With sealed first-generation iPods selling for north of $29,000 USD, it’s only fitting that some fans are building their own alternatives using much more affordable Raspberry Pi boards. Developer Dr. Hatch is one of them, and opted to use a $6.99 Waveshare 2.13″ (250 x 122) E-ink display instead of an LCD on the ePiPod.
Powering everything is a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W board, connected to a 1,200 mAh battery that is good for up to 5-hours of continuous listening time, while the custom PCB sports a 24-bit DAC, 3.5mm audio jack, USB port for charging, and a microSD card slot. Unfortunately, you won’t find a Click Wheel on the 3D-printed ePiPod, but rather five buttons for navigation and volume buttons on the side. Want to build your own? Check out the GitHub page here.
- Includes Raspberry Pi 5 with 2.4Ghz 64-bit quad-core CPU (8GB RAM)
- Includes 128GB EVO+ Micro SD Card pre-loaded with 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS, USB MicroSD Card Reader
- CanaKit Turbine Black Case for the Raspberry Pi 5
Because this e-paper screen uses an SPI interface (like the original LCD screen), the change mostly involved implementing the e-paper power supply (SMPS) from Waveshare’s reference design, along with using the Waveshare driver library, and then using the python pillow graphics library to draw to the screen,” said Dr Hatch.
