From: Jon Lewis via rockbox <rockbox_at_lists.haxx.se>
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2023 10:26:26 -0400

I’m no tinkerer but I would absolutely buy into a project like this if
allowed. My two fiio M3Ks can’t live forever.

Jon

On Sat, Apr 1, 2023 at 8:17 AM David Mehler via rockbox <
rockbox_at_lists.haxx.se> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Thank you everyone for your replies. Here's my end goal, I want to get
> in to DIY electronics projects, and I saw an article where a guy made
> a custom mp3 player with an ESP32 and 3d-printed a case. This got me
> thinking that since the players I like are either getting difficult to
> find, or prohibitively expensive, why not try that with rockbox?
>
> Solomon, from what your saying it definitely sounds like a lot of
> effort for a gasping player if the ESP32 was chosen, which is well
> over-my-head now, and I wouldn't want something gasping.
>
> What about some of the rk SOC boards, the 32xx or 33xx series?
>
> I really like the Raspberry Pi 0 though, I think that's a great idea.
> How hard do you think it would be to pull that off? I can do the work,
> I probably will have questions, but I think using the Pi 0 as the
> basis for a custom-made mp3 player, with rockbox, much cheaper than
> some of the offerings out there now.
>
> Thanks.
> Dave.
>
>
> On 4/1/23, Solomon Peachy via rockbox <rockbox_at_lists.haxx.se> wrote:
> > On Sat, Apr 01, 2023 at 12:29:27PM +0200, Michael Sparmann via rockbox
> > wrote:
> >> I wouldn't see why not - perhaps the RP2040 could also be a good
> >> candidate?
> >
> > The ESP32 is doable, but just barely -- It has more than enough raw
> > compute performance (dual cores _at_~250MHz) but where it falls flat is
> > onboard RAM -- It only has 512K on-chip. While it can natively use up to
> > 4MB of off-chip SPI-attached PSRAM, that comes at a signficant
> > performance penalty.
> >
> > So while a simple port to an ESP32 is certianly possible, it's not going
> > to yield great results compared to the current set of targets. With a
> > lot of additional work, rockbox could be better adapted to handle the
> > ESP32's limitations (eg directly execute plugins/codecs from flash) but
> > I don't really see that as being worth the effort, especially when you
> > consider the lack of a viable portable physical enclousure.
> >
> > TBH I think a RPi Zero (or some of its similar form-factor clones [0])
> is a
> >
> > much better starting point, and they have far, far more capabilities
> than an
> >
> > ESP32, at the same rough price point.
> >
> > But circling back, the RP2040 is _way_ too limited -- The advertising
> > copy says "plenty of fast on-chip RAM" but in reality that equates to
> > just 264KB, an order of magnitude too little for a rockbox port [1] even
> > if we re-architect rockbox to execute _all_ code from flash.
> >
> > 264KB is even less RAM than the RKNano and ATJ2137-based shovelware mp3
> > players out there -- and those sport hardware codec engines!
> >
> > That's the problem with microcontrollers in general; even modern ones
> > are very RAM limited, and only the highest-end units can work with
> > external RAM. By the time you add that external RAM, the BOM cost and
> > PCB footprint is such that you're probably better off with a more
> > full-featured SoC such as what's on the RPi series, the various Ingenic
> > parts we already run on, or Allwinner's FC100/V3 series. (Plus, if that
> > "real" SoC runs Linux, a usable port requires relatively little software
> > work!)
> >
> > [0] https://itsfoss.com/raspberry-pi-zero-alternatives/
> > [1] Or at least a port of anything with sufficient features to be
> > recognizable as rockbox.
> >
> > - Solomon
> > --
> > Solomon Peachy pizza at shaftnet dot org
> (email&xmpp)
> > _at_pizza:shaftnet dot org (matrix)
> > Dowling Park, FL speachy (libra.chat)
> >
> --
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Received on 2023-04-01