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100 lines
8.5 KiB
Plaintext
100 lines
8.5 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 772
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Title: HPR0772: Circuit Bending
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0772/hpr0772.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-08 02:09:52
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---
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MUSIC
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Welcome HPR listeners to my new show this is the new age techno hippie I'm going to talk
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about circuit bending today it was a topic that I didn't even know was a topic I had started
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doing similar types stuff a while ago after I had my children and found out that a lot
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of the toys today don't come with volume control so I wanted to lower the volume but couldn't
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so being a hacker I just decided I was going to put one in myself it's not that complicated
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of a subject but I'm going to have some links in the show notes to actual circuit bending
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websites and you check it out they seem to do a little bit different than what I'm doing
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I'm basically just adding in volume control they're going a little bit further than that
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but once you start I'm sure that you could with enough time do about anything you want
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it the concept is pretty simple I have a child's toy and it has no volume control so what
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am I going to do I'm going to take a screwdriver or whatever tools that I need and I'm going
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to take the device apart sometimes screws are hidden under rubber feet on the back you
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take those off and you'll see the screw holes you stick your screwdriver in there they might
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be Phillips they might be straight edge not normally most of the time they're Phillips
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or sometimes some sort of torque said maybe a try wing there's all sorts of screws out
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there if you look online I'm sure you can figure out what kind of screwdriver you'll need
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once you have the screws out then you slowly take the toy apart be careful plastic breaks
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easy most of the toys are made out cheap plastic and they have lots of little fasteners normally
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I use a little precision straight edge screwdriver and you can slowly pop all the little plastic
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bits apart once you have a plastic bits apart then you just time to start dealing with the
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electronics inside most of these have one to two small circuit boards in them with a lot of
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integrated circuit but for the volume out you're going to have some sort of audio circuit and that
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audio circuits where we're going to do our work to add a volume control to it it's not super
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straight forward if you look out there online for filters for audio circuit simple filters you'll
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see that all you really need to change the sound of audio is some resistors maybe a capacitor
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and you can wind up changing the pitch and volume of audio pretty easy problem is somebody's already
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done a lot of design work to get this toy to sound exactly the way they wanted and you're going
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to be changing that so you're going to have to experiment a little bit but it doesn't really
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all you need to do is just leave the batteries in the toy take the toy apart leave the speaker
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connected and you can hear the speaker and run it through its actions and the different sounds
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that it makes and then you can go in and put a volume control of your own in that toy or just
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lower the volume altogether not even really put a control and just cut the volume in half or
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something so what you're going to do is you're going to have two options here you could get really
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fancy because you already have a screwdriver you can do it really fancy and you can do use a soldering
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iron and desolder the wires from the speaker off the board and use a resistor or a variable resistor
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in there and play with the volume that way or you can just simply if you don't have a soldering
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iron just cut one of the wires to the speaker normally the red one the one that looks like it's
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the positive wire might even be labeled positive on the on the board circuit board where the wires
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attach from the speaker if you cut that wire you can put a resistor in between the wire and the
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speaker and by doing that you're going to reduce the voltage across the speaker and that's going
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to reduce the volume that comes out of the speaker you also play down with different resistor values
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you can buy a cheap pack of variable resistor or variable resistors or even just a cheap pack with
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a lot of different resistors in it and a lot of different values from any hobby electronics store
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whether it's a radio shack or whatever else you might have maplin whatever when you do that then
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you can try different resistors in there just by simply touching them together you can use them
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if you need to hold a little bit of tape to them together or just hook the little ends of the wire
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and the resistor wires and hook them together and just kind of tug on it gently generally you're not
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talking enough voltage or amperage or anything that you're going to get hurt playing around with
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these kinds of circuits if you're dealing with some kind of electronic item that's a lot bigger
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or plugged into AC power you need to be very careful and that you don't you know shock yourself but
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with small you know double way battery single double way battery type toys double two double
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way batteries generally not too big a problem there I'm trying not to touch the bear wires
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but there's lots of ways to hold these things apart so as you're trying to different resistor values
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you just turn the toy on cycle it through its different functions and make sure that the volume
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level is the volume level that you wanted to have for the toy and once you find the right
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resistor value the toy should still sound good but yet just be at a lower volume as you change
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the resistor value you might find that you change the sound of whatever is coming out whether it's
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a voice or just a pitch you're going to change that slightly by changing the resistor value and
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that goes back to what I said earlier about there being a lot of work going into designing the
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audio circuit to sound a certain way and now you're just sort of going in and changing it all random
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like but with a little bit of work you can get the right resistor in there and that resistor will
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make what you have sound good but be at a volume that you prefer if you put a variable resistor in
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you'll have the option of changing it now if you want to access the variable resistor after
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you put this toy back together you might need to poke a small hole through the toy to do so you
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can use a knife and just auger out a hole or if you want you can use a drill or something like that
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poke a little hole in it that way just big enough to get a small little precision screwdriver
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through there and that's normally enough that you can glue the resistor that you're going to add
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to it the variable resistor into the toy and be able to turn the little potentiometer there
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with a screwdriver to change the volume whenever you want it once you find the resistor if you don't
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have a soldering iron you can just twist the wires together tape everything up and you put the toy
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back together don't put screws in test it out first before you put the screws back in make sure
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everything works the way you want and then you're ready to go then you put screws back in if you
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have a soldering iron what you can do is you can solder the resistor in place and then put the toy
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back together test it out put the screws in if everything's working the way you want if you put a
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variable resistor in there until potentiometer and you glued it to the hole then put it back to
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solder everything back in together normally with the variable potentiometer you're going to have
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the solder stuff just because of the way that the mounts are made sometimes you might not have to
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you might be able to tape them together soldering is obviously a little bit more secure it's going to
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harden everything up solder psych welding for electronics if you don't know what that is already
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you know we'll be a little bit more solid if you just tape it up it might be a little less solid
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but generally I've had good luck with both methods before depending on how many tools I've had
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available when I've done it once you get everything back together it should be good to go and you
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can put the screws back in there if everything's working the way you expect and you'll be happy with
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your new volume and most of the time your kid will not even notice I've done this to a lot of my
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child's toys and my spouse has been very happy because of it so there's a lot further that you can
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go if you check out the show notes you'll see some of the circuit bending websites and that'll get
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you into a deeper world of how to modify toys or electronics in general so have a good day talk to you
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next time
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thank you for listening to Hacker Public Radio for more information on the show and how to
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contribute your own shows visit Hacker Public Radio dot org
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oh
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