Pappmaskin.no

FrankenDog right after it started burning

I’m glad it happed in the daytime, or it could have burnt down our office. Our soundman noticed a weid smell, and found the i-cybie smoking in the hallway, and ran to the nearest exit with it and threw it out. So this is how I found it. Dr. Frankenstein to the resque!

Spooky FrankenFoot!

Haunted screws from hell

I absolutely hate toy firms that use triangle screws like this, they are an absolute nightmare to get loose! I have yet to be able to find a bit-set that contains a triangle head, and the i-cybie has at least two different sizes. I had to borrow two flat head screwdrivers of the exact correct size to get them out, and had to be super careful to avoid damaging the screw or screwdriver. I want to kick the makers of i-cybie in the nuts just for this :)

Magic flat head screw driver

Leg protection removed.

I had read on the web that the i-cybie was supposed to have 16 cervo motors, which turned out to be absolute bull. What you’ll find are plain old cheap electric motors, the type you’ll find in any Made in Taiwan toy car. Which makes economic sense of course.I had a plan of using an arduino for controlling the dogs movements, but, I see now that that won’t be posssible.I wonder how they are able to reverse the polarity of the motors.

Tiny potentiometer

This has to be the smallest POT I’ve ever seen. It is connected to the shaft of the engine, and I imagine that it is used to tell the controller in i-cybies programming how much the motor has turned. Quite clever really. I wonder if this can be used for something later.

Screw you

These are the screws from just one leg. Hello!

The FrankenSynth

I guess I should use something more steampunk looking, but this is what I have. And it even has a dog voice, so in a sense it is perfect.

The FrankenSynth opened up

I will use this cheap toy piano I bought at a thrift store to trigger each motor, by creating temporary contacts on each piano key.I’ve recently discovered the joy of conductive tin foil tape, which is absolutely perfect for small mods like this. It is sturdy and takes a beating, and the glue is fairly strong.

FrankenTape

Four keys are prepped and ready for testing. Not sure it will work yet.My original plan was to glue tin foil on there, but my neighbor had recently installed heating cables in their floors, and had som aluminum tape left over from that project, and it turned out to be a great solution. Certainly better than farking around with glue and tin foil.

Closeup of home made contact switch

Push the piano key and power flows through.I’m not 100% happy with how it works, I thing you have to apply too much pressure to get a good connection. But good enough for entertainment purposes.

First FrankenFoot is attached!

I use a breadboard to hook things up, just to make it a little easier on myself. In this picture I’ve connected alligator clips to + and – on one of the motors, and run wires to one of the piano keys. When I press the corresponding piano key the circuit is closed, and the motor on the leg is triggered, moving the foot.I realize that I won’t be able to reverse the direction of the motor, so the leg will just move one way for the time being. Suckage!

Closeup of leg

I will have to solder wires to each motor to make it easier to connect power to them.

Breadboard

Not very informative perhaps :)

FrankenJack

I found an old us robotics 56kbps modem in the attic, from the 90s, and I wanted to use the head phone jack one my synt. I’m doing this hack for a television show, so I need a way to deliver sound to the sound man.

FrankenJack is freeeeee

Just use a pair of pliers and bend and prod until the circuitboard brakes. Fast and simple. Kind of sad to destroy a piece of internet history, but hey.

FrankenJack connected

To get sound out of the audio jack all you have to do is connect wires directly to the speaker like this.

Sound out works

I’ve plugged in my iPhone headphones and I can now hear the sound from this synth in much higher fidelity.

Headless frankendog

I don’t have pictures of this, but I prodded around a little and found a way to run wires from the led on my toy piano and to the dogs eyes instead. So each time I push a key on the keyboard, the eyes of i-cybie lights up red, Terminator style! I also run small wires to the small speaker in the i-cybies mouth, allowing me to use it as a loudspeaker later if I want to. If I had more time I would have attached an audiojack to make it easier to plug in my iphone, but that have to wait for later.

FrankenDog head, closeup.