Hmmmmm. Minty

January 23, 2005 4:13 AM

Do not eat MintyMP3. Cool DIY mp3 player.
posted by punilux (17 comments total)

cough
posted by Dean Keaton at 4:25 AM on January 23, 2005

And its friend the minty amp .
posted by stp123 at 7:20 AM on January 23, 2005

That's cool. I wonder if the "Do not eat" warning was inspired by the iPod Shuffle page, or if they had it first.
posted by milovoo at 8:27 AM on January 23, 2005

Dude, of course Ada had it first. I know this engineer, and I am utterly shocked that you could imply that she is even the slightest bit unoriginal.
posted by breath at 9:15 AM on January 23, 2005

I like the Altoids battery pack for the iPod.
posted by birdherder at 11:01 AM on January 23, 2005

Awe-inspring.
posted by tommyc at 11:15 AM on January 23, 2005

This project looks great! What I'm so impressed by is the way it's presented – I think I could actually follow along with this and possibly construct it. The site is laid out very well, and avoids coming off as one of those "I'm way too smart to bother writing about how this works, RTFM" project sites.

Good link!
posted by odinsdream at 11:27 AM on January 23, 2005

hehe....

"What's in the box? Pain Minty!"
posted by odinsdream at 11:34 AM on January 23, 2005

You can also make pinhole cameras (aka Pintoids) out of mint tins.
posted by matildaben at 1:32 PM on January 23, 2005

I think I could actually follow along with this and possibly construct it.

Surface mount chips = no, you can't.
posted by kindall at 4:01 PM on January 23, 2005

Surface mount chips aren't impossible, they're just hard. I mean, Ada did it by hand.

Also, I've seen someone solder a tiny wire to each and every pin of some hundred-pin TQFP which was about the size of a thumbnail. Not on a circuit board. Loose wires. If that's hand-doable, anything is hand-doable.
posted by breath at 5:57 PM on January 23, 2005

I made one of those minty amps a few months ago. It sounds, predictably, a bit tinny.
posted by obloquy at 6:03 PM on January 23, 2005

Surface mount chips = no, you can't.

The author mentions that this isn't a project for learning how to solder, which is fine, since that's something I already know how to do. I was just impressed by the presentation and organization, which I usually don't see in projects of this type.
posted by odinsdream at 6:24 PM on January 23, 2005

You could also just cheat by putting an iPod Shuffle in an Altoids tin.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:24 PM on January 23, 2005

I'm totally building that amp.
posted by dong_resin at 7:45 PM on January 23, 2005

What's so hard about soldering surface mount chips, that a little diazepam can't help? :)


(when soldering under a magnifying glass, you actually *can* see your heartbeat at the tip and it can sometimes be tricky to line things up.)

Knowing that... I did decide to go without my caffeine the morning I started soldering away at my iBook's motherboard surface mount resistors... (overclocked about 3 years ago, and still running strong -- fanless and all) :)
posted by just a monkey at 8:41 PM on January 23, 2005

personally, I'm a fan of the 8-track format. MP3s are so small, I keep losing them in the car's upholstery.
posted by nanojath at 9:22 PM on February 22, 2005