Introduction: Frankenbear Synthamajig
Have you ever wanted a teddy bear that looks like Frankenstein and makes sounds like "bleep bleep bloooop de de bleep.... EHHHHHHHHHH...... dadadadadadadododododod bleep bleep bloop"?
Look no farther, you have found it!
Now you can perform the nights away with your new USB-Powered teddy bear instrument. Yay!
Step 1: Go Get Stuff.
Go get stuff:
1 - Small white teddy bear (preferably with red bow)
1 - USB cable
1 - Bicycle safety flasher
1 - Small speaker
1 - PIC16F877 micro-processor
1 - 20MHZ ceramic resonator
1 - LM386 audio amplifier
1 - 40 pin socket
1 - 8 pin socket
1 - PCB (cut to size of teddy bear)
2 - 10K potentiometers (preferably with knob)
2 - red knobs (available at Home Depot)
2 - 0.1uF ceramic disk capacitors
1 - 0.022uF ceramic disk capacitor
1 - 330uF electrolytic capacitor
1 - 10uF electrolytic capacitor
1 - 0.1uF polyester film capacitor
2 - 220 ohm resistors
1 - 10K resistor
1 - 330 ohms resistor
1 - Spool red thread to match bear
1 - Role of electrical tape
1 - Red and black 22 AWG wire
Tools:
- PIC programmer
- Exacto knife or razor blade
- Soldering iron
- Hot glue gun
- Sewing needle
- Wire cutter
- Needle nose pliers
- Drill (possibly)
- Small philips head screwdriver (possibly)
Step 2: Disassemble and Carefully Destroy the Flasher.
The light flasher is going to be the "buttons" down your bear's stomach. What we are going to do in this step is disassemble and rewire the light flasher so that it no longer flashes.
The first thing we're going to do is open up the flasher and remove the circuit board. This should be easy.
Next, we are going to deactivate the flasher.
The flashing feature is deactivated because I simply didn't want it to blink. If you want to keep yours blinking, remove the button and solder a wire to each terminal where the button used to be on the board (and then skip the rest of this step as well as the next).
If you want to keep yours from flashing, go get your drill. Determine where the chip is on the board. It probably will look like a black dot, which is really a protective coating to keep people from tampering with it (see secondary picture below). Locate the dot and then drill through it until it is gone. This hole should also be enough of a precaution to break all unnecessary wiring connections.
Step 3: Rewire the LED Flasher.
Once the chip is gone and the connections are broken, solder wires between any LEDs no longer connected by tracings on the board (see below). Also, solder 4" power wires running off of the board. Remember to connect red to positive and black to negative (again see below).
Step 4: Gut the Bear.
Find the stitching in the back of the neck. Cut it with your exacto knife and rip out as much of the stitching as you can.
Once the back of the neck is open then you can pull out all of the stuffing from the bear's head and stomach. To aid in re-stuffing later, leave in the stuffing in the arms and feet.
There is something strangely rewarding about unstuffing the bear.
Step 5: Cut a Hole for the LEDs.
Well, the LEDs need to go in the bear's stomach. If there is a seam down the middle, then it should be easy. Cut the seam open.
If there is not a seam, carefully slice down the belly far enough that the LEDS can poke out from the inside.
Step 6: Sew in the Lights.
The nice thing about making a monstrous teddy bear is that the stitching can be equally monstrous.
As such, when you sew the board to the bear make sure that you sew it up, down, around, over and under. It does not matter how you sew it in so long as the LEDs poke out, the board is held in place and the stiching won't rip out.
Also, try not to get the wires running off the board caught in the stitching. It will save you many headaches later.
Step 7: Sew in the USB Cable.
Clip off the end of the USB cable that will not fit in your computer.
Cut a small hole in the side of the bear and pass the cable through about 3" or 4". Once passed through, knot the cable inside the bear so that it can't pass through the hole. You can maybe add a drop of hot glue to this for better results.
Now sew the knot to the bear. Again, it does not matter how, just make sure it is attached well.
Step 8: Attach the Potentiometers.
First make sure you have two wires of roughly 6" soldered to the potentiometers.
Poke a small hole in the side of each temple and push through the potentiometer shaft.
Sew the potentiometer in place by any means possible. Make sure it is sewn in well and pointing out into space the right way.
Step 9: Attach the Red Head Knobs.
If the potentiometer has a knob, cut off all of the original knob but the part that couples the shaft. See if the coupling fits into the red knob (see secondary picture below).
If it does, glue it in place. And then place the new knob construction onto the potentiometer shaft.
If it does not, fill the inside of the knob with hot glue and glue the red knob onto the potentiometer shaft. Be careful to line it up straight and not get glue on the bear.
