 Ever wish you could have an MP3 player that is infinitely more awesome
than an iPod? And cheaper, too? and... well you get the picture. I
got this idea from the original
minty MP3, but it was too complicated for my
liking. So I hacked up a Lexar
JumpDrive Sport Mp3 attachment thingy, and put it in an altoids
box with some new buttons. I use a 1 gig jumpdrive with it, and it
works well.
Parts:
Step
1: Disassembling the Player:
 Remove
the two screws on the back of the player. One of them is under the
battery compartment. Use a flathead screwdriver to pry open the case.
The
battery pack is in the bottom half of the case, and it is soldered to
the board. Locate the battery leads, soldered directly to the PCB,
protruding through on the right-hand side. Get out your favorite
desoldering utensil and go for it. set the pack aside, as you will
use it later.
Locate
the headphone jack and desolder. You can discard it later, but you
will need it to figure out where each wire goes on your new jack.
Step
2: Wiring the Play/Rewind/FF buttons
There
are 3 pushbuttons on the top of the player that control these
functions. You will be hotwiring these to some external momentary
switches.
Simply
solder wires to each lead on the switch and to each contact point as
shown in the picture.
Step
3: Wiring Volume Controls
The
leads for the volume control buttons are wired as follows: one lead
of the Volume Up button is wired to the leftmost contact on the
volume control. The other lead is wired to the rightmost contact. The
Volume Down is wired to the contact that is second from the right and
to the right contact.
Step
4: Wiring the headphone jack
Determine
the pinout of your headphone jack. Refer to the original jack to
figure out how to wire the new one. Basically, solder wires from the
pads on the pcb to the leads on the jack. Pretty straightforward.
Step
4: Battery Pack
Take
the bottom half of the player case and cut off any unnecessary
plastic with a hacksaw, coping saw, or a Dremel. Solder each lead to
a wire and then solder the wire to the corresponding hole on the PCB.
Step
5: Preparing the Altoids Tin
I
drilled four 1/4" holes in the right side of the case for the
Play/FF/Rew buttons and the headphone jack. Refer to your button
specs to see the sizes you need. I used smaller buttons for the
volume controls, and placed them on the left side. If you would like
to view the LCD with the lid closed, cut a hole in the lid and put
some thin plexiglass on the inside. Otherwise, prepare for
Step
6: Stuffing it all in there
If
soldering the switches wasn't hard enough, here comes the fun part.
First, push the buttons and headphone jack through the holes,
carefully tucking the wires along the top of the tin. Slide the
battery pack under the PCB, being careful to avoid all wires in the
process. Tighten the nuts on the buttons and jacks, and close the
lid. You now have a new mp3 player that pwns an iPod!
View
the pwnage!
notice
I pried the cover off my jumpdrive to make everything fit
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