Having purchased and built with 9 of these shields (7 from SparkFun, 2 from Mouser), I can confirm that they're very easy to use and inexpensive for what they do. I had similar initialization problems as Member 873628 with my first shield (worked with USB, failed 50% of the time under external power) but I suspect that it was just a problem with that particular shield because none of the other 8 required any special delays in order for them to initialize properly. That first shield has since stopped working altogether, so maybe it was defective, I dunno. I'd also like to add that the audio is fairly noisy--sounds like digital noise bleeding into the analog output--so you will want to keep the fidelity of your playback system fairly low. I got one shield that sounded like it had excessive data req noise in the output, which was the first time I became aware that there was any unusual noise at all. It sounded like a 16mm film projector from the '70s. Switching to my good amp & speakers, I finally heard that all of the circuits had some degree of digital noise, although it was not noticeable on computer speakers for the most part. Some of the noise can be addressed by adding extra Vcc bypass caps. Bottom line: if it's gotta work, budget one or two extras to be safe.

Update: I just updated both the SD library and the shield library and that appears to have addressed the initialization issues I have been occasionally seeing. Check to make sure you have the latest.

This is a very nice shield for Arduino, it worked smoothly and I was able to connect play audio files with some push buttons.

Pros: Can play a specific audio track by calling its name, cheap price.

Cons: Separate pin headers, have to solder them, have to install 4 libraries, limited to only 9 audio tracks to be played. Audio tracks have to be of DOS 8.3 format, requires an SD card, and audio files must be stored on the root folder.

I created a full step by step tutorial on how to use and compared it to 1Sheeld's music player shield.

Here is the link: http://1sheeld.com/1sheeld-vs-sparkfun-mp3-player-shield/

Spent 10 minutes setting up the shield on a redboard. Ran through the "FilePlayer" sketch. Worked like a charm. Ran through the "MP3 Trigger" sketch. Worked like a charm. Made a few mods to the MP3 trigger sketch to fit my needs. Worked like a charm. Only when I unplugged from the USB of my computer and tried to using the 9V/650mA wall wart did I start having problems. After a couple of days of pulling my hair out trying to figure out why everything worked seamlessly when plugged into the computer USB, but would only work maybe 1 out of 10 times when plugged straight into the wall, it dawned on me. After staring at the sketch, I thought that maybe the Mp3 file player and the MicroSD card reader did not have enough time to initialize, and therefore, caused an error. After playing around with a few delays throughout the setup procedure, I finally got it. By putting a 4 second delay at the beginning of setup, another 4 second delay after the sd card reader initialization, and a final 4 second delay after the mp3 initialization before the loop begins, it worked perfectly! After playing with the delay timing for a while, I found that a 2 second delay would work 1 out of 5 times. A 3 second delay worked about 3 or 4 out of 5 times. While a 4 second delay did the trick. Now, it does exactly what I needed it to do. I was unable to find much reference anywhere to anyone having an issue such as this? I was also unable to find many references of people powering this shield with a wall wort as opposed to USB from a computer? Hope this helps someone!

I got 2 piecess of this card. It works fine, but I was surprised at the lack of Ardiino staddard fixing holes. They were in the previous version that I received about a year ago.

Very happy with the shield - it does exactly what I needed. Would be nice to have a few more available pins for the Uno, but works well with the Mega for projects with greater pin requirements.

GOOD ITEM!!!

This device performs well, although I haven't finished my project, and seems to have all the facilities I require to make a remote controlled (433MHz) MP3 Player. Postage and handling was very steep however.

Using with arduino Uno to make an mp3 player with sketch from CoolArduino. No problem with the Sparkfun Mp3 shield but had to change the arduino sketch for the display.

I purchased 3 of these for Halloween projects. Given that arduino's are cheap and easy to interconnect, I opted to devote Uno to making sound, triggered by another Uno (or mega or nano) at approprate time.

Pro: easy to use. Sample programs worked great (only after updating some related libraries!). Easy to adapt to what I needed. Works out of the box (after headers soldered on) with real Uno. Not sure about anything else.

Con: changing from headphones to Line Out a bit of a pain. Jumpers would be nicer.

I tried using this test Arduino program and it will not compile. Says "SFEMP3Shield.h: No such file or directory". I go to my libraries folder and it is there along with the other files called for in the sketch, although it does not appear in the library manager. Any help would be appreciated.

