NES MP3 player complete with lots o pics

[BurgerKingDiamond]

It's not arcade related, but I figured that since we're all geeks to one extent or another someone might be interested in this. I finished this back in December, but couldn't find the time to put all the pics together. enjoy!

So I decided to build myself an MP3 player as a little project. It ended up taking more time than I hoped it would, but it turned out pretty good. It’s an NES controller with a 4GB Coby MP3 player gutted and transplanted inside. I know this is not original at all, it’s been done before but I really took my time on it and I think it’s turned out better than any other ones I’ve seen online.
On to the progress pics… (I’m a crappy photographer.. )
Here’s the controller in it’s original state. I decided to try out something I’ve wanted to do for awhile. I mixed up some RetroBrite, http://retr0bright.wikispaces.com/. This stuff is supposed to work wonders for getting the yellow out of old consumer electronics. It worked pretty well for me (although it wasn’t in very bad shape to start with.



sitting in the sun waiting for reaction to work it’s magic



finished product



original MPS player (Coby 4GB, $20 ebay)



innards exposed…



battery holder and USB jack



feeling out the battery placement.  Some plastic removed with the Dremel.



hole cut out for USB port (slow and steady with the Dremel. I like to use some masking tape, and draw my line on the tape with a Sharpie. The tape is there to save the plastic if your hand slips at all). Always measure 23 times before you cut! Headphone jack just fits right where the cord used to be.



used a 16 pin IC holder as a way to organize wiring a little bit. The wires from all the NES buttons are soldered to the pins that sticking through the board. On the other side the wires to the MP3 PCB. This might make sense later.





plastic window scavenged from the MP3 player. The silver bezel hides the imperfect cut.



The player has a mini USB jack. It’s way too small for me to try and wire directly to. So I scavenged the Mini USB plug from this adapter that came with the player. I cut away the plastic to expose the leads underneath. Wires go from the Mini USB plug to the regular USB jack pictured earlier. Then the Mini USB plug goes into the jack on the player.





close up of headphone jack and USB jack wired up. Hot glue is essential!



I’ve done one of these before but I used small tact switches for the buttons. They work great, but it doesn’t feel like an NES controller. So this time I wanted to keep that same feel. So I cannibalized the NES PCB (did I mention I used a broken controller? Don’t worry I wouldn’t ruin a good working one.) Originally I thought that if I just wired up to the contacts that the buttons would just work (2 wires per button, the player PCB isn’t common ground. I found that out the hard way the first time I built one of these).



That didn’t end up working. I don’t know exactly why, but I came up with a pretty good workaround. I just scraped off all that black stuff from the contacts to expose the bare copper.



then I cut out little circles of aluminum foil and superglued them to the rubber pads that depress when you push a button.



directions and A,B wired up and in place





wired up to MP3 PCB



PCB lifted out of the way while the LCD and backlight are glued in place.



everything wired and glued in place. The little piece of perf board in the middle is glued to keep the start and select buttons in place. They don’t actually do anything. Only 6 buttons are needed. You might see a 4 strand piece of ribbon wire sticking out near the headphone jack.  They’re the left,right, and grounds for the headphone jack. Originally I had the jack wired up to the IC header, but it there was a bad connection, and I realized that it was easier to just ditch the header and wire straight to the PCB in that case.



final shot of the headphone and USB jacks.



closed up. Only the corner screws are used . the two middle had to go. The little hint of blue in the middle bottom screw hole is the batter peeking out.



final shots and the male/male USB cable I wired up.

[Green Giant]

Very impressive work on a small scale.

So how many people have no idea what the controller is actually from?

[opt2not]

Sooooo cooooool!

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Sooooo cooooool!

thanks a lot. I don't remember if I commented on it, but I'm pretty smitten with your 360 -> JAMMA interface. That is a cool project.

[emphatic]

Excellent work!

[Malenko]

I'll take 2 please!

[Le Chuck]

Fantastic!  Bookmarked for future use.  Now I just need belt buckle integration and I can rock the geek.   

[dandare]

Brilliant, i love it!

You should post it on http://hackaday.com/ will go down a storm.

also, how did the retrobright go for you?  i've been pondering whipping some up for a while now for some poor old Amiga's of mine.

[wp34]

You should post it on http://hackaday.com/ will go down a storm.

+1

Impressive work.  Thanks for the tip on Retrobrite.   

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Brilliant, i love it!

You should post it on http://hackaday.com/ will go down a storm.

also, how did the retrobright go for you?  i've been pondering whipping some up for a while now for some poor old Amiga's of mine.

 I figured that this particular thing had been done to death, so I wasn't going to bother. But maybe I'll check it out.

[DCsegaDH]

Nice work

[ccmathome]

That came out looking good. I could really use some of that retrobright.

[drventure]

Great Project!

[ccmathome]

you made it on hackaday http://hackaday.com/2012/01/19/nes-controller-cannibalized-for-mp3-player-enclosure/

[Saicho]

Looking really good! Nice job.

[Woodshop Flunky]

Great job!  That's slick!

[BurgerKingDiamond]

you made it on hackaday http://hackaday.com/2012/01/19/nes-controller-cannibalized-for-mp3-player-enclosure/

Cool! the write-up mentioned that it would be better with a rechargeable battery and I completely agree. That's my only regret. The thing is that this is the cheapest ($20 shipped) player I could find. I needed it to be dirt cheap so that if I F**** something up I wouldn't get too pissed. All the rechargeable ones I found were more expensive (more in the $40 range), and tended to have bigger LCD's. This was an issue because I had to take into consideration where I would put the LCD and how to fit the PCB along with everything else inside the case.

If they made something in the same size and form as this model with a rechargeable battery I would have definitely gone that route.

And I did mention it but, in case anybody just skimmed through, the controller was already broken, and NES stuff is so common that it's not worth even looking at fixing. So it went to a good cause.

[Newgeta]

baller status