Ive been casually bending toys at home for a while and getting some cool sounds. Ive only installed a few buttons and sound jack, and still need to figure out the best sauder (i heard rosin core?) wire (something small to thread tiny chip leads?) and button suppliers...
I have a bigger issue now though. I brought in to work (im a highschool music teacher) a toy ive been bending for a while (Musini ftw!) and they managed to kill it within an hour. Lights work, and speakers work with one particular connection that distorts the signal, but otherwise, no sound comes out anymore.
So i brought another toy, and within a few minutes of opening it, it died. Wires are all ok, and i wish i knew exactly what the student hit last before it stopped making noise. I was planning on bending my keytar (my baby) but now im scared!!!
Are there general No-No spots when bending? I try not to connect things directly to the battery. Anyone else have stories about killing toys?
Help! Thanks!
I have a bigger issue now though. I brought in to work (im a highschool music teacher) a toy ive been bending for a while (Musini ftw!) and they managed to kill it within an hour. Lights work, and speakers work with one particular connection that distorts the signal, but otherwise, no sound comes out anymore.
So i brought another toy, and within a few minutes of opening it, it died. Wires are all ok, and i wish i knew exactly what the student hit last before it stopped making noise. I was planning on bending my keytar (my baby) but now im scared!!!
Are there general No-No spots when bending? I try not to connect things directly to the battery. Anyone else have stories about killing toys?
Help! Thanks!
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SF Bay Area
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Tue, February 13, 2007 - 9:08 PMI've killed a few but have no idea why. Wouldn't mind knowing the answer and if they are recoverable. -
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Wed, February 14, 2007 - 1:35 PM
what kind of bent instrument?
sometimes bent things just get to hot and
need to cool down...
i've had stuff magicly return to life after letting it set for a couple of days...
have you opened it back up to check the circuit board?
any of the resistors leaking any fluid? that would be an easy fix...
when you wired it did you put resistors in the bends you made, if not
that could be your problem... mini trim pots inbetween the wiring of pitch
bends and potentiometers can keep things from crashing too, you just set the trimmer
to the point right before your device crashes....
so many variables with bent toys...
i recently melted part of the circuit board on a talking teacher when i put in a
pitch control but with a little rewireing to bypass the circuit i melted it should
be almost as good as new...
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Wed, February 21, 2007 - 6:13 PMalso, if they are battery powered, try taking out the batteries and replacing them. not new batteries, just take em out and put em back.
don't know why it works, but *sometimes* it does. -
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Sat, March 24, 2007 - 11:24 PM"also, if they are battery powered, try taking out the batteries and replacing them. not new batteries, just take em out and put em back.
don't know why it works, but *sometimes* it does
Some of my bent toys are notorious for this exact thing. For whatever reason, they occasionally glitch up and only a total disconnection form the batteries will get it back to working order. Whenever I have encountered this problem I always install a normally closed momentary pushbutton switch somewhere between the battery and the circuit board. It then acts as a complete kill switch, allowing me to save myself the headache of taking out the batteries every time.
Of course, as already stated, this solution only works sometimes. However the addition of a kill switch comes in quite handy in a lot of bending scenarios. For toys that tend to lock up or glitch out of control in an undesirable way, for toys that refuse to stop making sound when you tell them to, etc...
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Thu, March 15, 2007 - 7:05 AMHmm, obviously you need to solder to NASA standards.
Those ruskies may have put a dog into space but they sure didn't make it to the moon first!
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Fri, March 16, 2007 - 9:13 AMMaybe you can try discharging a capacitor? Just take a piece of wire(like the kind you'd use for switches, etc.) and then run the ends around the circuit board. -
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Wed, March 21, 2007 - 7:22 PMi just got a musini I want to bend......
any tips or links to tutorials?
I found this link extremely useful:
www.intelligentmachinery.net/res....php
This will be my first bend, or my yamaha pss 140, depending on which parts come in the mail first.
I know little about electronic circuitry at this point, but I am excited to make some new original instruments. -
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Re: they keep breaking :C
Thu, March 22, 2007 - 1:32 AMI found that the first few pegs in the corners of the various chips do cool things. There was also a way to detatch the motion sensor so you don't have to keep shaking it (or you could attach an LFO to it and control it like they said!! Wow!).
That link makes me really miss my musini. I hope i can find another one. I uploaded the only track i recorded off mine before it broke at raencloud.com for you guys. All it took was one touch to a pair of chip pegs and it kept looping like that!
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oh god where to start with this one....
Sun, March 25, 2007 - 8:17 PMget a soldering gun with VERY low wattage variable between 5-15 watts would be best.
You should pay a nice chunk of money for it
maybe 120 for a really nice one.
everyone fries them from time to time. electronics aren't meant to have this done really
if it's fried it is fried. I don't know anyone who bends who has brought something back unless they manually replaced the defective part
or somehow otherwise circumvented it and that takes more soldering.
good thing you started on toys and not 100$ drum machines like me... :P
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remove and replace batteries. also...
Wed, April 4, 2007 - 6:59 PMyes you need rosin core solder. absolutely.
also when you are starting out it is recommendable to be very casual with attempting to bend integrated circuits (the black rectangles, usually with 8 or more connections coming out of them). these are sometimes rather fragile so be careful. sometimes the best bends will often be hidden inside an IC, but just be careful not to repeatedly make bad connections. also, test to see if your connections cause the IC or capacitors or batteries to heat up. this is rare but will burn out a machine for sure.
also, if a circuit shuts down the machine, causes sparks, etc, don't make that same connection again.
as mentioned, taking the batteries out and placing them back in is probably your problem here though. for some reason the only way to 'reset' certain circuits is to interrupt the power source to them, which can be achieved in this fashion. -
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Re: remove and replace batteries. also...
Wed, April 4, 2007 - 8:09 PMI hate how this stuff sounds like common sense, but i've made so many sparks and crashed the toy so much, i guess i can't blame it for giving up its little ghost. -
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Re: remove and replace batteries. also...
Wed, April 4, 2007 - 8:17 PMusually these things should not be a problem, but by recognizing them you can reduce the risks of burning out a machine...
did you try replacing the batteries? what you described (lights on, etc) is a classic case of needing to replace batteries.
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