Slashdot Mirror

Yesss!!! The Art of Electronics is all you need to start with, in fact is "All You Need" (r). From there on just play yourself, experiment, read, burn capacitors, have fun!.

There are tons of more or less detailed projects in internet, ask Mr. Google

For a starter's microprocessor kit, I'll go fo Arduino it's cheap (22 euros plus shipping), all included (no need for a programer), and it's Open Source (well, that's slashdot, what else could you expect?;-).

If you're after audio look into DIY Audio & Video the cricket amp is a good starter project, and sounds nice (provided you do have an electric guitar). Or may be you prefer to assemble your own mp3 player or this other .

If you're after radio applications, ARRL is your place to go.

If you like robotics, the list is endless, try Kronos Robotics, DIY robotics (in UK), BEAM walkers , etc.

And for lots of ideas,as well of lot's of references, read Make , or just keep reading slashdot ;).

If you want to do precision inertial measurements then cheap GPS will not work well.

A good system would be GPS coupled with an accelerometer and microcontroller. Use the GPS for absolute positioning, and to calibrate the accelerometer. Use the accelerometer for speed and position updates as quickly as you need them.

It would probably take about 40-60 hours of work to develop and test the concept, and probably cost about $200 per prototype unit. Thereafter one could probably make them for $100 apiece. Assuming a cheap engineer at $60/hr you're looking at $2,800 to $4,000 for the first 2 prototypes.

If you want to go the cheap and quick route, you can skip the GPS and simply use an accelerometer. One such gizmo is here. This person created a simple acceleration meter that analyzes a few car parameters by monitoring acceleration during a 0-60 test. This doesn't match up directly with what you need, but with some work you can take this and make it do what you're looking for.

-Adam

The older SIMM modules make excellent modules to add a big chunk of memory to your controller/processor/DSP/FPGA for all kinds of things.

Or you can just use a paintstripper and get the chips off, and incorporate them in your project.
The left over boards you can use as guides in your tech books.

Interfacing can be tough sometime, here an AVR example:
http://www.myplace.nu/avr/dram/index.htm

Just google for your favorite controller type with the word DRAM.

There are quite a few do it yourself MP3 players around. A particularly nice series of players can be found at the YAMPP (Yet Another MP3 Player) site. The site includes both hard drive and flash based players, and even a colour screen version. They have a web shop that sells PC boards, kits, and components.

There is also list of mp3 projects at http://ee.cleversoul.com/mp3_projects.html

I'd love to see someone make a small box that sits in my trunk or under my seat that acts like a CD Changer. Yeah, I know about the PhatBox, but I don't see the need for the removability at such a high cost. Something more like the YAMPP-3, but with WI-FI.
Heck, I'd even be willing to drag an ethernet cable out to the car (hey, a drop in the Garage isn't out of the question) to load up new MP3s over paying ~$800 for the 20GB Phatbox.

Its also possible to make your own if you want support for any format.

If you just want MP3, well thats easy. There are lots of sites on the web, here is one.

For Ogg there is an entire decoder-on-a-chip thingy, see this project. Or you could probably just use a software version if you got some sort of RISC chip or whatnot (need to be fairly fast)

That YAMPP site is awesome. Its a pity it has not had more of a mention.
I would love to see some portable MP3 and capture device I could customize in such a way to connect to a bunch of microcontrollers or Palm PCs. Imagine using them for sound capture and recognition. Nice!
The fact that the artical specific player can play oggs is cool - but these Yampp ones could be modified to do the same surely? Build a pure ogg device.
If anyone does - please post links for the source and schematics (you shouldnt need to change the hardware at all) here. I can imagine this is fairly easy - even trivial if you know OGG well.

YAMPP MP3 players can be made for the parts for about 80 dollars... perhaps less if you can find things on clearance. It is nowhere near $12, however.

Likewise, many MP3 players are significantly lower than 150 dollars. Poking around on Shopping.yahoo.com, you can find the the Ampigo3 for 50, the Samsung YEPP for 50, the JamP3 for 40, the Audiovox MP-1000 for 40, and the D-Link DMP-100 for 35 dollars. Rio PMP 300's are still available on ebay for $50 or less. They're all about the same quality as the "latest" MP3 players from sonicblue, and will compare favorably to that $20 CD walkman for high-impact activities like treadmill jogging, cycling, etc.

If you look hard, you can find 20GB Archos Jukeboxes for $150.

If you want an MP3 player, now is a great time. Actually, last year was a great time. Now isn't that bad though. Do some legwork and start saving those batteries.

Or check out the MP3 project liast at mp3projects.com.