/* MP3 Shield Trigger by: Jim Lindblom SparkFun Electronics date: September 23, 2013

This is an example MP3 trigger sketch for the SparkFun MP3 Shield. Pins 0, 1, 5, 10, A0, A1, A2, A3, and A4 are setup to trigger tracks "track001.mp3", "track002.mp3", etc. on an SD card loaded into the shield. Whenever any of those pins are shorted to ground, their respective track will start playing.

When a new pin is triggered, any track currently playing will stop, and the new one will start.

A5 is setup to globally STOP playing a track when triggered.

If you need more triggers, the shield's jumpers on pins 3 and 4 (MIDI-IN and GPIO1) can be cut open and used as additional trigger pins. Also, because pins 0 and 1 are used as triggers Serial is not available for debugging. Disable those as triggers if you want to use serial.

Much of this code was grabbed from the FilePlayer example included with the SFEMP3Shield library. Major thanks to Bill Porter and Michael Flaga, again, for this amazing library! */

include <SPI.h> // SPI library

include <SdFat.h> // SDFat Library

//#include <SdFatUtil.h> // SDFat Util Library

include <SFEMP3Shield.h> // Mp3 Shield Library

SdFat sd; // Create object to handle SD functions

SFEMP3Shield MP3player; // Create Mp3 library object // These variables are used in the MP3 initialization to set up // some stereo options: const uint8_t volume = 0; // MP3 Player volume 0=max, 255=lowest (off) const uint16_t monoMode = 1; // Mono setting 0=off, 3=max

/* Pin setup */

define TRIGGER_COUNT 9

int triggerPins[TRIGGER_COUNT] = {0, 1, 5, 10, A0, A1, A2, A3, A4}; int stopPin = A5; // This pin triggers a track stop. int lastTrigger = 0; // This variable keeps track of which tune is playing

void setup() { /* Set up all trigger pins as inputs, with pull-ups activated: */ for (int i=0; i<TRIGGER_COUNT; i++) { pinMode(triggerPins[i], INPUT_PULLUP); } pinMode(stopPin, INPUT_PULLUP);

initSD(); // Initialize the SD card initMP3Player(); // Initialize the MP3 Shield }

// All the loop does is continuously step through the trigger // pins to see if one is pulled low. If it is, it'll stop any // currently playing track, and start playing a new one. void loop() { for (int i=0; i<TRIGGER_COUNT; i++) { if ((digitalRead(triggerPins[i]) == LOW) && ((i+1) != lastTrigger)) { lastTrigger = i+1; // Update lastTrigger variable to current trigger /* If another track is playing, stop it: */ if (MP3player.isPlaying()) MP3player.stopTrack();

  /* Use the playTrack function to play a numbered track: */
  uint8_t result = MP3player.playTrack(lastTrigger);
  // An alternative here would be to use the
  //  playMP3(fileName) function, as long as you mapped
  //  the file names to trigger pins.

  if (result == 0)  // playTrack() returns 0 on success
  {
    // Success
  }
  else // Otherwise there's an error, check the code
  {
    // Print error code somehow, someway
  }
}

} // After looping through and checking trigger pins, check to // see if the stopPin (A5) is triggered. if (digitalRead(stopPin) == LOW) { lastTrigger = 0; // Reset lastTrigger // If another track is playing, stop it. if (MP3player.isPlaying()) MP3player.stopTrack(); } }

// initSD() initializes the SD card and checks for an error. void initSD() { //Initialize the SdCard. if(!sd.begin(SD_SEL, SPI_HALF_SPEED)) sd.initErrorHalt(); if(!sd.chdir("/")) sd.errorHalt("sd.chdir"); }

// initMP3Player() sets up all of the initialization for the // MP3 Player Shield. It runs the begin() function, checks // for errors, applies a patch if found, and sets the volume/ // stero mode. void initMP3Player() { uint8_t result = MP3player.begin(); // init the mp3 player shield if(result != 0) // check result, see readme for error codes. { // Error checking can go here! } MP3player.setVolume(volume, volume); MP3player.setMonoMode(monoMode); }

All examples worked exactly the way they should, and I was able to attach it to an amp circuit very easily.

I had some initial trouble that turned out to be operator induced. Once I corrected my error, it worked fine.