Right then fans of being on a budget, here's a wee project I've just started tonight which I think might be of interest!
I decided I'm fed up with hooking my mobile phone to the car for music; the media player on Symbian Belle is just such a stinking pile of crap... What I really need is a fancy MP3 playing head unit! Eh, except Volvo didn't make any that'll fit in my 850 and I don't fancy hacking the dash up to fit an after-market OR paying for a new head-unit.
Now, of course, I could just buy a cheap MP3 player and hook it all up with cables coming out the side of the unit and a power adapter from the ciggy lighter. A couple of reasons why I won't; it'll just look like crap and also unless I remove ALL this stuff from the car, someone'll think that I've got an expensive sat nav in the glovebox and break in.
There's also the added problem that a lot of the power adapters for the ciggy lighter pass on ignition whine to audio devices. (both my phones suffer this to a degree)
So, I want something permanent, functional and powered by a good clean power source?
This could be a job for...
Banging something together really quick like!
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After extensive research (10 mins on google) I decided on a Sandisk CLIP+ MP3 player. It's teeny tiny, comes with 8G of storage on a removable SD card and it can run ROCKBOX, the freeware operating system for MP3 players that has a whole bunch of awesome features: the top one being it can SPEAK the menus and options to you. That's a good idea for a car environment, eyes on the road and all that.
http://www.rockbox.org/
I installed it on the CLIP, as per the instructions:
And then spent about 30 minutes trying to remove the two parts of the case that holds the device together! It argued with the stanley knife for quite a while, but eventually the knife won; one CLIP, unclipped!
I removed the switch blank down beside the gearbox selector (that's where I intend to put this device) and glued the outer housing onto it:
Right, that's the simple bit done... The next part was a total buttock.
It's my intention to hook this up permanently to the car, so I decided to utilise the existing AUX IN mod on the head unit, but with a twist: I'll also draw the +5 USB power for the MP3 player from there too.
Right, so I need to HARD WIRE this device, remember.
Now before you ask, yes I am a level-2 certified SMT rework specialist, but if you have a steady hand and are good with the soldering iron, anyone could do this.
As you can see, I've de-soldered and removed the original 3.5mm output jack: there'll be no need for it in the new circuit.
I hooked up the three connections for audio (L,R,G) and two additional ones for Power Ground and +5v. +5v was the hardest as there's next to no clearance to get the iron in, but eventually perseverance paid off and it soldered on OK.
I'm using twisted pair wiring here, which isn't wonderful for audio, but as it's solid core it's much easier to solder to tiny components. With the distance of the cable run we are dealing with, I don't think audio quality will suffer enough that I could hear the difference. Notice I've wired TWO ground wires together for the audio, to maintain the individual twisted pairs.
Hurray!
Ok, so that's as far as I've got this evening. Tomorrow I'll be looking at installing it into the car and the associated wiring and if I survive, I'll post about it and let you know how it goes!
Chris...