I have this old iPod music station. I don’t want to deal with loading music on my old iPod Touch and manually changing things. There is an AUX port but I thought this might be a good DIY opportunity. Unfortunately I have no clue what I am doing and no idea what forums to post to in order to get help.
If somebody can help me out by guiding me somewhere more specialized of maybe just help out here since there are plenty of creative people.
So here is how it looks. I took it apart to see how much space there was. And took out the iPhone port, the cable is just a 5pin. Not sure if there is any room for a big battery setup.
What I want to do is cut out the spot where to iPhone port was. Replace it with LCD display instead. Have an Arduino connected the 5-pin port to deal with display and music through Bluetooth. I do not know how the 5-pin port works and still need to buy all the parts.
I want to make this into a portable Bluetooth speaker setup if possible. Otherwise having it plugged to wall is fine.
It would be a huge bonus if I could setup an assistant like Alexa.
Any help and guidance is appreciated. Help with parts, a new forum or tips on how to interface the 5-pin port.
I would use the Aux input for turning it into a portable Bluetooth speaker vs messing with the Apple stuff. I could be wrong, but I would imagine it would be substantially more complicated. I’ve never used any Apple iStuff, so I don’t know if it connects using USB or what, but whatever it uses is likely digital and not analog, which means making it much more complicated and expensive.
I recently used A Cheap Bluetooth Adapter From Amazon that I had laying around from another project and made my headphones wireless. It wasn’t exactly the one linked, but the same shape and whatnot so likely manufactured at the same place. I shortened the headphone cables substantially and glued the volume control and the Bluetooth adapter to the one ear cup and it has worked out very well for me. Looking at that device you could easily do something similar. With a little work you could get it all stuffed inside that case or perhaps find another case if you want to use large batteries.
The best thing about the Bluetooth device I used was that it works while being charged. I have used other devices and some won’t operate and charge at the same time. Being able to power everything from one battery would be handy, and probably easier if whatever Bluetooth device you find can be charged and running at the same time.
It should be straightforward to connect batteries to it for power and pipe in sound through the Aux input. Using the other connector is going to require a smart device to control things. You could possibly use an Arduino or similar to do this, but it would be a great deal of effort. If you don’t have experience with it or someone in person capable of doing such a project that could help you then it may never become a finished project.
If you are trying to save money then I would just use the Bluetooth adapter and call it a day. You could try to hunt down an old cell phone someone no longer uses for cheap/free and have a complete portable system to play music and more. The cost of an Arduino + Bluetooth + some way to connect to your network to access media files + an LCD screen + other components is likely going to cost more than an old cell phone. That goes double if you want a voice assistant.
If you are trying to use an Arduino as a challenge or for some sort of science project then go for it! There are some awesome guys on YouTube and other places that can teach you quite a lot about both the hardware side and programming required to complete such a project. You might want to check out Adafruit or other places that teach people about making projects similar to what you are looking for.
Yeah, i wanted to try and DIY something cool. To learn and practice. But it would just end up being more expensive than I was hoping for. Ended up just getting an Amazon Echo Dot. Thanks.
