool way (using the analog audio output (4pin cable at the back of the drive) and record it through the soundcard in realtime)

that COULD be affected, as it's analog.. but this method is kinda pointless anyways..

digital audio from the CD ->
analog audio out at the drive (depending on the DAC inside the drive and it's filtering/power stage) ->
cable to the soundcard, possibly picking up noise from inside the comp (cable acts as antenna) ->
converting back to digital again while recording through the soundcard (depending on the ADC of the soundcard, depending on it's filtering/power stage)

[jackywhatever]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

Thank you for your input.
I know it's all digital, but I am convinced that different drives gives different sound. (e.g earlier Lite-on gives a kinda dry sound. Benq drives sounds like crap, some Pioneer/asus/plextor sounds better but also different between them...) They also perform in different ways in different computers. Other than power or EMI i can't figure out other reasons. any comment?

[Khron]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

Have you used the same cd's, same sound card and same speakers in all those situations? If not, then there's at least a pretty big chance it's all placebo

( I *DO* hope you meant the ripped wav's, not "listening to cd's through the analog-in connection from drive to sound card" )

[robert]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

Rip the same track from one CD, with the same software, with several drives, and then run a binary compare over the resulting files.

And then dont tell us binary identical files sound different.

[stj]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

different drives have different quality circuitry.

a good drive - pioneer / yamaha / plextor for example can rip audio at 32x normal speed,
a junk drive will be lucky to do it at 4x without glitches.

it's because the error correction on cd's is poor and the faster you read it, the higher the chance of miss-reading the bits.
specially on pressed disks that are generally crap and/or disks that are dirty or scratched.

[Scenic]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

newer plextors are just rebadged lite-on's .. ie crap..

[stj]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

i wouldnt know, i still have my scsi ones from my jolly-roger days.

[stj]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

yoho

[jackywhatever]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

Hi all, i didn't have time for a bit to bit comparison from different drives. But while playing with the caps and drives I got a pretty nice bonus.

I remember I mentioned the 'crap' Benq drive. It always failed to eject discs while upright. then I found
FSP 350w power with or without extra polymer caps.. still fail
Delta 350w power... fail
same Delta unit with extra polymer caps, it works!

I will disassemble the benq drive and recap it as well. Will post updates.

[jackywhatever]

Re: is this a good way to use polymer caps?

different drives have different quality circuitry.

a good drive - pioneer / yamaha / plextor for example can rip audio at 32x normal speed,
a junk drive will be lucky to do it at 4x without glitches.

it's because the error correction on cd's is poor and the faster you read it, the higher the chance of miss-reading the bits.
specially on pressed disks that are generally crap and/or disks that are dirty or scratched.

I think you do know what I mean. Cheers.

In practice, even signal path is 'digital', they can always be distorted in some way. That's why i tried to get the best possible power from my PS.