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Pipod: Raspberry Pi Zero Portable Music Player

By on September 12, 2018
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The PiPod is an open source portable music player based on the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero. It uses this affordable single-board computer to run Linux-based software including VLC (which handles media playback) and a custom user interface to display song titles, artist names, and album titles, song length, and other details.

A 2.2″ TFT displays the UI, which is of course completely customisable. Everything is squashed into a 3D printed case, which has the smallest form factor possible whilst retaining a decent amount of battery life.

The electronics are what you’d expect: a boost converter to produce 5 V for the Pi from the 3.7V battery, a charge controller and a battery protection circuit. As a bonus, the battery voltage is monitored with a 12-bit ADC which reports to the Pi, enabling it to do a safe shutdown at low voltage, and display battery level on the UI.

The PiPod, now in its third iteration, offers users a range of functionality and can be made fairly cheaply using Bram’s custom PCB.
Source code is available if you want to modify the software or hardware designs, and you can read more about the PiPod at the project’s Hackaday page, where you’ll also find the latest software image plus links to files that will let you 3D print a custom docking station for the PiPod.

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