Building a Lego MP3 Player

I saw a couple of USB drives with Lego casing and thought I'd give it a go. On my search for a cheap drive to hack open I found this very cheap MP3 player, and boldly thought, "Wow, that'll be even better!"

Different to the flash drives, this needed buttons and a headphone socket. Plus an annoyingly large battery.

Step 1 Materials and stuff

The MP3 player was an amazingly cheap £4.97. Unfortunately that meant it was rather large and didn't have many features, but it works.

I also needed:
- Four lego bricks (two 1x4s and two 2x4s) and several lego "plates" i.e. flat pieces for the base
- Super Glue
- Hot Glue
- A mini drill or similar for sanding down / cutting up the bricks
- Sand paper
- A solder iron and solder
- Good lighting helps

Comments

[lucas wheatcroft]

128MB?! That's so little room. My iPod is 2GB!!!!!! Yeah, I should remember when I had this "cheapy" Mp3 Player that was only 256MB including system and data.

[XOIIO]

2GB? how can you live with that? I have a 32gb and thats filling up already.

[portalturret2]

pretty sweet, but i wish there was a screen. you should experiment and try to put a screen on it. it looks like a colby, my brother has one

[TSC]

Sweet goood job 5 stars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[walking tree]

 it should be LP3

[mattccc]

nice job

[marffy]

pretty cool, to bad there is no screen

[lucas wheatcroft]

Tenei's Mp3 Players qe pueden tener un TB.

[lucas wheatcroft]

Das ist so geil, ich will's mal jetzt aufbauen. Aber ich habe die richtige teile nicht um es alles zu schaffen.

[lucas wheatcroft]

I was just reading these comments and there so funny. One song I'd put in the Mp3 in When Dory does the whale language. Ich lach mich tot.

[lucas wheatcroft]

I like to move it move. I like to "Move it!"

[lucas wheatcroft]

Hmm, legoooo. Coooooooooooooooooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh, Lego can be build to a Mp3. Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lucas wheatcroft]

I downloaded this Lego Mp3 Player in Adobe Reader and it's so cool. Where the heck can I get the Mp3 chip?! I love building. "Oh baby. Oh baby oh I'm gonna do somethin' freaky to you. oh yeah" is one of my favorite songs.

[dadoman]

mplego asd!

[jonathan95123]

it's a coby 128 mb, 20 $ usd, i shouldd know, i have the same exact one

[bombmaker2]

i have one just like it but it's a gig

[thefunktopus]

what mp3 player is this and who much did it cosy

[cowscankill]

oohooooohohoooo...i have a cheap mp3 player with a cold( it's definetly not a virus) and i might try this :) thanks for the idea. Oh, and you could make a lego speaker, so that you can build a lego house with a huge radio and speaker. :P

[gnasty gnork]

is it a sansa. my sansa is a piece of crap. the volume buttons keep on breaking!!!!! Makes me mad! I threw it out and got a zen vision w from amazon for $280 (after discontinue)

[mitxela]

Lego speaker... that'd actually be pretty awesome. I'll do that some time.

[ferrari484]

I like it man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HIGHVOLTAGE-Z]

it would look kinda cool if you had it in a altoids gum tin

[mitxela]

That'd kinda defeat the point, methinks.

[Mr. Smart Kid]

mp3 brick

[learningmaster]

can you buy one in the us?

[mitxela]

Probably... try looking on ebay.

[Canned Husky]

Hullo there! YAy, it's really cool. Unfortunately I just got a new mp3 player and have no time to make something like this:(...how about calling it iBrick?

[themaster]

hey me again. I just read all comments and I was wondering if any of you know where i can get a cheap MP3 in Vancouver, BC? Please respond.

[mitxela]

Well, here (the UK) they're selling them for £4.97 in Tesco, which is actually cheaper than a USB flash drive of the same size! For everyone else, though, there's quite a few going for ~$10 on ebay, if you wade through all the headphones and cases and chargers and what-have-you.

[themaster]

this project is totally awesome. Where can i get a really cheap MP3?

[superclassic]

Yer those mp3 players are ace, i used 1 in a pez usb stick i made, had to do away with the mp3 capabilites due to space issues. I will probs try again and make the full pez mp3 player and post the results on here. out.

[paulgeering]

Turns out some stores still have them. Still at 4.97 GBP.

[paulgeering]

Before even opening your instructable page i knew, from the tiny thumbnail picture, exactly where you had purchased your mp3 player. the three buttons are a dead give away. Also I see you were clever enough to wait until the price went down to 4.97. I have 3 of them, two of which may appear in some modified form on this site in the near future. Brilliant work. From a good idea to a good instructable. Perfect pictures, can't fault it in any way. Well done.

[Weissensteinburg]

where did he get it from?

[paulgeering]

He got them from TESCO (Biggest supermarket chain in UK). At least I hope so, otherwise my last post makes me look a bit stupid. If you live near a TESCO, don't bother rushing down there to get one (or more) of these. They were a limited stock special offer. Now the cheapest mp3 players i the shop are around 15 GBP but they are superior in many ways. (they have an lcd screen, normal sized headphone socket, better button layout and the ability to record).

[Weissensteinburg]

I looked and saw them on the site, why are they still there?

[paulgeering]

I was just going on what my local store had in stock. If you want to pay for the shipping then try ordering one/some from their website. Let us know how you get on.

[mitxela]

Yay, thanks. It's my first instructable :D I was thinking of going back and buying more, and building them into other stuff.

[PetervG]

So where'd you get it? What's it called?

[mitxela]

Tesco. It's branded as made by "Technika" and the model number is MP-906. And yes, they were probably limited stock.