Print PDF
Favorite
Email
My family and I like to listen to music when we're outside playing with the kids or swimming in our small above-ground pool. We had a couple of old CD/Tape/Radio Boomboxes but the CD players didn't work and the old analog radio tuner was often hard to lock in on a decent radio station. After reading some of the instructables here, I thought maybe I would try to modify an old tape boombox to hook up an old MP3 player. That way I could load the exact music we want to hear and the radio would be digital tuning with favorite stations saved.
So here goes...
So here goes...
Remove these ads by
Signing UpStep 1Open the box
We start by opening up the old tape player. There are screws in the back of the player that have to be taken out to open it up. Different players will have screws in various places, but this one only had four screws, one in each corner. (If you take out all the obvious screws from your player and it still won't come apart, be sure to check in the battery compartment. Sometimes there might be a screw or two in there as well. Also, note that some times, as in my case, you will have to press Eject to open/release the tape door since, at least on mine, it latched a part of the cassette mechanism and ended up keeping the front half from coming completely loose.)
Once its opened up, you'll need to find and remove any screws that hold the cassette mechanism in. Also, locate the tape play/record head since we'll use the wires coming from it as the input from the MP3 player.
Once its opened up, you'll need to find and remove any screws that hold the cassette mechanism in. Also, locate the tape play/record head since we'll use the wires coming from it as the input from the MP3 player.
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
Would it be possible to wire in a USB port and trim down the 7 volts to 5 with a few diodes? I have used those MP3 players before, and they have a built-in USB port on them. Sounds like it could work in theory, I just don't know (because I cannot try myself) if the player would go into MASS Storage Mode. If it doesn't, then you could run the player from the USB power.
Good luck.
I looked at the traces going to the volume control and they went through lots of capacitors and resistors and was very confusing.
I decided, what the heck, I'll just move the wires to the output side of the preamp, the LA3220 (pins 2 and 13), just for fun. Who knows, it just might help and if it blows something, too bad; I'm gettin' tired of fighting it.
CAN you provide a pic for us tech impaired?.....can you email one
please !
bezzymares@yahoo.com