Daisy Mp3 Player Kit

In 2001, artist and designer Raphael Abrams went looking for a new challenge. After some long and careful consideration, he came upon the idea of designing and building his own open source mp3 player kit. His criteria? First, it had to be easy to build. Second, it had to be open sourced. Finally, and most importantly, it had to be more than just a handheld device -- it had to connect easily to many interfaces, everything from simple button pushing to parallel ports to very powerful serial modes. You can buy the kit from the MAKE store.

This instructable goes through the construction and software installation for basic operation for the 1.3 version of the Daisy kit. You're free to do whatever cool stuff you can think of with this versatile device! In order to stay with the open source theme, Songbird will be software package described within. Please comment on how this Instructable should be improved. An enclosure how-to will be up soon!

The intro calls this an "easy to build" device, and while it isn't a moon lander, it does require some skill(z). The particular difficulty is with the surface mounting. It's easy if you are careful and know what you're doing. (Having very thin solder and a pencil-like soldering iron tip really helps too!)

To learn the basics of soldering check out this great guide by noahw. Also, here's a good video tutorial from the MAKE blog. You should definitely read the first instructable about surface mounting if you've never done it. It's actually not that difficult.

One Important Detail: the photos are out of logical order. In other words, components that haven't been mentioned yet will appear on the board. When putting this thing together I did it out of the best order (don't ask!). So just follow the notes on the photos and you should be super good!

Step 1: What you get and what you need.

With this kit you'll be getting exactly 10,000 parts, which are named below. Luckily though, you won't need to buy much of anything to get it working. The flash memory Daisy uses is Securedigital (SD) or MMC (Multimedia card (??)).

One of the nice things is that this kit comes with a manual, which has pretty good pictures and descriptions of components. You can get a high resolution PDF here.

What you get:
Bent pin holders - huge roll
Vs1011 decoder chip - smaller ic
40 pin DIP socket - for the bigger IC
SD/MMC Socket
1 100 microF low ESP capacitor - "c6"
2 100 microF capacitor - "c_l and c_r"
1 10 microF low ESP capacitor - "c4"
1 PCB
1 headphone jack
12 .1 microF capacitors - "c1, c2, c3, c5, c7, c8, c10, c11, c12, c13, c14, c15" (Not C4)
4 22 pF capacitors - "c3A, c3B, C4a, c4B"
1 slide switch
1 LED
1 PIC18F45j10 IC
3 10K resistor networks - "RN1, RN2, RN3"
2 crystals marked 24.576 (marker marks) and 10.0
2 1K resistors - "r1, r2" (brown, black, red, gold)
1 1M resistor - "r3" (brown, black, green, gold)
2 15ohm resistor - "r8, r9" (brown, green, black, gold)
3 10K resistor - "r4, r6, r7" (brown, black, orange, gold)
1 22K resistors - "r5" (red, red, orange, gold)
1 set of straight pin headers
1 3.3 volt regulator
4 diodes - "D1-D4"
"

What parts you need:
3 AAA batteries
any capacity SD or MMC flash memory
A computer with an SD reader of some sort
Head phones

What tools you need:
Solder
Soldering iron
Wire clippers
Table vice
Pliers (optional, but they're pretty helpful)

Comments

[sbw]

I asked Raphael from teuthis.com about the SJ1 jumper, and he replied that it is "not necessary" to bridge SJ1.

[sbw]

I downloaded the board layout and printed it out, then carefully identified each of the 11 .1 uF caps. Sure enough, I could not find C15, one of the 12 .1 uF caps listed in the directions. I downloaded the schematic and exported the parts list. There's no C15 in the parts list, so I assume it was eliminated from the latest design.

[sbw]

In the kit I received just recently, both tapes of small caps, 12 each .1 uF and 4 each 22pF, are yellow and exactly the same size. The instructions are quite clear about which go where, so it was no problem to separate them out. Alas, I can find only 11 positions for the .1 uF caps on the PC board. On my PC board, on the photo of the PC board in the Daisy manual, and in the photo in this step, I see only 11 yellow .1 uF caps. Does the kit include 12 .1 uF caps because an earlier version of the board required twelve? Or am I just not seeing where the last .1 uF cap goes? Thanks for any clarification!

[sbw]

The SJ1 jumper isn't mentioned in the teuthis.com manual. Do we have any more specifics about what this does? I'll email teuthis, too, and post any more information I find out. Alas, my newly-assembled Daisy doesn't work, with or without SJ1 bridged.

[KD7WHQ]

One note on determining LED polarity; The flat is no longer a 100% accurate way of telling, depending on source. I have a batch where that flat can be on either side of reality. The longer lead, or the "flag and post" internal construction are still holding. The post is on the longer lead, and is positive. The "flag" is pointing at it..

[ELF]

What are the dimensions of this player? What's the smallest box you can put it in?

[Dzwiedziu]

I wonder when people will start making ogg player kits :P

[nobody]

A stable PSP homebrew with flac and ogg would be great.

[armindilo]

NEVER!!!!! lol, no idea!

[ARVash]

They already have the OGG chip, go design one :D