Making Your Own "music keg" from a spare Hard Drive

[Apoc 10+ year member]

If anyone owns a Music Keg from Kenwood or any other commercial hardware that is a hard drive that stores MP3's and then plays through your HU, please let me know. I have some spare hard drives that I would like to turn into my own "music keg" with the help of some other people. I can get an external enclosure and I already have the hard drive so I need to know how it connects to the HU and what type of software/operating system is run on the drive. I will also need to know what kind of format is on the drive!

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[DJ Riggz 10+ year member]

well first of all you'd have to figure out how to connect your home made music keg to your head unit using the cd changer cable. then you'd have to figure out how to get their proprietary software to run on your hard drive. im pretty sure it's not possible unless you basically build a PC for your vehicle with the use of a touch screen and run the audio thru an RCA input.

 

[Apoc 10+ year member]

Im pretty sure I can do this, I just need some pictures of the connections that they use. I can either find their software online or write my own. I just need to see how they connected it. I think it is just a hard drive in an external case with a cable that runs to the HU via CD Changer cable. I really would appreciate some help if someone has one or knows someone who has one. I can keep the USB or Firewire connection on the external case so its easy to load more songs. The main thing is I want bigger than a 10gb hard drive and I dont want to pay $250 for something I can build with a 160GB drive for under $100-$150. Help is appreciated!

 

[formlua5150 10+ year member]

Ya might have to buy one, see how it works and take it back. You would have to basically design a harness to power the harddrive. Does the deck contain the the HD processor? if not, then you have to design that interface. It might just be easier to buy one and stick a bigger hd in it.

 

[astrallink 10+ year member]

I'd buy one on ebay, use it for what you want, then sell it back. If you do it well you should be able to manage little loss.

 

[swimfreak26 10+ year member]

if you're just putting mp3's on it....10Gb will probably suffice for quite some time bro, but if you feel the need to do it I say go for it. The software to run it will be tough to design, however, without knowing the processing capabilities of the HU.

 

[Apoc 10+ year member]

Well, if the HU has to do the processing, I wont be able to do this but if the unit does, it will be easier for me. Does anyone know where to get one cheap?

 

[`pr0digy 10+ year member]

You do realize that your looking at a (potentially) huge amount of reversing to make this work, right ?

 

[nosaj070 10+ year member]

Well, if the HU has to do the processing, I wont be able to do this but if the unit does, it will be easier for me. Does anyone know where to get one cheap?

If the unit does the processing it will be even more difficult. Mp3 players consist of much more than just a hard drive. You would be better off just building a carputer than doing this.

 

[birsling 10+ year member]

Ya might have to buy one, see how it works and take it back. You would have to basically design a harness to power the harddrive. Does the deck contain the the HD processor? if not, then you have to design that interface. It might just be easier to buy one and stick a bigger hd in it.

I think this is probably the smarter move. There would have to be a way to stick the bigger hard drive in. You will spend a lot of money in obtaining IP-Bus cabling, connections, software design, power supply, etc. I don't think you could build one unit for $100. I think you are talking well over $250, especially when you put your time into it.

 

[astrallink 10+ year member]

I may be able to offer some advice here. It sounds like you're wanting to build a carputer and interface it with the cd-changer on the HU. I thought about doing this same thing, so as to have unlimited music and have it be directly controlled through the HU, instead of needing a separate LCD or other controls. 10 gigs just wouldn't be enough for me. It's a very cool idea, but not as simple as it would originally seem. I'm not familiar with the Music Keg, but I imagine it has not only proprietary software to talk to the HU, but also special HARDWARE to do it. If you're looking to just use PC hardware, the only options you have to interface to the HU are the serial ports and parallel. It's a rather far assumption to make that the data coming out of the cd-changer port on the HU will be understood by standard PC hardware.

I haven't given up on this idea, but it's not a simple feat, both from an electronics standpoint and a programming standpoint. If you really want to try it, here is how I would go about it....

Get the real thing off ebay, and get some extra cable adaptors if possible. Hook it up to the HU and check all the lines to see what they're passing as far as voltage, etc. Patch one of these cables into Serial Line 1 on the computer, you'll need some schematics and understanding of serial ports for this. Patch the music keg into serial line 2 on the computer. Write a simple program that just passes traffic back and forth between line 1 & 2, and lets you watch it/log it. See what the devices do with each command, then write a program to do the same thing. Then you can sell the music keg back on ebay.

I was going to do the same thing to emulate a CD changer w/ a computer. I have no idea if this would work, and you would also have to patch the audio in from a sound card. There is a risk of damaging the HU if voltage is wrong from the computer. I imagine it's possible, but I don't know what level of electronics knowledge is needed and how long it would take. If you make any progress, let us know. If I decide to give it a shot and succeed, I'll of course have an exciting post and details for everyone.

As a side note, if you want extra music storage but don't want a visible LCD, what I'm PROBABLY going to end up doing is this....

This could be done with Windows, but not as efficiently, so Linux/BSD would be preferred. Get a linux box, put a apache (web server) on it, and this:

http://glirnath.sourceforge.net/

It's a web-based mp3 control program. Like running winamp in a web browser. Put a wireless network card in the computer, run audio cables to the HU thru the aux-in port. Then get a PDA w/ a built-in wireless adaptor. All PDA's come with a browser of some sort, usually IE, so you could just set it to go straight to your carputer and the mp3 control program. Then you can keep the PDA in the globebox/console/your pocket. Also has the ability to let anyone Dj, even someone in the backseat, which they would proabably think is nifty. I want a carputer, but I don't like LCD's or extra crap on the dash. This would be failry simple to set up, given some *nix knowledge.

Hope this wan't too off topic...

Peace,

Link

 

[Apoc 10+ year member]

Thats perfect....exactly the type of info that I was looking for. I am going to start on this project as soon as i get my new car (6 months). I will get a music keg and start experimenting...does anyone know if this works with all HUs and not just kenwood?

 

[Apoc 10+ year member]

anyone else got some ideas?

 

[UndercoverPunk 5,000+ posts]

For a hard drive, a car is one of the worst environments you can install it into, the constant vibrations and extreme temperatures will most likely destroy it over time. This has me discussed to a large degree already in the xbox forums I frequent. I was planning on installing my modded xbox into my car as the head of my mobile A/V system, but after many convincing posts, mostly regarding the vibrations tearing up the HDD I decided it wasn't worth it... A flash-based drive would probably be better suited for this application...

 

[nosaj070 10+ year member]

For a hard drive, a car is one of the worst environments you can install it into, the constant vibrations and extreme temperatures will most likely destroy it over time. This has me discussed to a large degree already in the xbox forums I frequent. I was planning on installing my modded xbox into my car as the head of my mobile A/V system, but after many convincing posts, mostly regarding the vibrations tearing up the HDD I decided it wasn't worth it... A flash-based drive would probably be better suited for this application...

They are really more durable than you would think. They have been used in cars in many cases, and I'm sure they still work. It may take a little bit of life out of them, but its not going to break it.