DIY MP3 How-to


Just a quick note – my How-To on building your own MP3 player is up. It’s more of a build walk-through and a review of MAKE’s Daisy MP3 player kit.

In case you missed it, Ben Heck put up a How-to on making your own robotic hand. It’s more of an exercise in CAD design with the intent to cut the parts on a CNC machine. It’s a great view into Ben’s workflow. He used to torture er train graphic artists at some point, and he puts that experience to work in his designs. Speaking of which, you might dig his SCART video switcher.

I’ve got to say that I’m impressed with the effort I’ve seen so far on the Design Challenge. You’ve got five more days to get em in.

Before I forget, I need a good supplier of teflon/ptfe insulated wire (at a decent price). Suggestions?

10 thoughts on “DIY MP3 How-to

  1. Nice little write up there, for the newbs like me it’s nice to see something simple done step by step. Even if we could have figured it by ourselves it acts as a reminder that even here ‘measure twice cut once’ is a good axiom.

  2. hmm, I suppose this could be used for the component video switcher I’ve been debating building… Now All I need are some solid schematics for a SCART to Component converter so I can convert a couple of my old consoles over (Dreamcast and Saturn).

  3. The MP3 player kit is cool, but why the hell is it so much money? I could buy a real MP3 player for cheaper than that (with included storage) and tear it down to use in whatever project I had in mind. It would be easier than building this one too.

    The kit should be no more than $30. I certainly wouldn’t give it the time of day at any higher than that.

  4. navships on ebay seems to usually sell teflon wire at the best prices. if you’d rather not buy from there, i’d recommend asking people at head-fi or any other audio community; there are a whole lot of people there who think teflon has superior sound compared to pvc (whatever)

  5. Ok, so I’m just thinking about this MP3 decoder chip (and possiby a few other necessary parts). I’m think about other applications here.

    [Now I just glanced over this article, so if what I say doesn’t make any sense, don’t kill me].

    1) Wouldn’t it be possible to take the MP3 decoder chip and a 5$ portable CD player and combine the two? IE: figure out a point to solder the decoder chip somewhere onto the CD player circuit board and then have a 5$ portable CD player that plays MP3 CDs?

    2) Once somebody figured out the above, couldn’t this application be driven to mod car stereos so that they too can play MP3 CDs if they don’t already?

  6. bakes: sounds like a lot more hassle than it’s worth. You can already buy portable mp3 cd players and headunits for the same price as non-mp3 playing ones. If you’ve got the skillz, I dare say it’s possible. They really would need to be some skillz, though!

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