MOL-AU5016 MP3/WAV Player

I recently had a project where a client wanted to interface an Arduino Nano and ESP32S with MDFLY Electronics AU5016 Embedded SD/SDHC Card MP3/WAV Player Module. The player is controllable using either a digital or parallel interface. It’s features from the datasheet are:

• High performance 32Bit CPU
• High quality on-chip stereo DAC
• Decodes MP3/WAV/APE audio format
• Supports bitrate from 32Kbps to 320Kbps
• Supports MicroSD/HC memory card up to 32GB
• Low-power operation
• Ultra-low background noise
• TTL serial interface
• Input voltage: 5VDC
• Compact design

Some of the limitations of the AU5016 include a maximum of 200 tracks (files) stored/used on the self contained SD card, some of the digital interface commands are required to be repeated until the proper response is received, 5VDC only, and the datasheet is missing some key electrical properties (e.g. Busy I_OH). The good stuff, standalone audio playback, works with multiple file types, high performance, and very compact.

I used the digital interface with the Arduino Nano and ESP32S. The digital interface uses start/stop protocol at a default 9600 baud 8N1. The signal levels are TTL (5V only). There is a discrete Busy signal when audio is playing. All of the commands are a single byte.

For this application the AU5016 contained the audio files on an SD card while the Nano/ESP32S SD card contained control information. The control and audio are time synchronized using a third party application. When the control starts the audio is also started. What clock drift there is between the processor and AU5016 is not noticeable in this application’s 2 minute window.

For the Arduino code interface I created an C++ object. This simplified using the AU5016 as typical in the OOP environment. Differences between the Nano and ESP32S was the object used SoftwareSerial on the Nano while the ESP32S used the HardwareSerial. Thankfully these objects have similar interfaces so the code changes were minimal. The object I provided implemented most of the AU5016 commands.

AU5016 Object Definition

// AU5016 object class
class AU5016 {
  public:
    AU5016(int uartNum, int RXPin, int TXPin, int BusyPin); // AU5016 object
    int StartTrack(int track); // starts playing track, error return
    void Stop(void);           // stops tracking playing
    int SetVolume(int level);  // sets volume level, returns volume level
    int VolumeUp(void);        // increases volume level + 1, returns volume level
    int VolumeDown(void);      // decreases volume level -1, returns volume level
    void Mute(void);           // mutes output
    int PlayPause(void);       // pasues play track, un-pauses track, error return
    int SetEQ(int EQ);         // sets EQ, returns error
    int RepeatMode(int Mode);  // sets repeat mode, return error
    int TrackAfterPower(int Mode);  // sets track to play after power on, return error
    int SetBusyStatus(int Mode);    // sets busy output active high or low, return error

  private:
    HardwareSerial *_AudioSerial;   // UART interface to AU5016
    SemaphoreHandle_t  _sema_v;     // multi task access control
    int _Busy;                      // busy pin
    int _audioSendCommand(int cmd); // send a command, return response
    int _audioGetResponse(void);    // get command response, return response
};

Hardware interfacing to the AU5016 for the Nano was simple since both devices are 5V. For the ESP32S, although in input voltage is 5V, the processor and it’s IO is actually 3.3V. I used level TXS0108E translator between the ESP32 and AU5016. Luckily the SD card used with both processors works at either 5V or 3.3V.

Issues

I only encountered one real issue working with the AU5016. I originally use a 32GB SDHC formatting FAT32 for the audio. I couldn’t get the AU5016 to recognize the card. The response was 0xAB, No Memory card. Working with MDFLY tech support they recommended working with a smaller SD card. So I tried a 2GB SD FAT16 and 8GB SDHC and both appeared to work.