Re: TI-H: MP3 player for cars
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Re: TI-H: MP3 player for cars
Note: this is on topic for DKs message, and is lengthy. Delete if you aren't
interested.
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Yes, you can do it this way(with a rio), but even with 64 MB of flash ram,
which is EXPENSIVE (if you buy the expansion cards alone) you can still only
put on maybe 25 MP3s, with them being 2.5-3 MB each. You might as well just
go buy a 10 disc CD changer for the price of the rio. No its not very
portable, but you get a LOT more music.
Also, if you wanted to compare a 10 disc CD changer to an linux MP3 box, you
can fit about 150-170(or more) songs onto a CD. Thats about 10-12
discs(straight audio) per MP3 CD. With the price of hard drives now, you
might as well just buy a 10 GB, fill it with MP3s, and essentially put a 100
disc CD changer inside your car. I bought a 10 gb hard drive the other week,
and it was only $125. Yes, I could have gotten western digitals 27 GB, but I
didn't quite have the extra $150 bucks. You can tell from this that the cost
per MB is a TON cheaper than a bunch of CF cards for a rio.
Now, in the way of hardware hacking, I made one myself, which I can convert
from a car player to a stereo player just by bringing it in the house(how
convienent). I used pretty much used, leftover parts with it, and its been
running for about a year or so without any problems. it does use win95, but
I really hate how long it loads. But, I'm too lazy to customize a kernel for
linux. The way I have it set up, isn't anything special. Win95 runs off the
HD, I've got a little VB program I made up so when it runs, it checks the CD
in the drive (if there is one), makes up a playlist (only adds mp3s, that
way, I can take some of my software/mp3 combo cds, and use them), saves it
to the HD, runs the mp3 software I made up (its got an LCD control panel,
and uses a little remote I made up, all together in the same packaging),
plays and plays, until I go to shut down (option on the remote), when it
closes everything, and powers down the system. I have an ATX motherboard,
and use a remote switch on the remote for powering up/down, also, it will
shut itself off when I go to shutdown. :) The remote lets me select the
songs, shuffle, volume (for fine tuning), repeat play, and basic functions
like shutting down, rebooting, etc. The lcd display shows the title of the
song, artist, time elapsed, the menu system, etc...
For the shock resistance, I didn't do anything much but put the hard drive
in a 5 1/4" slot in the case, and put it on one of those rubber mounted CD
holders for cars(got that at radio shack, about 2 years ago). it hasn't
skipped once yet, and if it did, I would have known it. :) I am a little
more cautious about driving when its on, because I know that going over a
set of 4 inch high speed bumps doing 50 would probably trash the hard drive.
But its a pickup, so if you drive a lexus, you definitly don't need to worry
about shock resistance. Hard drives I've found are pretty stable.
Temperature changes though are bad for it, I know, and living in michigan,
the winters are harsh, (worse in alaska where grant lives) but I'm not too
sure how well the hard drive will do this winter. last winter, on really
cold mornings (20 degrees or colder) the computer didn't want to work very
well. but after I was driving for about 20 minutes with the heat on, it was
fine.
The CD shock protection, I have only one answer: PUT A BIG BUFFER IN PLAYER!
with the software I developed, it re-reads a few times if it screws up. :)
and the chances it screws up twice or 3 times in a row is slim... it's only
reading maybe 500k at a time, and that lasts a good 4 seconds...
Price wise, this is what I came up with.
LCD, wire, controller = maybe $25.
MB=$70
Processor = $50 (a pentium 233 mmx... slow, but efficent, and WAY overkill
for the box)
HD=$100 (its a 2gb, but I bought a long time ago. you can get a 8 gb now for
that price.)
CD-Rom = $35 (its a 32x, lots of overkill)
ram=$50 (its 32 MB, but ram has skyrocketed in price with that earthquake in
taiwan)
case= maybe $20 (its customized to fit my pickup, price comes from the power
supply)
soundcard=$20 (el cheepo)
Net card=$15 (generic 10base-t)
power inverter = $40 (a little 140 watt does great)
cassette adapter = $15 (got it on sale, but I'm sure its cheaper somewhere)
line filter = $20 (I get this nasty humming noise off the power supply.
Probably because the inverter is a square wave sine, and the power supply
doesn't like it much. this cleaned that up VERY nicely.)
-------
total=$410 + tax.
Rio (last I checked) = $230 at beyond.com
CD Changer = $210
Tell me if this doesn't kick a Rio's ass... No, its not very portable, but
it serves my purposes well. only bad part with this, is I spent days writing
the software for it (i could have just bought the OCX controls for VB, but I
wanted this to be inexpensive). it's a bigger shell-out in the beginning,
but you see how much you spend in AA batteries + CF cards, while mine runs
off the car... and mine holds 200 files on the hard drive, plus another 150
on a CD.
Next thing I want to change, is put the GPS reciever I've got into the
works, and change the LCD to a color touchscreen active matrix LCD panel,
then run a modified version of Explorer in win95 so it'll be compatible. Put
in the DVD & video card, so I can watch movies while in traffic. Then
replace the radio with the computer display(unfortunatly its a leased truck,
so ripping out the factory radio isn't so good), pop in a radio card in the
expansion slot, lose the cassette adapter, run the speakers into the
computer, get a better power supply (need to somehow get about 5 amps on a
+5V signal into the computer... and a 7805 chip only gives 1 amp MAX), and
make my car able to drive itself... :)
-Jeff D.
P.S. Anyone know where I can get a touchscreen LCD panel (color of course)
for a relatively cheap price? it needs to be about 5" high and 7" long. I've
been getting prices like 600 to 800 bucks. :(
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Kafasis <punkrock17@home.net>
To: <ti-hardware@lists.ticalc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 6:48 PM
Subject: Re: TI-H: MP3 player for cars
>
> David,
> I'm sure others can point you to lots of specific car MP3 players, but
> one suggestion is to get a RIO 500, and use a tape adapter, just like
> with a portable CD Player(assuming you have a tape player). This is a QD
> method, but it involves zero in the way of hardware hacking.
>
> -P
>
>
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