The Poor Man's Minty MP3 Player

Ever wish you could have an MP3 player that is infinitely more awesome than an iPod? And cheaper, too? and... well you get the picture. I got this idea from the Original Minty MP3, but it was too complicated for my liking. So I hacked up a Lexar JumpGear MP3 Thingy, and put it in an altoids box with some new buttons. I use a 1 gig jumpdrive with it, and it works well.

Disassembling the Player
Wiring the Play/Rewind/FF buttons
Wiring Volume Controls
Wiring the headphone jack
Battery Pack
Preparing the Altoids Tin
Stuffing it all in there

Parts:

Panel-mount 1/8" stereo jack
6 normally open momentary switches
Altoids tin - the rectangular ones
Lexar JumpGear MP3
A JumpDrive Sport (whatever size you need/want)

Step 1: Disassembling the Player:

Remove the two screws on the back of the player. One of them is under the battery compartment. Use a flathead screwdriver to pry open the case. The battery pack is in the bottom half of the case, and it is soldered to the board. Locate the battery leads, soldered directly to the PCB, protruding through on the right-hand side. Get out your favorite desoldering utensil and go for it. set the pack aside, as you will use it later. Locate the headphone jack and desolder. You can discard it later, but you will need it to figure out where each wire goes on your new jack.

Step 2: Wiring the Play/Rewind/FF buttons

There are 3 pushbuttons on the top of the player that control these functions. You will be hotwiring these to some external momentary switches. Simply solder wires to each lead on the switch and to each contact point as shown in the picture.

Step 3: Wiring Volume Controls

The leads for the volume control buttons are wired as follows: one lead of the Volume Up button is wired to the leftmost contact on the volume control. The other lead is wired to the rightmost contact. The Volume Down is wired to the contact that is second from the right and to the right contact.

Step 4: Wiring the headphone jack

Determine the pinout of your headphone jack. Refer to the original jack to figure out how to wire the new one. Basically, solder wires from the pads on the pcb to the leads on the jack. Pretty straightforward.

Step 5: Battery Pack

Take the bottom half of the player case and cut off any unnecessary plastic with a hacksaw, coping saw, or a Dremel. Solder each lead to a wire and then solder the wire to the corresponding hole on the PCB.

Step 6: Preparing the Altoids Tin

I drilled four 1/4 in. holes in the right side of the case for the Play/FF/Rew buttons and the headphone jack. Refer to your button specs to see the sizes you need. I used smaller buttons for the volume controls, and placed them on the left side. If you would like to view the LCD with the lid closed, cut a hole in the lid and put some thin plexiglass on the inside. Otherwise, prepare for

Step 7: Stuffing it all in there

If soldering the switches wasn't hard enough, here comes the fun part. First, push the buttons and headphone jack through the holes, carefully tucking the wires along the top of the tin. Slide the battery pack under the PCB, being careful to avoid all wires in the process. Tighten the nuts on the buttons and jacks, and close the lid. You now have a new mp3 player that 0wns an iPod!

View the 0wnage!

Notice I pried the cover off the JumpDrive to fit everything in there