Warning: complicated VTechs suck.

kick52 · February 03, 2008, 05:28:30 PM

They suck very hard.

Pretty much anything with a mouse, or a high resolution display will crash if you touch anything. Normally they have around 3 chips, one big long one, one small long one, and a blob. You can't do anything with the blob, the long one will just crash, and the small one will mostly crash, but some points will "waffle" the speech. These normally have a resistor which can be skipped to make it pause on the current sound, but overall, that's the only thing you can do with them.

I just got a VTech PreComputer notebook II back from a really shitty car boot sale, and the only cool thing is a data "swap" where the sounds glitch a bit. Made around 1996. My old VTech PC Mouse was also just like this. I was a bit annoyed at the notebook one, so I spat on it, and now it doesn't turn on. I don't really care.

It seems everything pre-1995 is great. They glitch in some way everywhere, and there's always a nice crystal resonator thing there which you can touch to create some unique glitches, and you can change the pitch of them with a 555.

wiredtoygeek · February 04, 2008, 01:04:15 AM

damn! there's nothing worse than opening up a toy & being nothing but disappointed.

Circuitbenders · February 04, 2008, 01:48:58 AM

Quote from: wiredtoygeek on February 04, 2008, 01:04:15 AM
damn! there's nothing worse than opening up a toy & being nothing but disappointed.

apart from opening something up and being nothing but electrocuted

wiredtoygeek · February 06, 2008, 03:57:14 AM

as long as it's not plugged into a wall how bad of a shock can it be? I just picked up some v-tech vibrating ball toy at a local consignment shop for $2. Seem interesting, but I can't seem to find any screws to take it apart...Go figure.

computer at sea · March 09, 2008, 01:18:13 PM

The V-Tech ball toys are hard to get into, but it is possible. If there are any light up sort of pannels on the ball, see if you can remove them. The whole thing is held together by four screws that are arranged in sort of a cube throught the middle of the ball, if you catch my drift.

It took me quite a bit of head-scratching to get into one. Alternately, you could just use a saw and the recase the circuit in something else.

kick52 · March 09, 2008, 06:04:46 PM

Is the ball good for bending though?

I saw one in a charity shop. I also just took home a VTech Phonics Teacher. Not much inside though there are some noisy glitches and some pitch changes.

computer at sea · March 09, 2008, 08:50:28 PM

VTech makes a number of spherical toys. The one I had (can't remember which, but it said 'mommy', 'daddy', 'baby', and 'bye-bey') wasn't any good, but I've seen videos on Youtube of some pretty nice looking ones.

wiredtoygeek · March 20, 2008, 06:08:27 PM

Quote from: computer at sea on March 09, 2008, 01:18:13 PM
The V-Tech ball toys are hard to get into, but it is possible. If there are any light up sort of pannels on the ball, see if you can remove them. The whole thing is held together by four screws that are arranged in sort of a cube throught the middle of the ball, if you catch my drift.

It took me quite a bit of head-scratching to get into one. Alternately, you could just use a saw and the recase the circuit in something else.

I got as far as opening the blue ball... I'm going to get into it this weekend & see what I can come up with.

Has anyone come up with anything to do with the mechanism that makes the ball move? I would love to brainstorm with some folks on making a bent type of roatating speaker with some contact points that activate when the metal plate spins around.