hello everyone im totally new to all of this. i want to make a clock that plays mp3 clips at the stroke of every hour on a 12 hour cycle using a trigger hand movement. can anyone give me an idea of what id need to make such a clock? any help would be highly appreciated!!
A real-time clock module, an mp3 player module, a microcontroller (an Arduino!), a power source, some sort of
display and an amp+speaker?
You'll probably find some nice audio modules that combine SDcard socket, mp3 chip, and amp,
doing all the audio stuff.
and then once i have the correct hardware, is there a preferred program to set it all up? something user friendly would be preferred. i know absolutely nothing about code or arduino either so i have a long road ahead of me.
There are many clock projects of all sorts out there which should provide inspiration for
coding the clock part, ditto for activated sound players. You are going to have to learn about
code, there's no avoiding it, so I'd start with some basic tutorials and the basic examples that
come with the Arduino system.
I think the choice of microcontroller could be very important here if you want good quality audio (16-bit 44.1kHz).
In that case, you would need an external DAC (Digital to Analog Converter). You will also need to communicate with that DAC, typically through a form of communication called I2S (not all microcontrollers support this). Also if your microcontroller is fast enough such as the ARM M4f or the ESP32 you will be able to decode the MP3 file with the software and without a separate chip. This will cut costs and make the hardware component easier but will also make the software component harder.
Just for the audio component, I would use the following
- Fast microcontroller for software MP3 decoding and digital audio communication.
- Sd card breakout to hold files
- I2S DAC for producing a line out signal you can connect to an existing speaker.
As for the clock part... I don't know. I've never made a clock.
Hope this helps
the2ndtierney:
I think the choice of microcontroller could be very important here if you want good quality audio (16-bit 44.1kHz).In that case, you would need an external DAC (Digital to Analog Converter). You will also need to communicate with that DAC, typically through a form of communication called I2S (not all microcontrollers support this). Also if your microcontroller is fast enough such as the ARM M4f or the ESP32 you will be able to decode the MP3 file with the software and without a separate chip. This will cut costs and make the hardware component easier but will also make the software component harder.
Just for the audio component, I would use the following
- Fast microcontroller for software MP3 decoding and digital audio communication.
- Sd card breakout to hold files
- I2S DAC for producing a line out signal you can connect to an existing speaker.
Nope, that's highly advanced, just get an mp3 sample player module to do this all for you, and control
it over serial or whatever - trivally easy.