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Homebrew car MP3 PlayerOct 18 '00 Write an essay on this topic.When I first decided to go the way of MP3 for my portable listening pleasure, I looked at several commercial players on the market today. All of them had various features, but they had one thing in common: high price. I'm the type of person who is not willing to drop half a grand on an MP3 player. So, with my knowledge of computers in mind, I made the decision to construch a portable, PC based MP3 player that I could mount in my car. My first task was aquiring an inexpensive computer. E-bay to the rescue! A lot of times individual parts sell very cheaply on the auction block, whereas complete systems are very expensive. I purchased a generic brand motherboard and a Pentium 133mhz processor to go along with it. Next was the RAM. 8 megs will do the trick (more on this later). Choosing a hard drive was a difficult task. I needed something that was large enough to hold all my MP3's but cheap enough to fit my budget. I chose the Quantum fireball 40 gig hard drive. One of the features of this hard drive that sold me on it, was the fact that it had built in impact protection! This would prove to be very useful when I hit a pothole. Next, I needed a sound card. I chose a Soundblaster Pro because of its reliable name, and copatibility with almost any software. As far as a case for the system, I found a standard flat (non tower)case with power supply at a reasonable price. Next, I needed an operating system. I chose DOS because it boots in only a few seconds, and you can pull the plug on it without having to shut down or worry about corrupting files. Software is probbally the biggest concern I had. I went online looking for software, and came across a DOS based MP3 player, that simply prompts for a song number, and then plays it when entered. This is where the small amount of RAM comes in. DOS uses very little, and more just makes for a longer memory check at boot time. Powering the system was next. A good old power inverter that changes 12vdc to standard house current did the trick. I also added a ground loop isolater to the system because of the noisy nature of car electrical systems. This was purchased a Radio Shack. In order to control the player, I bought a stand alone numeric keypad which consists of just the number keys ( like the one on the far right of most keyboards.) To get audio from the soundcard to the car stereo, I used an adapter to turn the 1/8" output on the card into RCA type line level outputs, and then plugged them into the line inputs of my car's cd player. If your cd player doesn't have line inputs, you can always run the audio into an amp or tap the speaker wires. I mounted the unit under my passanger seat, so that the air conditioning would hit it in the summer, and the heat would hit it in the winter. The AC inverter was wired directly to the battery, and all the wires were hidden under the side pannels. All that is showing is a couple feet of wire connected to the keypad. I have a 3 ring binder with the inserts from all the CD's I have encoded, and each cd is numbered. When I want to hear a song, I just enter the four digit code for it on the keypad. For example, cd# 3 and song 12 would be entered as "0312". Overall, I am happy with my choice to build instead of buy. If you decide to do this, look into it first, because it really is a cracked-out job to do. As far as total cost, I'm estimating around $150, but I didn't keep track and I already had some of the parts. Definatly know how to crimp and solder if you attempt this, and ask a friend who knows car audio about impedence levels in your system, you dont want to fry anything. Thats all for now, good luck, and feel free to e-mail me with questions or comments!  |
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