cd pickup advise

it's a very generalised subject, every manufacturer does it differently, so it's better if you focus on a particular model.

which one do you suggest that i follow. can you tell me one that you are experienced with? so that i can turn to you for advice. thank you.

well, most are simple mechanisms, but you have to find the pinouts pretty much by yourself, there may be someone to help if you do ask, but which do you have? i picked one up from walmart, cost 10 bucks, worked, ripped it apart, probed it, then connected it to a yamaha mp3 chip. there's likely to be a stepper motor interface and some way of telling where the read head is, it's rather simple.

are you familiar with hul7211

i believe it is a panasonic hologram unit.

are they similar? cant be right? where can i get a datasheet of the hul7211

okee, i'm ready to answer, but only cause i'm about to fall asleep, maybe it's a different version with a slightly diferent packagine method. could be the signals are the same, timing the same, but maybe even the colour would give it a different number, look in the ordering section of the datasheet for the one you can find, it may tell you.