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Author Topic: MP3 Players for lobby music... Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-05-2003 10:55 PM                        ...and for music-on-hold for the phone system. I want an MP3 player instead of a CD player because the thing has to run 24/7....forever. The CD players have moving parts. No good. I want a player with NO moving parts playing hours of music from internal memory or a memory card. That's the easy part -- there are MP3 players by the dozen out there. The hard part is finding one that can run off an AC adaptor. For some explicable reason, none of the ones I've found, even the more expensive have DC power jacks; they only play off AA or AAA batteries. Well, what's the good of that if the beauty of the machine is that it can play for a decades without ever wearing out, but it's batteries only last for 6 hours? Does anyone know of an MP3 memory player (NOT a cd player that can also play MP3 files....plenty of those out there) that can run from an AC wedgie as well as batteries? I can't believe that no manufacture has seen the great advantage of an MP3 player that could be hooked up to a home sound system to use as a playback unit, necessitating, of course, a external AC adaptor. Those DC-In jacks are on almost every piece of portable equipment I've ever seen, EXCEPT for these freakin little MP3 players. It's frustrating. If they jsut don't exist, then the next step will have to be to pull one apart and install a jack. Frank  |  IP: Logged Ken Lackner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1907 From: Atlanta, GA, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 11-05-2003 11:54 PM                     The Creative Nomad Jukebox products include AC adapters. So does the iPod.  |  IP: Logged Aaron Sisemore Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day! Posts: 3061 From: Rockwall TX USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 11-06-2003 02:05 AM                     The Nomads and iPod contain hard drives. Frank specifically said no moving parts. -Aaron  |  IP: Logged Jim Spohn Film Handler Posts: 95 From: Bakersfield, CA, USA Registered: Jan 2003 posted 11-06-2003 09:30 AM                     Frank.. When I want to run an item off of a plug-in battery elinimator and there is no place to plug one in on the unit, I cut a piece of wood doweling of the correct diameter to the legnth needed, then thumb tack the wires from the plug-in unit onto each end of the dowel and insert it into the battery compartment. It works reliabily...Simple, quick and dirty... Jim  |  IP: Logged Elena N. Solovyova Film Handler Posts: 44 From: Voronezh, Russia Registered: Feb 2003 posted 11-06-2003 10:07 AM                     Frank, Flash/memcard players with AC adapter inlet are probably extinct now due to miniaturisation race. My daughter own one, but since it made in Russia I doubt you'll find it in US retail.  |  IP: Logged Matt Zeiner Expert Film Handler Posts: 146 From: Windsor, CT USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 11-06-2003 07:02 PM                     just solder the wire to the appropriate battery clips...  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-06-2003 08:13 PM                     Although the iPod contains a hard drive, it does not spin continuously. Roughly four or five songs are cached into RAM at once.  |  IP: Logged William Bunch Film Handler Posts: 87 From: Misawa, Japan Registered: Nov 2001 posted 11-06-2003 08:55 PM                        Elena has the right idea. These things draw very little power. Solder or clip across the battery connectors and run over to a D-cell pack of the correct voltage. You can get these solder together packs at Radio Shack. If the MP3 player normally would use one AA battery then wire up two or four D cells in parallel. (NOT series!!) It would probably run for a year at least. And with no hum issues. Just be sure to acknowledge polarity and voltage sums when hooking it all up.  |  IP: Logged John Anastasio Master Film Handler Posts: 325 From: Trenton, NJ, USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 11-07-2003 11:55 AM                        Then stick the whole thing in a project box to make it look nice...or glue it all to a blank rack spacer and mount it in the rack.  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 11-07-2003 03:26 PM                        OK, so I'll ask the stupid question and risk the ridicule... How long would the MP3 player play with long-life batteries installed? If you are feeding a line input, you could probably keep the output volume quite low, which would reduce the current drawn by the internal amplifier. Lacking a player with an AC adaptor built-in, the effort and inconvenience of replacing batteries perhaps once or twice a year (?) should be compared to any solution that can be rigged up. While it's not rocket science, the exercise will take time and may have questionable reliability.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-07-2003 07:56 PM                        Hey guys, thanks for the thoughts. Yup, I wanted to stay away from the hard drives simply because the thing really has to run day and night....forever. My boss pointed out that I was being way to anal -- he said, "so what if it burns out after five years....we can afford to get another one." It's just that I really love the idea of a totally non-mechanical device. Of course smashing the thing opened and soldering onto the + and - voltage points is quite easy and, incidentally, the first thing I did. I tried to power my Arcos Ondio MP3 player with a Casio adjustable AC Adaptor -- it supplied ANY voltage you could possibly want, from 3.5v to 12v dc. And it worked beautifuly for 5 minutes, then the player blew up. Seems these players are designed to work on pure DC without designing in any filtering circuitry because there isn't any worry about ripple or dirty DC. Evidently the cheap AC adaptors provide anything but pure DC like the batteries. I guess the trick is to either get a really good DC supply or just bite the bullet and give up on my idea of pure electronics providing audio for the lobby and the music-on-hold. I just hate to give up on the idea of audio playing from solid state memeory. Or maybe I can find one of those Russian units on Ebay. Frank PS -- Scott, actually the best battery life of the units I looked at is about 8hrs playtime, which to me seems pretty silly given they can store hundreds of hours of music. You would think the most natural application would be to be able to play all that music without the batteries needing to be replace over and over. You would think an audio storage device like this would be a natural to be hooked up to your home stereo system; the simple addition of a 10 cent jack would broaden the useful appeal of the MP3 player -- or as suggested, stick the whole thing in a sleek 1U rack with lots of LEDs, triple the price and then sell it as a state-of-the-art Theatre Non-sync Player -- no moving parts, and it can hold 800 3min music cuts which can be programmed into musical styles that can be selected from a play list appropriate for any type of audience or movie genre. Hook up some contact closures and the whole thing could be rigged right to the automation. Frank  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 11-07-2003 08:26 PM                        MP3z R illegal U will die in prison.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 11-08-2003 12:05 AM                        Frank, you'll need a regulated supply. Otherwise it'll blow itself up, like you've already found out.  |  IP: Logged Jason Black Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1723 From: Myrtle Beach, SC, USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 11-08-2003 01:50 AM                        Frank, I'd think that you could find a regulated power supply at Radio Shack. Seems that I've bought 5 of them (13.5v-30v) adjustables to power our pre-amp circuitry.. I'm almost sure they're regulated..  |  IP: Logged Matt Zeiner Expert Film Handler Posts: 146 From: Windsor, CT USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 11-08-2003 06:48 AM                     You could power it with a large 6 volt wet-cell battery. I use one to power my reference D/A converter at the studio. I have to recharge it every 6 mos or so...  |  IP: Logged

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