Step 10: Program the Microcontroller.
It is time to program the PIC chip. I used the Basic Micro development board and the MBasic programming environment--both of which can be found at the Basic Micro website.
The code I used can probably be converted to a more universal programming language and modified to fit your needs. Essentially, one potentiometer controls the frequency of the note and the other controls the duration of the note.
For this task the PIC chip is like using a machine to kill a mosquito. You probably can get the same effect with a 555 chip or two, but I had the PIC chip on hand at the time and felt like using it.
It is as follows:
CPU = 16F877
MHZ = 20
CONFIG 16254
screeching var word
longing var word
' sets variables
main:
HIGH B1
RCTIME B1,1,screeching
' note frequency potentiometer reading
HIGH B2,1,longing
RCTIME B2,1,longing
' note duration potentiometer reading
screeching = screeching * 2
' increases the notes frequency range
longing = longing / 12
' decreases notes duration to about 4 second maximum
if longing < 1 then
longing = 1
endif
' prevents 1 or 0 from being divided by 12 and crashing the program
FREQOUT B0,longing,screeching
' sound output on pin B0
goto main
Step 11: Build the Circuit.
Build the circuit as shown in the schematic. It would be a good idea to use sockets.
Remember that the LEDs and potentiometers are already sewn into the bear. Don't forget to add a 330 ohm resistor in series with the LEDS.
Step 12: Finish Off the Circuit.
Now would be the time to connect the board to the wires running out of the bear for:
- power
- LEDs
- Potentiometers
Now would also be the time to put your chips into the sockets.
Lastly, this would be a decent time to wrap some of the exposed wires and electronics in electrical tape to prevent crossed wires when the bear is handled.
Step 13: Debug
Plug it in and see if it works.
If it works, good.
If it doesn't work your problem might be:
- burnt chips
- crossed wires
- incorrect wiring
- broken speaker
- the chip isn't programmed
- you used the wrong oscillator
- you left something out
- acts of god
Step 14: Re-stuff the Bear. Re-stuff It Good.
Put the circuitry inside the bear.
Then carefully fill the bear back up with as much stuffing as you can until it is soft and fluffy once more.
Step 15: Sew the Neck Shut.
Well, once the circuit is finished and the bear stuffed, all that is left to do is sew the neck shut.
Sew it shut by whatever means you see fit.
Step 16: Enjoy.
Plug your bear in and enjoy twisting the knobs to your heart's content. Listen to all of that wonderful noise.
15 Comments
14 years ago on Introduction
That's awesome!
14 years ago on Introduction
Is that usb cable off a iMac keyboard??????Actully I know it is butstill,
16 years ago on Step 4
Amazing !!!
16 years ago on Introduction
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW <br/>How CUTE AND KICK ASS!!!!!!!!!<br/>sounds like a cool thing to give to a girl dude! i would make it....BUT...probably very expensive for the parts and probably to much time and patience =/ looks kick ass thou! aight sweet bro <br/><br/>BYE<br/>
16 years ago
This is very neat. I will go home and make it right away. And yeah it does sound like r2d2 from star wars.
Reply 16 years ago
My god! That's one deadly looking cat! If you do end up making it right away, let me know how it goes for you. Post a picture or something.
16 years ago
lol the sound in the mov is like r2d2 from starwars
17 years ago
Hey there, I would really love to build this for my Physics of Music project and presentation. I know a thing or two about electronics, however, I know absolutely nothing about PIC programmers or micro-processors - what are they, how do I use them, and where can I buy them affordably? If you could reply or email me at cowgirlsong@gmail.com I would be eternally grateful and definitely credit your work in my presentation!
17 years ago
No wonder my life always felt so incomplete, It was this that was missing all along... Seriously though, awesome instructable. I have been into microcontrollers ever since I found out what they were, and PIC's are fun as hell because their so cheap that you don't have to worry about blowing them.
17 years ago
Wonderful, and bleep de bloop.
17 years ago
Ok, first a vibrating apple, now this. Pretty cool!
17 years ago
Yes, I believe there should be caps (12pfd or so?) between pins 13,14 and ground. Hard to get that oscillator running with the xtal grounded at both ends. :=)
Reply 17 years ago
Yup. Whoops. Good point. I drew it wrong. I'm using a 20 MHZ ceramic resonator. The middle pin is grounded.
17 years ago
Hizza! A real instructable ;D
17 years ago
Very nice project. I like the sounds that the PIC makes here. One note about the schematic. I'm not a PIC guy, but I do see something wonky with pins 13&14 being tied to ground. Looks like some capacitors are missing.