No-touch Music Player

March 13, 2013 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

no-touch-mp3-player

This little box not only plays tunes, but it lets you control several aspects of playback without touching a thing. [Thomas Clauser] calls it the LighTouch and we like it because it uses inaudible sound to control audible sound.

We think the pair of cylinders sticking up through the top of this project enclosure will be recognized by most readers as the business end of an ultrasonic rangefinder. This is the only control interface which [Thomas] chose to use. Although he didn’t write very extensively about the specific control scheme he implemented, the video embedded in his post shows some of the gestures that cause the Arduino inside to change its behavior. For instance, a swipe of the hand at higher level starts playback, swiping at a lower level pauses it. When adjusting the volume the box responds to how close his hand is to that sensor. With this control in place, the music side of these things is simply handled by a music shield he is using.

Minecraft Clock Radio Puts A Creeper Head Next To Your Bed

November 30, 2012 by Mike Szczys 3 Comments

This clock radio plays tunes from Minecraft and it’s decorated to look just like a creeper head. In the game mob heads are available as decoration and [Young_Maker] liked to spice up his virtual bedside table with a creeper head. But we think it looks just as good in its physical form.

The main part of the clock is an Arduino with a character LCD screen. A DS1307 real-time clock makes sure the device is accurate. We called this a clock radio in the title of the post, but it’s more of a clock MP3 player. The uMp3 board is used to play random music from the game. We would categorize the soundtrack as minimalism, which is a reasonable way to gently wake in the morning. But if time runs out the boom of an exploding creeper is played to make sure you’re not late for work.

We’ve embedded [Young_Maker’s] demo video after the jump.

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Arduino MP3 Jukebox

November 7, 2012 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

Here’s an inexpensive Arduino-based MP3 Jukebox (translated) which [Jose Daniel Herrera] put together.

He spent some time making sure that it looked great sitting on a shelf with his other audio equipment. This started with a wooden box which is some reused packaging. We’re not familiar with the ‘iNFUSiONES’ product; perhaps it’s tea or tobacco? At any rate, to this he added a custom face plate to host the character LCD, rotary encoder, two buttons, and to act as a grill for the two speakers.

The speakers and their accompanying amplifier circuitry were pulled from a portable speaker set. He combined them with a VS1002d MP3 decoder module, SD card breakout board, and the Arduino itself. In addition to the overview post linked above, there is also a collection of assembly photos, and a post discussing the way he arranged the code for the control systems (translated). See and hear the unit in action in the clip after the break.

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Giving The IPod Nano A Home On A Honda Dashboard

September 18, 2012 by Mike Szczys 10 Comments

[Hyeinkali’s] iPod Nano looks right at home on the dashboard of his 2001 Honda Accord. He got rid of the simple LCD clock and the buttons that were used to set it. The hack holds the iPod securely in place, but it remains easy to remove and take with you.

He started by popping out the bezel that holds the clock module and hazard light button in place. The original display was about the same width as the Nano, but he wasn’t interested in mounting the mp3 player under the dash. Since he needed to be able to take it with him to sync his music library he made a space near the bottom of the bezel to accept the connector end of the USB cable while keeping the device accessible. After connecting the other end to power he covered the hole in the bezel with mesh and put everything back together. We’re not sure if audio is piped into the car stereo via a cable or through Bluetooth, but it does feed to the head unit.

[via Reddit]

Playing MP3s From An FPGA

March 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

Building an audio player is a fun project. It used to be quite a task to do so, but these days the MP3 decoder chips are full-featured which means that if you know how to talk to other chips with a microcontroller you’ve got all the skills needed to pull off the project. But that must have been too easy for [Ultra-Embedded], he decided just to build an MP3 player out of an FPGA.

It’s not quite as difficult as it first sounds. He didn’t have to figure out how to decode the audio compressions. Instead he rolled the Helix MP3 decoder library into the project. It had already been optimized to run on an ARM processor, and since he’s using a RISC soft processor the translation wasn’t tough at all. He’s using a 24-bit stereo DAC chip to bridge the gap between the audio jack and the FPGA output. Clocking that chip with the FPGA isn’t ideal and causes 44.1 kHz audio to run 3% too slow. He says it’s not noticeable, which we believe. But if you try to play along with a song the pitch shift might end up driving you crazy.

If you’d prefer to just stick to the microcontroller based players this one’s small and inexpensive.

Your Theme Song Greets You At The Front Door

March 6, 2012 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

One thing you can look forward to when arriving at home after a long, arduous day at the office is some peppy theme music when you walk in the door. [Sebastian Sommer] built the system, and shows it off in the video after the break by dancing to James Brown’s I feel good.

The setup uses an Arduino as a microcontroller. It monitors a hall effect sensor on the jamb which detects a passing magnet on the door. We guess this means the system doesn’t know if you’re coming or going but perhaps a future upgrade would add an infrared beam to detect your legs as head out the door. The music itself is played by an SparkFun MP3 shield which has a decoder chip, microSD slot, and audio jack for the powered speakers. [Sebastian] grabbed a copy of [Bill Porter’s] mp3 shield library to get the project up and running quickly.

This is a pretty cool addition if you’re already using an Arduino for a door lock or vice versa. Or maybe you’re not home enough to make this hack worth it, in which case you simply must take this music playing Tesla coil hat along on your commute.

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NES Controller Cannibalized For MP3 Player Enclosure

January 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

We know some folks are very upset by the scrapping on vintage hardware, so let’s all observe a moment of silence for this NES controller.

Now that that’s behind us we can live vicariously through [Burger King Diamond’s] project. He polished up the NES controller and repurposed it as an enclosure for a portable MP3 player.

His first step was to remove some of the yellowing of the plastic using Retr0brite. He admits it wasn’t bad to start with but now it’s sparkling like new. Next, he started planning how everything would fit in the case. Luckily the MP3 player operates with one AAA battery which leaves plenty of room.

Just above the A and B buttons you can make out an opening that he cut in the case for the MP3 player’s LCD screen. The bezel from the original case works well for cleaning the rough cut opening. The buttons on the controller have been patched into the controls on the MP3 board, and the opening for the controller’s cable now holds the headphone jack. There’s also a USB port mounted next to it for easy file transfers.

The one thing we would like to see is a rechargeable battery so you don’t need to open the case to top off the power. But all in all this is a fantastic build!