How to make a usb output on an mp3 radio. Making a USB output in the car radio. But there is also a minus

Who hasn’t thought about integrating an mp3 player into an old, but still beloved boombox or music center? Doing this is a kind of pleasure, because installing a regular player into old audio equipment is oh so difficult. More convenient options for modernization are offered by our Chinese comrades. On many trading platforms you can find built-in audio modules equipped with a combined digital-to-analog converter and sometimes a miniature amplifier.

Devices of this kind can have different functionality: from the simplest decoder with a single USB port for a content source to advanced models equipped with their own LCD display, control panel and additional connectors. The most practical, cheap and at the same time fully functional version of such a module from Aliexpress was considered on mySKU.ru.

The board's specifications claim MP3 playback up to 320 kbps at sampling rates up to 48 kHz, WAV and even five-channel DTS. This option is not equipped with any additional interface, except for analog audio output and a single USB port. It turns out to be a kind of mp3 player that requires a power supply and speakers (also an amplifier, actually). It is they that will be used from the old audio device (a kind of second life, but, alas, the operation of the board and the music center itself can only be coordinated separately).

After receiving the parcel from distant China, you will need to partially disassemble the animated tape recorder to determine where the board can be mounted. Installation must be done in such a way that the control panel and dataport can be used. If you have the appropriate skills, you can unsolder these components and place them on the wires - this way you can place the board in more convenient places. Most often, such modules are placed in cassette compartments, next to the power buttons or in disk drives. You can find more interesting places.

Then we take a coil of wire. It is needed to connect power and audio output. This is the most difficult operation. You will need some knowledge of circuit design and the circuit diagram of the existing device itself, which can be downloaded on the Internet. If you are not strong in circuit design, contact a friend who is more knowledgeable in this topic, who will help you find the power pins where the two wires will be soldered. Be careful! The board consumes 5–12 VDC, no more.

Having stretched the wires to the installation site, we will begin placing the board. You will probably have to make a cut in the housing, which will require a Dremel or similar brand of tool. For the simplest placement, you can use a regular cassette compartment, then the port will be accessible when you open it.

A small detail remains - connect the audio output from the board to the output of a music center or tape recorder. You can use the circuit, find the output stage on it, and solder the wires from the audio output of the USB board to them. You can do it easier and output them to the AUX audio input or similar (if, of course, it is available).

Now you just need to connect power to the board with a USB output, then insert a flash drive with music and carry out the first test of the updated boombox.

Of course, the complete design is very dependent on the functionality of the Chinese device and will not be able to completely replace any modern music center with NFC, Wi-Fi, the ability to work with streaming services and many software features to improve sound. But, on the other hand, is all this necessary?

At the time of writing, the module cost about $5. We accept the amplifier and speakers for free. If the sound suits you initially, it will not change dramatically for the worse. So it's not a bad way to upgrade your audio system.

The problem of connecting a flash drive is often faced by owners of old-style standard radios, where in order to listen to their favorite music they have to constantly buy new CDs, which are no longer so easy to find. How to connect a flash drive to a car radio if there is no USB input? There are several ways to correct the situation.

Installing a USB adapter

A USB adapter is a device that connects directly to the audio outputs of a car radio, equipped with a USB port, which allows you to connect a flash drive, mobile phone or other gadgets.

Advantages:

• No need to replace the car's head unit.
• Does not require power from the cigarette lighter.
• Easy to install.
• The radio plays songs in a recorded format, and the quality is not lost due to an old disk laser, transmission via a Bluetooth adapter, or interference on radio channels.
• Can be hidden in a car panel.
• Easily download and create playlists of music tracks.
• Low cost.

Installation:

1. Pull the radio out of the socket in order to gain access to the wires and connectors.
2. Insert the wire from the USB adapter into the corresponding connector on the car radio (in some cases, you may need to additionally install an adapter, which can be easily found on the car market).
3. Connect the USB adapter itself, with a connector for a flash drive, to the other end of the wire.
4. If desired, you can run the adapter to the glove compartment or lead it to another place on the panel so that it does not interfere with driving.

The radio itself does not require additional configuration, but since the principle of operation is based on emulating the operation of a CD, in order for the radio to be able to see and play recordings from a flash drive, you should create folders on it with names corresponding to the playing format of the radio: “CD1” , "CD2", "CD3", etc. The files should be saved in a folder called “CD7”. Without creating folders with these names, the radio will not be able to detect the necessary file entries.

Leading manufacturers of Bluetooth headsets are trying to make their products as popular and functional as possible for users. Therefore, recently a headset has appeared on the market that allows not only to carry out telephone conversations without violating traffic rules or creating emergency situations on the roads, but can also perform a sufficient number of additional functions, including playing audio recordings from USB drives.

Have a nice day, everyone!

What is written below will probably cause misunderstanding among true connoisseurs of good sound, but, nevertheless, several sound-reproducing devices have been converted with the help of this module, and the new owners are quite satisfied.

Periodically, thoughts arose to somehow diversify the playlist in my car. At the same time, I really didn’t want to change the standard radio, because for some reason I got used to it.

I drove for a long time, listening to music using various players, the output of which was connected to the linear input of the radio (the linear input, of course, had to be made by myself)

I've been waiting for a long time for the Chinese brothers to invent something that can be inserted inside a standard radio, and finally they got it.

Price $7.8

The photo is on the website, here is my general view from the details.

As soon as one such board arrived, the child asked to install it in the computer speakers. It turned out neatly, you can listen to music from a flash drive, and, oddly enough, all radio stations were caught on a stub of wire without hissing and with acceptable sound quality.

Since I did this at work in my spare time, and my colleagues were interested in what I was doing, the next three boards suffered the same fate
One was built into speakers, two into old radios.

