Building your own mp3 player

I have to confess, I am perfectly happy with my tiny iRiver mp3 player. But for those of you that value homemade more than Korean massproduced stuff, you can actually build your own mp3 player. Of course, you could always take that extra computer you have in your closet but that's kinda cheating, isn't it. Wouldn't it be much more rewarding to build it from scratch? Or from as close to scratch as you get with todays IC-cicuits. There are kits on the market that allow you to do just that.

If you are not looking for anything portable, the PJRC MP3 player might be the way to go. It uses a regular hard drive for storage so it can probably handle all the music you have (if you are not iTunes Music Store). You can buy this kit either as fully assembled (only add HD, memory and power source) or, for those of you with a soldering iron and some spare time, in parts (PCB plus components).

Mp3 was really made for carrying along with you and you can of course make a portable one yourself. One way to go is the MintyMp3. It is quite small but you have to have the PCB made for you at a factory since it is a 4-layer board.

A better way to go might be the Avr Butterfly Mp3. It is an open source project aimed at creating a hardware design and software for and easy to make mp3 player. Even though the project looks quite young it could be worth a try. Avr processors are very simple to program and the PCB looks like a walk in the park compared to Minty's. If you want to make the PCB yourself, this is definitely the way to go.

Or if mp3 is to hich-tech for you, build a needle record player in Lego instead. No links included but a friend of mine did it 5th grade, I think you can make the plans yourself.

Tags: DIY, mp3, PCB