davidsproule
Canada
Asked
— Edited
Hi Folks I am a new member, a retired clergyman going back to my earlier vocation in electronics. I have had a lot of fun with Arduino and was intrigued by the current Make magazine article on Teddy Ruxpin and Chip. Unfortunately Chip will not ship until June. So I thought I would look at doing it with Photon. I found a pristine Ruxpin of the non tape recorder variety (it just speaks a couple of sentences), but am stymied as to the 7 wire cable to mouth and eye control. Has anyone identified what wire goes where. I hope I will not have to do the ghastly neck surgery done to one of my bear's uncles. Looking forward to my adventure with you. Dave
Welcome Dave... Can't help you with the teddy, but EZ Robot is an awesome choice for your project.... We love it when former Arduino uses "see the light" and migrate to ez robot... Sorry for the pun Padre... :)
I also wanted to welcome you to the forum David!
I also saw the recent hack in Make magazine (as I have a subscription ;D) and I too thought that there was a lot missing in terms of actually doing the physical hack. While I don't have the wiring specifications that you are looking for I can say that DJ replaced the existing mouth and eye motors with 2 servos and got his Teddy Ruxpin working in the course of a night.
I don't have a Teddy Ruxpin myself but I hope to own 1 one day. It was a great show that I grew up watching at 6AM before school lol.
There's a lot of info on Dr. Eeyore's Hospital (http://www.dreeyoreshospital.net) along with a 'fix teddy yourself' link: http://www.dreeyoreshospital.net/Teddy_Ruxpin-fix-1.html. I'm sure a quick email to Dr. Eeyore (heh) will get your questions answered.
I've been contemplating a Teddy R. project myself...
Steve
Thank you Steve. The site has a lot of good info. One of the problems is that Teddy Ruxpin appeared in several models. The good Dr. is showing the cassette player model. Mine is a simpler one without a player. The PC board has some audio storage. Teddy says two sentences and might originally have said more. My Ted has upper & lower jaws that work together - some had separate servos/motors. The eyes seem to be controlled separately from the mouth. There are 7 wires entering the head from the chest PC board to control eyes and mouth. I will send Dr. Eeyore a note and see if he can help. Dave
Richard I notice that you are also a Canadian. I am in Toronto. Any chance you are close and able to meet me at Tims (of course) to convince me of the merits of ez robot? Dave
Hey David... I used to live in East York... Born and raised in Toronto in fact... However, 10 years ago I moved out to the Kitchener area for more of the quiet life... Not sure it would be feasible for us to meet but the forum is a great source for all your questions... We'll probably send to the Learn section here a lot, but there are many people here that are more than willing to answer even weird questions...