Rockbox Player - Project to design and build a Free/Open hardware audio player

[casainho]

NOTE: We pretend to use internal NAND Flash for booting and not the SD Card. That NAND will hold RB bootloader + firmware. SD Card for music files (expansion storage).

I suppose you mean "plan" or "are going" and not pretend in the above text. Look up what pretend means...

You are right. Oh, in Portuguese what I want to say would be with the verb "pretender", that's why I mistake. Thanks.

And looks like I were wrong, SD card 1 bit is not SPI. The only free royalties are SPI and MMC(just for host). There is more info here.

[scharkalvin]

I think system will use NAND flash for boot but can also boot from SD Card (although I don't know how we will do with the royalties for using SD bus).

IIRC you only have to worry about royalties if you use the SD mode.  If you use the spi mode to talk to the SD card you don't have pay any royalties.
The spi mode might be a little slower since in SD mode you can transfer several bits at a time.

Ok. The card is wired with a 4-bit bus but is the same for MMC and SD. For MMC there is no royalties, so, the final user will have just to pay if uses SD.

On LPC manual we can read: "LPC3130/31 boot ROM interacts with memory
cards in 1-bit bus mode only." So I think it reads the card by SPI
while trying to boot. SD BUS is 4-bit mode while SPI 1-bit, I think, so, it can boot without the need to pay royalties for using SD Card.

Now I must see if with the 4 wires for SD bus it can also uses 1 wire, to avoid the royalties and have the same schematic/wirings and give the people all the possibilities.

Actually SPI uses 4 signals, MOSI, MISO, SCK, and SS.  However SPI is a single bit at a time serial protocol with separate wires for transmit and receive plus clock and attention.
SD uses more than 4 wires to send several bits in one clock.  Sounds like you have wired the SD card up to only use the SPI protocol which is the same as the MMC card.  This mode should be royalty free.

[Llorean]

Are the royalties really high or something? You're planning to sell this player, it seems odd to me that you'd engineer it to have a disadvantage when you can pass the cost onto customers.

It seems advertising "It's slower that other players for accessing SD cards" is probably not ideal.

[casainho]

DAP expansion board schematics released (edit on 21.05.2009)

Although not complete, the DAP expansion board schematics were released. Everyone can get them here (needs KiCad Free Software program).

This expansion board holds an LCD, buttons and audio codec IC.

The LCD will be a 320X240 (2.4") or a 1.8". We don't know if it will have touch screen or not, but maybe it will have.

The buttons are simple ON/OFF buttons.

The codec IC is a from TLV320 family, but is a low power version - TLV320AIC3204. Board includes headphones out, line out, line in, ext mic in and microphone.

All help is appreciated on the revision of the schematic.

A dreamer or an hero? (edit on 12.05.2009)

Os last 10 days Matt just draw the board, eat and sleep. The board is done and will go to fabrication tomorrow.

I am being reading the messages on LPC3000 yahoo groups and everybody there is pessimistic about the idea of doing a board like this, without professional tools, as expensive equipment  to verify the BGA solder and an high end commercial board design program. Matt took 10 consecutive days to draw it using KiCAD (Free Software) which is far from professional programs (it don't have undo for example).

There are just one company in the world that is selling an development board with the LPC313x, but is very closed, they even don't share the schematic! (I think I understand all the investment). So if this work of making an Open Hardware LPC313x board goes ok, this will be very important on Open Hardware ARM9/Linux/Rockbox world. There is a lot of expectations on this LPC3130 ARM9 180MHz because it is cheap, it costs just 3€ (1000 units).

Matt started now the design of the expansion board for adding all the hardware needed to have the player/recorder.

The full schematic sources and a picture of the board can be found on SVN.

Here a picture of the board:




Moving from Atmel ARM9 to Phillips ARM9

As you may know, I chose at begin to use an ARM9 from Atmel, because there was already all tools(example codes, datasheets, OpenOCD scripts, bootstrap, other Open Hardware projects) for a quick and ready development. It were my first time with ARM.

Now, Matt (from AVROpendous) can help us by designing, assembling and selling us a board on his shop on Ebay.

Matt started by wanting to design and ARM9 board for running Linux, when I asked him for help. He did prefer to use an new ARM9 from Phillips - LPC3130.

