Want To Build Your Own MP3 Player?

by , 11:00 AM EDT, July 30th, 2003

Sure, the iPod is cool. Unfortunately, it's not really in the correct form to be mounted in a car or in a stack of stereo components. Since few car stereo or home stereo based MP3 players exist for an affordable cost, what is one to do? Why, build your own, of course!

While the popular solution is to use a laptop or some kind of ultra-tiny PC, such systems can be bulky and difficult to set up for use as a dedicated MP3 player. Fortunately, there is a smaller, easier, and cheaper system out there. The PJRC High Capacity MP3 Player Circuit Board is exactly what it sounds like. It's a compact (approximately 3.5" hard drive size) circuit board that does one thing: it plays MP3s. The board has a headphone jack, a pair of RCA jacks for line-level output, a serial port, and connections for either a 3.5" or a 2.5" hard drive. The system supports up to a 32MB RAM SIMM for caching of songs, which cuts down on power usage when being powered by batteries. The best feature of the board? A fully assembled board will run you only $150. From PJRC:

This project is a stand alone MP3 player, designed for home, car, or portable use. It plays a group of MP3 files stored on a standard or laptop IDE hard disk drive... hundreds of hours using even today's low-cost drives. The firmware is available under the GPL, for anyone who want to really customize the player. High quality audio output is provided by a 24 bit DAC, using both standard line-level outputs and an amplified headphone output. The large capacity allows the use of very high MP3 quality settings, that would reduce flash based players to only a few songs. Because it's a complete stand alone player usable in a variety of applications, you can have your entire MP3 music collection anywhere away from your computer.

The system has built-in support for an 8 by 24 character LCD display and extra control buttons, both of which can be added for $42. A kit is also available for those who want to solder all of the components onto a bare circuit board. The PJRC Web site has much more information.

The Mac Observer Spin:

It should be noted that this device is by no means new. We just thought we'd mention it, because it's a very cool little device, and the price is quite reasonable. The creator has released the firmware code under the GPL allowing people to tweak and update the firmware themselves, and he has even released schematics. Looking at the user gallery, some intrepid hackers (in the true sense of the word) have even added USB support.

Check it out. It's a cool device, and it looks like it could be the basis of many fun projects.

PJRC High Capacity MP3 Player Circuit Board