musicbox - raspberry pi project

i have a few little music boxes that i've been hoarding from garagesales and flea markets. i like the idea of having one song dedicated to one piece of furniture. that was the original concept for this idea. i want to keep that but like cyberpunk it. i started thinking of musicboxes having full albums in them. the raspbery pi would serve to hold the mp3s, have a simple winamp interface, and small clicky keyboard keys to control the music. the hard part, i imagine, will be to combine the two to work seamlessly. so that the music starts and stops when the musicbox lid opens and closes. the raspberry pi would be controlled by the wooden lid.


the raspberry pi had been collecting dust for the last five years. a chocolate box that i found at my parent's house is what gave me the original idea. i had a lot of trouble getting the pi to work again. trying to remember how to use the os and all that was confusing. then i realized that my pi (zero w) was the weakest of the weak with only 512mb and 1ghz single core cpu. it couldn't even open the prebuilt web browsers and it kept bricking every time i would try to install a new one. so after going through a few legacy os, i was finally able to get it running.


the day that i finally got shit running was very hacker coded. even the evil music app knew what i was doing - it titled it's ai generated playlist "beats and breaks hacker tuesday". i played only sombra that day also leading up to me figuring shit out on the pi and even got the music festival legendary skin from a lootbox. hack the planet, i guess.


after getting the os running and setting up ftp file transfer so that i can drop files in from the mac into the pi, i was able to get qmmp installed and start trying out some winamp skins that would fit the style of the boxes i have. i got acquainted with soulseek and downloaded the album that was in my head when the idea had first come to mind.

the original idea was to have the red box be a plaid cloth coated musicbox with a little mirror on the inside. that same night i realized that the pi zero fits perfectly into the tiniest music box i have. luckily the usb to aux cable that i had combined with the zero4u pi expansion was all i needed to get sound out of that thing. i've done about all i can do with the hardware i have. next, i need to get a screen, a speaker, keys, a battery, and maybe some other component to trigger the on/off switch when opening/closing the lid.


parts are beginning to arrive. this was the most annoying part, so far. trying to figure out what to get and from when. i think i got all i need.
    Jumper wires
  • Breadboard
  • 3.5mm switching headphone jack
  • 5× push buttons
  • EC11 rotary encoder
  • 2.5" 3W speaker
  • PAM8403 amplifier
i should have had all the pieces by now but ups decided to not ring my doorbell or just leave the box outside so now i have to go somewhere to pick up the remaining pieces that i need to start the test kit. the parts that are missing are the parts i was most excited for, the breadboard and cables - this is going to be my first time playing with those things. i was drawing some ideas of what it might look like. i can't decide whether i want two speakers or just one. they both fit but idk. the only other parts that i am missing that i have not ordered are the key caps, the tiny screen, and the powerbank. i'm going to test it all out with the monitor and without a proper casething to fit it all in the box. once it all works, i will buy those things. i also found this hanan cumbia drum kit module that i got a while ago. i never figured out how to build a eurorack but i'm going to keep it out to inspire me to finish this project so that i can get to work on the eurorack thing.


idk what i'm doing! i still haven't tried turning on or running anything. this all very new to me so i've been trying to understand and get comfortable how to work with jumpercables and the breadboard. trying to work up the courage to turn on the soldering iron.