For the previous ARM9 from Atmel he have working code for Rockbox (missing the audio), there is Linux for it from Atmel, software library, some Open Source projects, some cheap developments boards, all the tools needed for quickly deploy any application.

For the LPC3130, there is just one datasheet + software library. I couldn't find any development board for it, nor Linux, nor any project using it, nor OpenOCD scripts.

Even Matt told me that the first try to build the main board will cost not less than $500!! and that if it fails he will desist from this project (at least for some months until get more money). It will be a one shot try.

Definitively I would not do as Matt is doing, I would prefer to reuse the schematics of dev. board we are using and use the same ARM9 from Atmel. I think Matt is risking to much.

Anyway, let's see if all goes ok, if we have luck. I am being looking at the schematics to see If I found nay problem, before Matt put PCB for production.

Matt did update the schematics today, there is one picture showing the LPC3130 and the footprint printed on paper - he did used it to see if all is going ok. Please if anyone can help and see the schematics, we will appreciate.

Here is the picture:

Are the royalties really high or something? You're planning to sell this player, it seems odd to me that you'd engineer it to have a disadvantage when you can pass the cost onto customers.

It seems advertising "It's slower that other players for accessing SD cards" is probably not ideal.

You are right. Actual boards/products of Opendous are very early stage, later if this project proves popular, maybe Matt can invest more money and search how to deal with this questions. For now we can go low speed and even "ilegal" for when using high speeds.

[casainho]

PDF files of the schematics now available! - base board and DAP expansion board (edit on 03.06.2009)

The schematic files of all hardware are now available in PDF files. Don't forget that the source files are always available on SVN.

Base board PDF schematic files:
- LPC313x
- NAND
- RAM_MMC
- Power
- Connectors

DAP-Expansion board PDF schematic files:
- LCD
- Audio CODEC
- Buttons

Hi Casainho,

I have a question on the LyreLittlePrototype.

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/LyreLittlePrototype


this question is about your page on rockboxplayer-Revision 225,

http://rockboxplayer.googlecode.com/svn-history/r225/trunk/tools/sam-ba_cdc_2.8.linux_01/


applets/at91lib/peripherals/ac97c.c/

http://rockboxplayer.googlecode.com/svn-history/r225/trunk/tools/sam-ba_cdc_2.8.linux_01/applets/at91lib/peripherals/ac97c/


is this code for the AT73C213 (qfn 32) chip?


http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=3591

It sells for around $4 but, this code seems to reference the AT91SAM9263 chip.

Hello :-)

That code for the AT73C213 is inside Sam-Ba for Linux. I just used Sam-ba for flash the AT91 Bootstrap code on DataFlash memory, from where the AT91SAM9260 boots.

The board I were using didn't have the AT73C213 IC.

I am on focus now on the ARMopendous board and the LPC3130 ARM9 (very cheap, price of $2,8 for 10000 units). The boards may arrive this week to Matt and I hope is all ok.

friendlyzookeeper, please give a look at ARMopendous schematic base board plus the DAP extension board.

[casainho]

New version of ARMopendous boards, more details for planed Lyre hardware (edit on 21.08.2009)

We are working closely with ARMopendous, since he is designing the Lyre boards and on final he will produce and sell them online. Here are the last message from him:

The rev2009-05-12 version of the ARMopendous was a significant learning experience. The next version of the ARMopendous, the ARMopendous-DIP improves on the design and provides very flexible and cheap High Speed USB connectivity. A second variation of the ARMopendous, the ARMopendous-DAP, will be a high quality audio player. Schematics for it are available but the board will be routed once I figure out how to create matched-length traces in KiCAD. SDRAM was a major problem in the rev2009-05-12 of the ARMopendous. The schematic for the ARMopendous-DIP is also available. PCBs for it have been ordered and a prototype will hopefully be created before September.

The ARMopendous-DAP board is being designed to fit on the plastic case Hammond 1553B:


(c) Hammond.

While the ARMopendous-DAP is not available, we will be able to work with the ARMopendous-DIP version, at least an initial Rockbox port for having the kernel working will be possible, for flashing the on board LED.

Here is a 3D view of ARMopendous-DIP board:

Schematics sources for ARMopendous-DIP and ARMopendous-DAP are available on SVN ARMopendous page.


