Hey, I had an idea today while listening to a fuzzy radio station: why not build my own embedded mp3 player using linux, a hard drive, an lcd panel (2-5 lines), and a few other inexpensive parts.

Here is the idea: there will be this box with 3 wires coming out of it: one is the screen/controls, the other is the audio out, and the last is the 12v car power. In one end of the box will be a removable hd (like the type they use in servers) where the mp3's and play lists will reside (this is so I can unplug the drive, plug it into my main computer and transfer songs/playlists as needed). Due to power constants I would prefer an embedded system to just using a cd/hd combo (although I could probably use a small laptop 20 gig hard drive, that wouldn't draw many amps).

Now I think I could get away with either downloading a stripped down distro (or having a friend attempt to make one), or making my own 'from scratch', or with any luck one of you guys will have run across something like this and can point me in that direction, if not then either some sites or 'correct key terms' would be very appreciated =)

Thanks for any/all help you guys can give!
Art

Have never seen anything embedded like you're after, but have seen tons of Shuttle PC's in the boot of a car with a little 6"-7" in-dash screen with a wireless keyboard. Mac Minis are also very cool for this, they fit nicely in the glvoebox and can easily be slide in + out. Have even seen a Sparc 10 workstation used! I think it's a bit more complicated than your initial thoughts you, but I'm sure a search on here will bring back something similar I just can't remember the thread from a while back.

Try the MPD forums, they have a lot of info on interesting little setups like that. I'd really like to put together something like that for my car but I little more elaborate. Something like a 7" touchscreen displaying a simple interface I'd chuck together using PyGTK or PyEvas if I felt like pretty effects that was just a frontend for mplayer and MPD. Would be easy to do if the hardware I needed was easily available

thanks for the suggestion! that kinda gives me another idea for what I could do: it gives me an excuse to buy a pda (the ASUS A716 with 11b and bluetooth is what I'm currently looking at) and use it as a front end to the setup (probably use a shuttle board w/o the case or a really cheap mobo and cpu since it'll only do music).

It also sounds like you might be on the right track for something as well, although I don't know how well it would work as far as the signal degradation from the front to the back of the car, if you had a truck it wouldn't be bad at all =)

There is still a ton of stuff I really should look into (such as the mini lan and wireless boards that are out there), but this is a long term commitment and might end up being a senior project for my major or something =)

Art

I think I've seen/heard about those too... but the idea is to get away from the keyboard/mouse and have just the basic buttons for next/previous/shuffle/play/stop/etc with the current song info (artist/title/time) on a small lcd screen. Plus the other problem with one of those shuttles or mac's is that I have to invert the power to power the pc, if I could somehow get around that I think I would be much better off (I'm pretty sure I would be able to find any/all the electronics to lower the 12 volts down since nothing on the computer runs above 12 vdc).

Thanks for the info though =)

Art

There are 12VDC ATX power supplies available like:
http://www.cyberresearch.com/store/PWR_825VX_3548.2.htm
You can find lots more by googling...

SWEETNESS!!!! I've been looking for something like that!!!! Thanks for posting that!

Art

I had the same idea except I wanted to use an old laptop.This presents two problems I can think of ,how to power the laptop and which distro.I want my mp3 player to boot fast when I start my vehicle .I found cmms for a linux distro but it is not very well documented.Plus other applications would be useful and entertaining.With dual boot I could have both a complete operating system and a fast booting mp3 player.GPS would be cool . Also imagine using wireless from your driveway

Here are some links I found:




http://transportation.hackaday.com/e...4000310056201/

http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000050025718