Qwiic MP3 Trigger (DEV-16892)

Qwiic MP3 Trigger – SparkFun DEV-16892

Sometimes you just need an MP3 to play. Whether it’s a theme song as you enter the room or a power song when you are working out. The SparkFun Qwiic MP3 Trigger takes care of all the necessary requirements, all you need to do is send a simple I²C command and listen to whatever is on your micro SD card. Utilizing our handy Qwiic system, no soldering is required to connect it to the rest of your system. However, we still have broken out 0.1″-spaced pins in case you prefer to use a breadboard.

When a USB-C cable is connected to the Qwiic MP3 Trigger the contents of the microSD card appear as a jump drive. Simply plug in the Qwiic MP3 Trigger and you’ll be transferring MP3s, no need for drivers and no need for WAV or Vorbis conversion! Sound output is provided via a 3.5mm headphone jack or poke-home connector allowing an external speaker to be connected without soldering. Your supplied speaker is boosted by a Class-D mono amplifier capable of outputting up to 1.4W making it capable of being incredibly loud! Volume is software selectable between 32 levels while equalization can be tuned to be sure your classical hits sound different from your jazz dance routines. If you don’t want to deal with any programming, there are four trigger pins. When pin 3 is pulled low the T003.mp3 file will immediately be played. This allows you to start playing sound effects with the touch of a button! By pulling multiple pins down simultaneously the four triggers can play up to ten tracks: T001 to T010.

All settings including volume, EQ, and I²C address are stored in NVM and loaded at each power-up. The I²C address of the Qwiic MP3 Trigger can be modified via a solder jumper or be assigned using a software command. Multiple Qwiic MP3 Triggers can be chained together on a single bus allowing for simultaneous track mixing and triggering.

We’ve written an extensive Arduino library to make MP3 playing over I²C a breeze. Play tracks, change volume, play next/previous, check if the track is playing, stop play, change EQ, and change I²C address are all supported.

SD and USB:

The SparkFun Qwiic MP3 Trigger works with 512MB to 32GB cards formatted in FAT32. Up to 255 songs can be loaded onto Qwiic MP3 Trigger.

The I²C pins broken out on the board are tied directly to the Qwiic connectors.

Audio Amplifier:

The speaker is boosted by a Class-D mono amplifier capable of outputting up to 1.4W. What does 1.4W mean? It’s incredibly loud; great for making sure your mech effects are heard on the *con floor (i.e. _Comic_ – con, _Def_ – con, etc.) and wonderful for annoying your officemates. Both outputs have volume controlled by the SET_VOLUME command and is selectable between 32 levels. Additionally, there are PTH holes beside both connectors if a soldered connection is preferred.

Audio Outputs:

A standard 3.5mm audio jack is provided making it easy to play your tunes over headphones or amplified desktop speakers or any other amplifier.

A poke-home connector labeled Speaker is also provided in parallel to the 3.5mm jack. This is a friction fit type connector; simply push stranded or solid core wire (22AWG or larger) into the hole and the connector will grip the wire.

To use an external speaker, solder two wires onto the speaker and insert the wires into the poke home connector.

Qwiic MP3 I/O Pins:

There are several I/O pins broken out on the board, which are described in the table below.

Pin Name	Type	Description
RST	Input	Active low. Pull this pin low to reset the ATtiny84A, effectively resetting the Qwiic MP3 Trigger.
INT	Output	Active low. Goes low when track is finished playing. Goes high again when CLEAR_INTERRUPTS command is issued.
SCL	Input	Serial clock line of I2C interface. Qwiic MP3 Trigger does implement clock stretching and will hold the clock line low if it is unable to receive additional I2C data.
SDA	Input/Output	Serial data line of I2C interface.
3.3V	Power	Qwiic MP3 Trigger can be powered from 2.8V to 3.3V. Anything greater than 3.6V will damage the microSD card.
GND	Power	The ground pin.
Trigger 1-4	Input	When a trigger pin is pulled to ground, the corresponding T00X.mp3 file is played. Pins can be combined to play T001 to T010. Pins are 5V tolerant.