Lyre project website now ready (edit on 10.06.2009)

Lyre website is now ready: http://lyre.sourceforge.net/

I had to install again the Drupal because Alex Cantos is busy and away from the project, I had to remove the last install made by Alex.

Now site have a blog, a forum and pages for collaborative writing just like the wikis :-) On next days I hope to put more information about the project on the site.

ARMopendous boards now working!!!

Matt made it, he designed the 4 layers board with KiCAD (Free Software), designed the solder paste stencil, assembled the components by hand and finally did solder them on cheap toaster oven - all at his home!! Matt is my hero

Here is the image of the board:


See here more details about the production and assembly of the board (DIY).

Now Matt is looking for help on the DAP-Expansion board, he will soon send the files to produce the board. Please everyone give a look at the schematics and see if something is wrong or missing. Thank you.

DAP-Expansion board PDF schematic files:
- LCD
- Audio CODEC
- Buttons

[Looks_Confused]

You can get PCB's printed? I thought that was just for huge orders from big companies. The housing wouldn't be too hard, check out the projects on http://www.benheck.com. I still think writing firmware would be the hardest, because you can't get much more than rockbox devs anyway.

For the future I would recommend a dual-core CPU, because I've read that will be the fastest way to decode video and audio without an external chip. The problem is, nobody knows how to use both cores yet.

Yeah, I'm too lazy to see if anyone else has answered this question.  That said, there are several quick turn PCB companies that can turn out small quantities of PCB's very cost effectively.  in the neighborhood of $25-50 each.  Advanced Circuits and Express PCB to name a couple.  Advanced Circuits even has a student program with $33 two layer PCB's with a minimum order of 1.

Regards,

Hans

[casainho]

I am writting now the news on project page at SourceForge.net: http://lyre.sourceforge.net

Latest news

Me and Bob, we both bought the Friendly ARM mini2440 development board. Schematics, datasheets and example code as Linux, are avaialabe here.
We bought the boards on Ebay for about $85 (with LCD and touchscreen + jack audio output) plus shipping.


We were looking for a way to have a repository of firmware where we could store our Rockbox port and at the same time keep it updated with the Rockbox SVN, to be able to create patchs. The best way we find were to use Mercurial on Lyre SourceForge.net project space. I wrote a quick instructions page for how to view the code, get it or commit.

We were able to create the structure on Rockbox for our port and now the Rockbox bootloader builds without errors. The code is a copy of the Gigabeat port, since it uses the same ARM9 SoC.

Next tasks is to learn and try to rewrite the C Startup code and Linker Script, so the main() on bootloader file can be run. We also need to get the OpenOCD script file for loading/debugging the code on SDRAM.

[casainho]

Next picture were taken by Bob. Note that LCD can be mounted in many ways, it can cover almost all the board as seen on this picture.



Two others Rockbox developers bought the board, Domonoky and JdGordon. We should see a big push on this hardware soon ;-)

Read more here.

[TexasRockbox]

Western Digital has introduced a 750GB 2.5" SATA HDD.  I've been reading through the posts.  Is a 2.5" SATA drive a consideration for this project?  I've seen postings concerning 1.8" ZIF drives but those are still very limited in capacity and expensive.  2.5" drives are plentiful and relatively cheap.

It would be nice to have one's entire FLAC collection to carry about.

Just a thought.

[bobc]

Hi,

I'm planning to create a PATA IDE interface for the Mini2440 designed for 2.5" drives, which should be quite straightforward.  The Mini2440/HDD device will be portable, but not battery powered (unless it's a car battery ).

Onboard SATA will take a little more work and is a topic for future study, but a PATA-SATA adaptor might work.

Out of interest, how many MB is your FLAC collection?

[casainho]

I got my board finally and I got Rockbox firmware running. Read more here.

[angelwolf71885]

I got my board finally and I got Rockbox firmware running. Read more here.

oh that looks so pretty and rather cheep at the Bord and lcd price
add a usb wifi module and wed be golden

the progress is very nice

[casainho]

Ladies and Gentlemen: we have SOUND! on Mini2440

You can see this small video I did shot right now:

[perfectdrug]

I ported the awesome fidelity theme to the 2440 ( http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=23142 )

tell me if it works on the actual device (I plan to buy one for christmas)

here it is:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/283924/fidelity2440.zip
(updated)


have fun.