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recycling HDD

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momox

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hi!

im not that really good in electronics so i am seeking help from you guys...
i have this old computer hard disks that is lying around it is quite old but still functional...
i have this idea of making it into a mp3 player...

so do you have any idea of how can i make it?
coz' im thinking of making it my school project...

thanks guys...
 
momox said:
hi!

im not that really good in electronics so i am seeking help from you guys...
i have this old computer hard disks that is lying around it is quite old but still functional...
i have this idea of making it into a mp3 player...

so do you have any idea of how can i make it?
coz' im thinking of making it my school project...

It's VERY complicated, and would be VERY expensive - it's not really school project stuff!.
 
momox said:
so do you have any idea of how can i make it?

If you have to ask, you probably don't have the knowledge and experience required to even attempt something like this?...

Like Nigel said, very complicated, and while I can think of simpler ways to do it (simpler, not simple!), it would cost 3x-4x the price of an iPod or similar device...
 
I saw an MP3 project on the web. It used many tiny surface-mount ICs and had 15 million tiny wires connecting them.

Since the ICs can't be purchased anywhere, the project used ICs from a manufactured MP3 player. Duh! :lol:
 
audioguru said:
I saw an MP3 project on the web. It used many tiny surface-mount ICs and had 15 million tiny wires connecting them.

Since the ICs can't be purchased anywhere, the project used ICs from a manufactured MP3 player. Duh! :lol:

:lol: Might as well give your iPod a coat of paint, write your name on it and claim you've built it :lol:

http://www.atmel.com/products/mp3/

Atmel offers a microncontroller with an onboard mp3 codec module. But interfacing that to an IDE peripheral? It is possible, but like I said, if you have to ask...
 
layada minty MP3 player

Well, I heard about **broken link removed** mp3 project on another forum. I haven't constructed it, but it looks like a pretty ambitious, rather cool project for an eager student complete with schematics.
perhaps Audioguru might have heard of this or seen it before and can comment
**broken link removed**
 
Re: layada minty MP3 player

heathtech said:
Well, I heard about **broken link removed** mp3 project on another forum. I haven't constructed it, but it looks like a pretty ambitious, rather cool project for an eager student complete with schematics.
perhaps Audioguru might have heard of this or seen it before and can comment
**broken link removed**

This is even more complicated than the Atmel solution, since it uses a standard PIC18 that feeds an external MP3 decoder that then feeds a DAC... Now re-read the original post. Clearly not what "momox" has in mind.

Cool project though, thanks for posting that link.
 
He says he isn't good in electronics, so maybe he is thinking about grinding down a hard drive so it looks like an MP3 player.
He should just whittle a piece of wood.

This project is way over the head of a nubee but uses a pcb.
The one I saw used perf board and millions of wires. :lol:
 
If he's not very good at Electronics, why is he being asked by his school to do an Electronics project? I assume he's not taking Electronics classes, otherwise the complexity of what he's suggesting would be more obvious. Strange.

Brian
 
The problem whith this thing is that it needs to read realy fast from a disk and microcontrolers are not realy fast.But coding this in asembely is nearly imposible becose of an file sistem that keeps the files tidy.

There is an nother hitch whith hard drives.The drive will send you 512bytes of data even is you wanted just 1 byte ot just 1 bit.

You also have an MP3 decoder to interface whith.

Making it portabe is also an problem since diskdirves need 5V and 12V suply and they consume quite some power so the batery wod get drained fast.

This is prety complicated.

Now days there are also solid state MP3 players that have flash memory and need only 1 AAA cell to work.They also have fetures like recording and radio...

You can stick those drives in your PC and use them as storage.But not keep them i the PC becse disks make an iritating sqiling noise.
 
momox said:
hi!
im not that really good in electronics so i am seeking help from you guys...
i have this old computer hard disks that is lying around it is quite old but still functional...
i have this idea of making it into a mp3 player...

so do you have any idea of how can i make it?
coz' im thinking of making it my school project...

thanks guys...

It will be a difficult thing to do.

First, you need to figure out how to store raw sound data on a disk, then you need to figure out how to convert the "digital" data to raw audio you can listen to. and because you ask for MP3, you need to figure out the encoding involved in it, and code/decode the sound data.

To me, the project will not be worth your time or money. You need to learn about electronics first.
 
mstechca said:
momox said:
hi!
im not that really good in electronics so i am seeking help from you guys...
i have this old computer hard disks that is lying around it is quite old but still functional...
i have this idea of making it into a mp3 player...

so do you have any idea of how can i make it?
coz' im thinking of making it my school project...

thanks guys...

It will be a difficult thing to do.

First, you need to figure out how to store raw sound data on a disk, then you need to figure out how to convert the "digital" data to raw audio you can listen to. and because you ask for MP3, you need to figure out the encoding involved in it, and code/decode the sound data.

To me, the project will not be worth your time or money. You need to learn about electronics first.

I'm pretty sure the original poster was talking about an mp3 *player* or decoder only, not a recorder or encoder.
 
Storing raw audio on it whith no encoding and no file sistem cod simplefy things.But to play 44Khz 16Bit audio you need to read at 88KB/s.Wich is a lot for a PIC.

An dsPIC cod be some help here since they run at 120Mhz.

You also need to catch the timing corect whith raw audio.SO iw wont play it faster or slower than it shod.

Ive heard that compact flash memory cards have an interface realy simalar to an IDE harddrive.
 
im so sorry guys... i didnt know it will be that hard... i have done research my self and i find it nearly impossible to build that thing...

the closest one i find that is kindly related to it was the the one that uses a data disk for mp3 storage and it is kind of complex design to work with...

thank you very much for the suggestions...

:)
 
It may be easyer if you had raw uncompresd audio on the disk insted of mp3.SO i wod directy send what it reads to an DAC.This eliminates the MP3 decoder.

And some compilers have Comopact Flash card libarys that can be used to interface whith a hardrive prety simply.But most only suport FAT16 and it suports only 2GB.

And making is portabe is imposibe since harddrives are heavy,bulky and consume a lot of power.Flash memory is a beter way to go.
 
You want a nubee to make a 486pc to run those programs? :?:

My 486-100 played MP3s pretty well, except it got jerky when the sceensaver came on. :lol:
 
Hmm,

Is it possible to record analogue (audio) on to a hard drive ?
It doesn't have to be noughts and ones surely ?

John :)
 
Hmm,

I suppose if you could arrange for the head tracking to motor slowly
to the middle, then you could have a tune on each head, and switch
between them. Maybe two or three tunes for each head, if you can
track the heads slowly.

John :)
 
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