Qwiic MP3 Triggers:

There are four trigger pins at the top of the board. When pulled low these pins begin playing whatever file is named T001.mp3 to T010.mp3. For example, if you attach a momentary button to Pin 3 and GND, when you press that button the T003.mp3 file will immediately be played. This allows you to start playing sound effects with the touch of a button without any programming!

Once you have the library installed checkout the various examples.

• Example1: Play the first MP3 track on the microSD card.
• Example2: Play the next track on the microSD card.
• Example3: Play a particular file. For example mp3.playFile(3); will play F003.mp3.
• Example4: Stop and pause tracks.
• Example5: Kitchen sink example showing setting of volume, equalizer, get song name, get song count, get firmware version, etc.
• Example6: Change the I²C address of the MP3 Trigger. Allows multiple Triggers to live on the same I²C bus.
• Example7: Shows how to start the library using a different Wire port (for example Wire1).
• Example8: Demonstrates how to check for the end-of-song interrupt and begin playing the song again.

The following commands are available:

• STOP 0x00 – Stops any currently playing track
• PLAY_TRACK 0x01 [TRACKNUMBER] – Play a given track number. For example 0x01 0x0A will play the 10th MP3 file in the root directory.
• PLAY_FILENUMBER 0x02 [FILENUMBER] – Play a file # from the root directory. For example 0x02 0x03 will play F003.mp3.
• PAUSE 0x03 – Pause if playing, or starting playing if paused
• PLAY_NEXT 0x04 – Play the next file (next track) located in the root directory
• PLAY_PREVIOUS 0x05 – Play the previous file (previous track) located in the root directory
• SET_EQ 0x06 [EQ_SETTING] – Set the equalization level to one of 6 settings: 0 = Normal, 1 = Pop, 2 = Rock, 3 = Jazz, 4 = Classical, 5 = Bass. Setting is stored to NVM and is loaded at each power-on.
• SET_VOLUME 0x07 [VOLUME_LEVEL] – Set volume level to one of 32 settings: 0 = Off, 31 = Max volume. Setting is stored to NVM and is loaded at each power-on.
• GET_SONG_COUNT 0x08 – Returns one byte representing the number of MP3s found on the microSD card. 255 max. Note: Song count is established at power-on. After loading files on the SD card via USB be sure to power-cycle the board to update this value.
• GET_SONG_NAME 0x09 – Returns the first 8 characters of the file currently being played. Once the command is issued the MP3 Trigger must be given 50ms to acquire the song name before it can be queried with an I²C read.
• GET_PLAY_STATUS 0x0A – Returns a byte indicating MP3 player status. 0 = OK, 1 = Fail, 2 = No such file, 5 = SD Error.
• GET_CARD_STATUS 0x0B – Returns a byte indicating card status. 0 = OK, 5 = SD Error. Once the command is issued the MP3 Trigger must be given 50ms to acquire the card status before it can be queried with an I²C read.
• GET_VERSION 0x0C – Returns two bytes indicating Major and Minor firmware version.
• CLEAR_INTERRUPTS 0x0D – Clears the interrupt bit.
• GET_VOLUME 0x0E – Returns byte that represents the volume level.
• GET_EQ 0x0F – Returns byte that represents the EQ setting.
• GET_ID 0x10 – Returns 0x39. Useful for testing if a device at a given I²C address is indeed an MP3 Trigger.
• SET_ADDRESS 0xC7 [NEW_ADDRESS] – Sets the I²C address of Qwiic MP3 Trigger. For example 0x6E 0xC7 0x21 will change the MP3 Trigger at I²C address 0x37 to address 0x21. In this example 0x6E is device address 0x37 with write bit set to 1. Valid addresses are 0x08 to 0x77 inclusive. Setting is stored to NVM and is loaded at each power-on.