Sound Module Button Control Music Voice Player Programmable Talk Chip Musical 8MB MP3 WAV USB Downloadable with AA Battery Box + USB Cable for DIY Audio Cards Christmas Creative Gift

Made a melody box for my car using this.

Perfect for what I needed. Love the ability to put what ever recording you want on it!

Easy DIY melody box. Would’ve been better if thr USB port could be used for powering the item. I instead had to cannibalize an old USB cord and solder it onto the board. Still, not terrible.

Packaging was adequate. It arrived in a padded pouch and inside was an antistatic padded bag containing the electronics.Preparation: REQUIRES SOLDERING SKILLS. In the photos on Amazon, it shows the battery box attached to the board via a black and red wire. NOT SO - They are not connected together. The pigtails from the board have to be spliced to the pigtails from the battery box. In the image on Amazon, you will see that the black and red wires are coiled and connected with black insulated splices. That's what you have to do - splice them. Recommend soldering in-line splices and insulate with shrink tubing over the splices. Use 22-24 gauge 60-40 rosin core solder and a pencil iron. Anything larger, 50-50 or acid core solder will make a mess.Function: The first step in their instructions have you test it. On the 8MB on-board USB storage is a short song that you can play back. After verifying it works, turn it off and plug the supplied USB cable from the board to your computer, use the file manager to access the USB drive, erase the test music and download your effects/music/voice/whatever to the module - - up to 2 minutes of MP3. Note that the USB will not work if the battery is on. Their instructions say to format the USB drive but that isn't necessary. It is fine as-is.Modes (Mode Switching): They have a table describing 7 different modes. It is configured for 0-0-0, which is fine but for one to change modes is not at all that straight forward. On their board picture in the "manual" they show three surface mount 3.3K resistors on the lower right side labeled "mode switching" and are labeled on the board A, B & C. If one has the proper surface mount PC board assembly and rework equipment, the modes can be changed by removing the appropriate resistor(s), changing that "bit" from a zero to a one. Not at all a good idea to mess with this.Miscellaneous: There's a 2-position slide switch on the board immediately next to the battery wires labeled ON and OFF, so for what it's worth, they have a on-board power switch in addition to the switch on the battery box.Surprisingly, there is an on-board volume control (next to the speaker connection) but it is TINY and can be difficult to adjust, even with a jeweler's screwdriver. Suggest leaving it alone.Speaker: Makes noise but is completely inadequate other than it is very small (1-3/8" diameter). I substituted a 4-inch speaker so that one can hear the sound plus with better fidelity.In spite of the fiddling and extra time spent getting it running, for my application, this was the perfect fit. The USB connection for loading sounds/music is the best way. Most all of the other versions of this module have an on-board microphone which makes it difficult to control the sound levels and quality.

Haven't been able to utilize yet but was able to get it to work for a test. Plan to use in a Halloween decoration

Hint:1. Unplug the USB cable before attempting to play audio file. It won’t play if the cable is attached.2. I was able to get 117 kbps, 128 kbps and 320 kbps (default file) to play. Other rates will probably work but I didn’t try any others.I am a retired electrical engineer and needed a small module to play a small MP3 file. This module package seemed reasonably priced for what you get. The actual circuit board, switch and speaker were wrapped in pink anti-static bubble wrap. This was placed in a standard plastic zippered bag along with a battery case and USB cable. For ESD purposes it seemed adequate, but not great.My opinion is that the overall quality of this module package is very good. The circuit board was made using modern surface mount and machine soldering. The only thing that was a hand operation is the attachment of wires for the external pieces which is a normal process. Hot melt glue is used to reinforce the external connections, which is a nice precautionary measure taken for enhanced reliability.The switch and USB cable are way better than I expected. The switch is large and has a nice tactile feel as it snaps through center. The USB cable felt very secure when it was plugged into the circuit board.The best part of all this is that it actually worked on the first try! Attach the battery pack and be sure that both the pack and circuit board have their switches turned on. Press the button and the default song plays…….yeah. Plug in the USB cable and on Windows 10 - 64 bit home edition a new drive appeared in the File Explorer. Be sure to delete the default file and copy the desired file in its place. Be sure to unplug the USB cable before pressing the switch. That’s all there is to it. I haven’t tried triggering it with an external signal yet but will try later.The speaker has absolutely no bass, as would be expected for such a small speaker in no cabinet. I bet it would sound much better if it were placed in a small sealed box. Or, tap off the speaker signal and feed it into an external amp and use some decent speakers. That’s my plan.You don’t need to be an electrical engineer to use this.

Perfect

After giving this thing a fair shot I am done. I put the wires together (spent $ on tool to do this), I ordered two different cables to get one to fit the little micro-B 5 pin port (more time and $$), I spent time trying to get my Apple computer to access that drive, I even had my granddaughter go through it all again with me as I figured it was just me. This drive will not connect to my Apple computer, even though the directions state it does. All this took a long time for me and now it is too late to return, and I have 'altered' the product by doing step one.