Hi,
I'm a newbie. I've worked witha breadboard and sodering iron. The problem I'm trying to solve is this:
I've made a bag that holds 3 mp3 players and a CD player. It also holds 2 cell phones. I want a switch (preferably passive) That lets me send any one of the audio devices to either of two headphones. I also want to be able to switch the cell phones to one headset/mic. Thus, I see two "routers" (I'm a programmer, sorry). One router is 4/2 to send any of the 4 audio devices to either of two headphones. The other router is 2/1 to send either of the two cell phones to one headphone/mic.
I'd like to keep this light and small so that it will fit unobtrusevly in the bag and I don't want it to be powered unless it has to be so that I don't have to fiddle with batteries.
My initial thought was that I'd just build a box that switched four input jacks to an output and then split the output with another switch. A friend said that I'd get awful degredation, feedback, etc. He said I'd need to add resistors, but I have no idea where. When I looked around to buy one of these they were exceedingly rare and quite costly. So...are they costly because they are ridiculously complicated or because nobody else is so silly as to carry so much duplicate crap around?
In a dream world, I'd have volume controls at each input and an amplifier at the output (of course, I realize that requires power). All of this, however, is beyond me.
Can anyone help with a diagram that I could put on a simple breadboard and test? If I have to power it, I'd like to do it with rechargeable AAA or AA batteries if that is possible.
Thanks for the help.