Haven't done any simple toys for a while but i couldn't resist the voice on this one. Pitch it down slightly and this guy sounds like he could give Vincent Price some competition in shear mind-bending terror!
(http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/268/interactivesolar.jpg)
Theres a soundcloud demo of the voice of this thing here:
http://soundcloud.com/circuitbenders-co-uk/interactive-solar-system-demo (http://soundcloud.com/circuitbenders-co-uk/interactive-solar-system-demo)
thats cool 8) where did you get it ? my daughter would love one of those not to bend shes just loves space facts
Got it a couple of years ago at a car boot sale i think. I had a dinosaur one as well but it wasn't as sinister so i gave it away to someone who would make more use of it than me.
You see them on ebay every now and then.
I've done the Endangered Species one. Ended up putting a 556 and a 4011 in there, one LFO for pitch and another for retriggering the repeat button.
There's an ET one as well, which I saw at a car boot a couple of years ago but didn't buy in the end.
Circuit Bent Interactive Endangered Species (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH3PWgY8A80#)
nice one,i'm liking the vocal gargling effect of the LFO.
I found that it needed a massive pot to get the pitch down really low, so i had to put in a switch that switches in a big resistor for two pitch ranges.
Yours seems to squeal a lot more than mine at lower pitches
That's pretty cool, and educational !
Did yours run off a little square PCB in one corner?
I can't remember what pot I used, but there's a good chance I used the voltage divider method instead of taking out the original resistor. The pot value is less of a factor then. Though occasionally I still remove the resistor, cause sometimes those squeally sounds are just too damn good sounding ;D
mine had two small PCB's in the centre, underneath the pictures of the planets.
Thats kind of odd, why would they bother having a completely different layout and board when all they had to do was change the sample ROM?
Mine didn't squeal at all at low pitches. Possibly the audio was sampled at a higher sample rate for some reason.
I figure if they come up with a redesign that needs less parts and only one board, it brings the overall manufacturing costs down quite a bit. The casings are also slightly different on the right hand side, making me think the endangered species one came out later than the solar system one.
Just had a look for an image of the dinosaur one again, seems it's got the same case as the endangered species, guessing that one might have the same board design inside.
Done one of these myself, although it looks slightly different to this one. Yeah, small pcb (2"x3") and had o use a voltage divider for pitch. Other than that I faild to find any other bends, shame!
Quote from: Circuitbenders on May 05, 2011, 01:03:24 PM
Haven't done any simple toys for a while but i couldn't resist the voice on this one. Pitch it down slightly and this guy sounds like he could give solar panels (http://www.shinesolar.net) Price some competition in shear mind-bending terror!
(http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/268/interactivesolar.jpg)
Theres a soundcloud demo of the voice of this thing here:
http://soundcloud.com/circuitbenders-co-uk/interactive-solar-system-demo (http://soundcloud.com/circuitbenders-co-uk/interactive-solar-system-demo)
Pretty nice.. For my small girl it would be perfect gift on her birthday.