The owners are glad that they used to have a radio on their refrigerator, but now they have a radio with flash drives.

And finally, we got around to the standard radio in the car.

I was satisfied with the sound quality; digital noise, oddly enough, is absent even during pauses. I think the sound is about the same as if we took it from the line output of a regular sound card and fed it to the speakers. And if you compare it with what it was (and there was only one radio in the car), then I’m just very pleased.

A little more about the device:

Using a module + a purchased amplifier chip + old 25W speakers + a homemade case, we got a super-duper boombox for the dacha. Plays loudly, floors vibrate

In the case of MP3 there is a semblance of an equalizer, in the case of radio there is no equalizer.

The remote control can be heard from about five meters away.

There is fast forward, rewind, pause, and auto-search for stations. There is no random playback. Shows only the track number. Tracks are played in the order in which the files were recorded, using this you can create something like a playlist.

If you have both an SD and a flash drive, you can switch from one to the other.

In general, we can say that the module is the internals of the miniboomboxes described in neighboring topics, but is cheaper due to its light weight.

It should be noted that different variations may arrive.

They come with an amplifier for each channel (about 1W), and they come without it. There are some with a clearly defined linear output, but sometimes you have to look for it on the board.

There are various options for such devices on household farms. I liked the one described because the indicator can be disconnected and, by connecting it via a cable, installed more flexibly in the donor device.

I couldn’t find it cheaper anywhere, so I had to buy it at DH, spent a month trying to get it shipped, then waited another month. If this feature of the store is unknown, it should be taken into account.

I hope the review will be useful to readers.

Thank you for your attention.

Of course, you can go to the store, spend about $50 or more, buy a new one and not fool yourself. But this is not our method!

So, let's take a Chinese MP3 player that reads flash drives and memory cards. There are a lot of options. The most important thing is that it has a headphone output. From there we will record the audio signal. You can use a car FM transmitter with a separate audio output. Its advantage is that the transmitter comes with a remote control. Let's disassemble the player.

We disassemble the car radio and remove the CD drive or tape drive (which one). Of course, provided that they are not workers.

We solder the positive power wire of the MP3 player through the “Krenka” to the contact of the car radio, on which, after turning it on, voltage appears (+12 or +9 V).

Don't forget about the voltage converter from 12 to 5 V. FM transmitters have a built-in voltage converter. MP3 players may not have it at all. You'll figure it out locally. In any case, it is better to use LM7805 or the domestic analogue KR142EN5A.

After we have sorted out the power supply, we connect the sound. We take a shielded wire (the kind that usually comes from the head of the tape drive) and connect the audio output of the MP3 player to the AUX input of the car radio. WHAT? Is there no such thing? Then it's a little more complicated. We are looking for a pre-amplifier on the board (the same shielded wire from the head goes to it). We look at the brand of the microprocessor to find where its audio signal output is (Google will help you). We solder the isolation electrolytic capacitors and feed the audio signal from the player there.

Now we mount the MP3 player board into the car radio casing. After removing the tape drive (or CD drive), there is plenty of space there. The main thing is to prevent a short circuit.

The USB output is output to the front panel, into the hole where cassettes or disks were inserted.

The player control buttons are connected to unused control buttons for the tape drive or CD drive. There are only three of them - “play/stop”, “next track” and “previous track”. In the case of a cassette deck, we install suitable mini-keys opposite the button rods.

Most likely, many still have old players, tape recorders or other audio systems. There’s no point in throwing them out, and there’s no point in leaving them. Don't be upset. You can breathe life into these “oldies.” Converting old systems to USB is not a difficult task at all, especially when it comes to a music center. Such work will not take much time, and it will cost very little.

Assembling parts from one system to another is a difficult and thankless job. Of course, you will use several outdated equipment, but you will also spend a lot of time. It is much easier to use a purchased module.

Technological progress does not stand still. So Chinese manufacturers decided to please amateur craftsmen by releasing a special audio module for sound conversion. The system includes:

1. Simple devices equipped only with a USB connector.
2. Sophisticated models with a display for data output.
3. A remote control with which you can control the device.
4. A certain number of connectors for various needs.

But these details are not enough even to create the simplest player. This is what the old audio system will be used for. It's good if it remains in working order. If not, don't worry. The main thing is that the necessary parts work:

1. The battery pack, or the unit responsible for charging.
2. The speakers are from the old system, and it is through them that the music will sound.
3. Well, and a sound amplifier built into the music center.

You can choose a device with various bells and whistles, but to revive an old cassette player, a simple module equipped with one USB port and the ability to output sound will be enough.

Module installation

To install the audio module into the player, the latter will have to be disassembled a little. This is necessary to determine the location where the board will be installed.

The installation must be done in such a way that you can control the device using the remote control.

If you are familiar with electronics, you can solder the module to the wires. If this is not your hobby, you can install the part in the cassette compartment.

After determining the installation location, we proceed to installing the audio module in the old music center:

1. Armed with a coil of wire, you need to connect the power and sound output. To do this, you will need a diagram of the module and music center.
2. Work carefully, as the wires are live.
3. Having finished with the wires, we return to installing the board.
4. If you rejected the cassette connector and decided to install the module in another place, you will have to cut a hole for the USB.
5. After this, all that remains is to connect the output of the audio module to the audio output board on your tape recorder. There are two ways to do this. The first is to solder the wire to the circuit, the second is to connect through the aux input, if there is one.
6. We connect the power supply and check the operation of the equipment.

You shouldn’t expect much from such a device, because its functionality is limited by the capabilities of the module. But for listening to your favorite tracks, a revived music center is quite suitable.

Conclusion

To convert an old music center to USB, you don't have to put in a lot of effort. You just need to order a special module for audio transcoding and install it in an old player. For a very low cost, you will get a device that can play music from a flash drive.