Flashing "BONEfones"

Convert a totally underwhelming foam skull into a Halloween speaker system.

-=Backstory=-

I was at Abott's party store in Littleton, NH a couple days ago and saw a foam skull. Upon first glance it looked like your basic Halloween prop, until I saw the LEDs in its eyes. I immediately knew this would be the prop of a lifetime... with the sort of technology it was hiding in its cranium, the skull might be able to:

a) Scare the daylights outa the neighborhood kids
b) Dispense fortunes when it detected questions directed at it
c) Do the dishes, walk the dog and fetch me a beer
d) All of the above

With visions of sugarplums dancing in my head, I reached down with hands trembling in anticipation and flicked the "ON" switch.

Its eyes lit up.

they didn't even blink.

I was utterly devestated.

It was then and there that I decided to remedy this great injustice. I purchased the skull and began brainstorming.

Ten Redbulls later I hit upon an idea...
What if the skull could talk...
what if his eyes lit up while he talked...
Brilliant!

so I set to work...

Step 1: Gathering Materials & Disassembling

I used the following materials for my skull:

note: double all amounts for stereo setup

1x foam skull with led eyes ($12.99)
1x 8ohm speaker (scavenged)
1x TIP31 npn transistor ($1.59 at radioshack, :( )
1x 1/8th inch mono phone jack (6 for $3.99 at radioshack :( )
1x stereo to mono 1/8th inch adapter ($2.99)
lots of thin wire (scavenged from a previously mutilated usb cable)
soldering skills

The first step is to remove the four screws holding the base on and snip the wires to the leds, leaving a stripable amount attached to both the LEDS and the battery box

Comments

[riverreaper]

could you post a movie ? it say flashing but we cant tell that from pic ,ive set of lights that will flash if box is bumped slighly , a phones vibration would set them off some red plastic in the eyes would be glowing now ive to find scules 3 months befor the day of lol

[BigMatt.ZA]

im confused, is this so you can talk throught the skulls and scare the sh*t out of people....cos thats cool and all, but as pc speakers it would rock evn more.

[Thunderexpress]

scavenge it boy.

[Neech]

Sweet idea, I want one. What did you use for your power supply? 3V - 2AA? Why does your ciruit have the diodes in parellel?

[gschoppe]

they're in parallel because thats the way the skull was already made... if you made your own, you'd want them in series

[Junkernaut]

Sweet Halloween Idea. that looks like you could make a iskull ipod dock

[Neech]

Sweet idea, I want one. What did you use for your power supply? 3V - 2AA? Why does your ciruit have the diodes in parellel?

[Robotrix]

I applaud your commitment to giving halloween props the respect and ingenuity they deserve

[gschoppe]

Just to give credit where due, I chose my transistor based partly on its use in the blinking led project at:
http://www.instructables.com/id/E1K7SJ2ZG6ERIE36TP/?ALLSTEPS