Build Instructions

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• 1

  POWER SOURCE- SMARTPHONE PD CHARGER

  For the power source of the tablet, one of the best options is to harvest the power circuit and lithium cell from a power bank. Here, I used a PD power bank that I normally use for charging my iPhone and other devices. It can provide both power input and power output through its USB Type-C port, along with a stable 5V 3A output from its USB port.

  • Using a prying tool, we started opening the power bank. I didn't have a proper pry tool available, so I used the back side of a pair of tweezers.
  • By inserting it along the seam of the enclosure and applying a bit of pressure, the two halves of the body started separating.
  • The enclosure was held together using snap locks, so once we created an opening on one side, we inserted our pry tool into the gap and moved it along the edge to completely remove the lid.
  • Doing that completely separated both parts. The circuit was secured in place with M1.8 screws, which we removed.
  • The battery was also secured with adhesive tape, so by applying a little pressure, it came off as well.
  • This was a MagSafe charger, so it also included a charging coil, which we removed from the circuit.

  As a result of this harvesting process, we ended up with a 10,000 mAh battery and a power circuit capable of powering our display and Raspberry Pi setup.

• 2

  POWER SOURCE ASSEMBLY

  • After harvesting the lithium-polymer cell and charger circuit from the power bank, we extended the battery wires by desoldering the original wires and replacing them with longer ones.
  • We connected the battery positive terminal to the B+ pad on the circuit and the battery negative terminal to the B- pad.
  • Next, we soldered two output wires to the USB port's 5V and GND terminals. For connecting these output wires to the Raspberry Pi header pins, we added a CON3 female header connector to the 5V and GND wires.
  • With this header connector, we can simply plug it onto the Raspberry Pi's GPIO header 5V and GND pins, which power the entire setup.
• 3

  IPOD UI

  The software and UI for this project were developed with the help of my friend Aahan Sharma, who handled the application development. You can find his GitHub repository linked below.

  https://github.com/AahanDoesGit/iPod-classic-Cm5

  The goal was to recreate the feel of the original iPod experience as closely as possible. The interface features authentic sliding stack navigation, where nested menus animate left and right just like the original firmware, along with a fully emulated click wheel supporting rotational scrolling and the classic five-button controls. The media library is scanned in the background using Mutagen, automatically detecting newly added MP3 files, while python-vlc provides hardware-accelerated audio and video playback for smooth, low-latency performance.

  The codebase is organized into three main sections: the core logic (library.py and player.py), the UI components (iPod_screen.py, now_playing.py, sliding_stack.py, and click_wheel.py), and the main application entry point (main.py), making the project modular and easy to extend.

  Main Application and Background Thread

  In 'main.py ', we initialise the Qt application and set up our primary UI elements: the top screen and the bottom click wheel. 'QThread' runs continuously in the background to scan the 'music/' folder for changes without freezing the UI

  # snippet from main.pyclass IPodApp(QMainWindow):def __init__(self):super().__init__()self.setWindowTitle("iPod Classic - Pi CM5")self.setFixedSize(600, 900)# 1. Top Screenself.screen = IPodScreen(self.library, self.player)layout.addWidget(self.screen, stretch=2)# 2. Bottom Click Wheelself.wheel = ClickWheel()layout.addWidget(self.wheel, stretch=3)# Connect signalsself.wheel.scrolled.connect(self.screen.handle_scroll)self.wheel.clicked.connect(self.screen.handle_click)

  Sliding Nav Menu

  The core of the iPod experience is the sliding menus. We built a custom 'SlidingStackWidget' 'ui/sliding_stack.py' that uses Qt 'QPropertyAnimation' to smoothly slide 'QWidget' pages in from the left or right when navigating

  Screen States and Nav

  The 'IPodScreen' 'ui/ipod_screen.py' acts as the state machine for the UI; it pushes and pops different menu lists using a 'menu_history' stack to remember where the user came from.

  # snippet from ui/ipod_screen.pydef _push(self, spec):self.menu_history.append((self.current_spec, self._current_row()))self.current_spec = specself.status_bar.set_title(self._screen_title(spec))next_screen = self._create_screen(spec)self.sliding_stack.setWidget(next_screen, direction=1)self.current_screen_widget = next_screen

  Audio Playback

  We use 'python-vlc' for robust media decoding; found in 'core/player.py' it also handles a fallback for Mac testing via 'afplay '. The player integrates with the 'NowPlayingScreen' to sync progress bars and elapsed times.

  Running the App

  • Install the dependencies via 'pip'

  pip install PyQt6 python-vlc mutagen numpy

  • Put some '.mp3' files in the 'music/' directory.
  • Run the main script.

  python main.py

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