Talking Skeletons

[Zombie-F]

HAHA! I'm well on my way to making the Bucky skeletons I bought a few weeks ago talk. I built a nifty circuit that is posted on Scary Terry's web site (http://www.scary-terry.com) that uses audio to drive a servo motor. As audio comes into the circuit, it is processed so it makes a servo motor inside the skull open and close the jaw by way of a rigid wire going from the motor to the jaw. This should kick ass on Halloween.

Photo of the circuit/batteries/motor inside the skull:

[Zombie-F]

After a few less-than-deirable hurdles were overcome, I finally have the circuits running correctly. I was desparately hoping I could run these babies off of batteries, but the current draw of the motor only gives the batteries a usable life of about an hour and a half. After that, the voltage drops to a point where the motor action gets to be incredibly choppy, and eventually it just starts to do "its own thing" like its possessed or something.

In light of that, I eliminated the batteries from the motor controllers and went with the good old "wall wart". Follow the link below to see a brief demo of the skeleton's jaw action set to a maniacal laugh track.

http://www.unpleasantstreet.com/video/projects/talking_buckies/talking_buckies_demo-01.wmv