Silence a Toy with a Switch

Some toys should be seen, but not heard! My 2.5 year old nephew is big on firefighters right now, so I found this great helmet for him that has a cool flashing light at the front. However, it also has a siren, and both the light and siren are controlled by the same switch. If I want to ever be able to set foot in their house again, I need to do something about that last part...

For this project, you'll need the toy you want to modify, a switch, a soldering iron, some solder, and a pair of wirecutters (or a knife, if you don't have any handy). The soldering for this project it super, super simple. If you don't have any experience, this would be a great beginner's project!

Step 1 No Electronics Knowledge Needed!

I bought this toy online, sight unseen. It had great reviews, but someone noted how much better the toy would be if there was some way to disable the siren! There's a simple technique that I've been wanting to share on Instructables for a while, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Adding a switch to a piece of electronics is often very simple. I've used this technique many times, to save batteries, add functionality, and in this case, preserve sanity! Here's a very, very basic layout of how many battery operated items work: a battery is connected up to a whirlygig. As long as they're connected, they whirlygig will continue to whirl (or is it gig, I forget). It could be flashing lights, a motor, some kind of noise making device, doesn't matter. As long as the battery is connected and giving the device power, it'll keep doing its thing.

Comments

[caarntedd]

Silence a toy with a hammer.

[pjamestx]

Sure, that's pretty much the same thing I did here. The main difference being that all the soldering comes after the "silencing" step instead of before it, and the difficulty of it ramps up quickly!

[caarntedd]

This is good. I often hear strange noises coming from the toybox.

[omnibot]

So did I, it turned out to be one of those lifesize dolls screaming "let me out", creepy as all heck.

[pie R []ed]

Great and useful idea! it would be fun to make this system remote controlled, or have an auto shut off in certain rooms!

[LifeWarrior]

Very cool idea for all parents with young kids, I think the only thing that could top a switch is some way to lower the KHZ so a parent can't hear it and a kid can only annoy other kids with it, LOL!

[scoochmaroo]

Genius. Even I could do this!

[pjamestx]

Thanks, it's a really easy technique that I've been wanting to share for a while. Electronics can be very intimidating, but the switch has to be the easiest component to get started with. They're plentiful, varied, cheap, and can be easily added to many small devices to get them to operate on your terms.