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I have 4 young children with plenty of loud toys and my wife came up with the genius idea to just put clear packing tape over the speaker to muffle the sound. It works great most of the time and the kids still love playing with the toys... just another option if you are less inclined to take apart toys and installing resistors.
I'm not so sure that modern toys are anywhere near as accessible to be taken apart either. That was a LOT of screws and wires in this one... that stuff is expensive! (Yay, late stage capitalism!)
Use a knob! That is, clip in a variable resistor (potentiometer) and adjust it to your liking. Then measure the value with a meter and replace it with a fixed resistor (if you want); makes it easier to fit inside tight spaces. Or leave the pot in there so you can change the volume later if appropriate.
@@nfnworldpeace1992a box of pot(s) works wonders for quieting kids dow now that its legal in so many places. Ps I am not suggesting anyone do this really...it's bad for the kids' mental capability.
Watching your show as a kid was a massive inspiration for me to start diving into science and engineering, and this led me to become the electronics person you described! I came to become OBSESSED with analog electronics for music and sound and am now happy to be a guitar pedal designer at Death By Audio in Queens. Thank you so much for leading me on this path and blowing up some cement trucks along the way!
Yesterday was my 3yo's birthday and he chose the loudest garbage truck in Target. No volume control what so ever. I'm reimplementing this knowledge this weekend, thank you 🙏
Yea, I was kinda gutted to be honest. Kept it for 20+ years with the note from the friend who he remembers fondly who gave it to commemorate something that was intentionally a solemn moment in time. TO THE BANDSAW WITH YE! For a guy who saves everything, just seemed weird that he was going to cut it up and most likely toss it aftewards.
Adam you're as always far too modest! Every one of your videos is a how-too master class for how to live life with curiosity, inventiveness and enthusiasm! My day wouldn't be the same without a daily dose of Savage sage wisdom. Thank you whole Tested team for inspiring us!
one of the most important things I've learned from watching his videos is that sometimes just eyeballing a measurement it TRULY sufficient. I made some leather watchbands recently, and I used to have to calculate the precise measure, and now, I'll just wrap the leather around my wrist and say, "Yep, that's exactly how big it needs to be."
So good! I always reduced the volume of my kids toys by sticking a ball of cotton in the speaker compartment which kept the speaker membrane from moving as much.
You can put in an amplifier to get more of the speaker. Depends on the circuit, but you might be power limited by whatever is used for voltage regulation. Even then, you can just power the amp circuit from the battery directly if it has enough juice (or add another battery) and use the output of the existing speaker a your source. If you threw an 18650 into that beast with a 12V regulator, you could blow up any dinky little speaker they make lol.
Loving this Adam dad advice! My daughter is 2 years old and the sound of the walrus from her animal book have created me an inner fear for walruses in general, I will fix it.
I know what you mean. I one had a job selling a toy dor to dor that was even louder than this gun, I would not have tolerated it in my home so I could not sell it as I could not recommend it. I quit after half a day.
With small speakers, the enclosure is often a key factor in how loud the toy sounds. We once had a small wine refrigerator that had a fan to circulate the air periodically (independent of the actual refrigeration). The noise drove me crazy. I discovered it was equivalent to most of the fans used in desktop computers, so I bought a very quiet PC fan to replace it. On the bench, the new fan was clearly much quieter. But installed, it was just as loud. The problem was the fan mounted to the center of a 2-by-3-foot sheet of thin pressboard--essentially a sound board that amplified any fan vibration whatsoever. (It was a terrible, cheap design.) The solution was to mount the fan to the board with rubber grommets to dampen the vibrations. Changing how the speaker in a toy is mounted, where it's mounted, or filling the empty space inside the speaker enclosure with soft material are all viable solutions. No expensive wire strippers needed. ;-)
Paging Dr. Woz! When Adam is discussing how some people have that sense of how individual electronic components work together, it reminds me of reading Steve Wozniak’s autobiography. Fascinating and fun read.
When I was a kid, I got a Hungry, Hungry Hippos game one Christmas. One day, I went to play with it and noticed something different. My Mom had cut little white squares of foam tape and stuck 2 of them to the underside of the "front lip" of each hippo. I asked her, and she said that she made them because they needed their big teeth on either side like on the box art. I started playing and quickly found out that it no longer made the loud clacking noise of the hippo mouth slamming down on the game surface. I told her I didn't like it and proceded to pull them all off. Ahhh...the best laid plans of mice and Mothers failed that day, lol!
Oh yeah, that's perfect, I'll have to pick up some resistors. I've opened up my kid's toys many times, for a variety of reasons. Volume is one of the more common reasons. My solution has usually been to stuff some strips of neoprene foam into the compartment to physically dampen the vibration of the speaker and muffle the sound, but that's always reliant on clearance, etc. A resistor is a lot easier to find space for in these things, since there's usually lots of room around the wiring itself, but not always in front of the speaker. I screws around with pots (potentiometers) a long time ago trying to control the speed of a tiny blower that I was using to cool an LED fixture I had made, which was fun, but this is much more practical for this application. Awesome
Adam, while a good approach, I happen to have a different one. Generally I start out with a potentiometer (variable resister) in a case like this. The reason is how speakers and amplifiers work. When reading speaker impedance, it is listed in ohms. They tend to range from 4 ohms to 32 ohms. Impedance ratings are a little different than resistance as we're talking about coils. As you are showing basically a 6VDC power supply on what presumably is a 5V circuit, perhaps lowering the voltage may have an affect. I'd have to study the circuit for a minute, but typically on children's toys, this can be an easy modification without the need for opening them up. I might try it on 3 batteries verses 4. A simple test might be to use a weak battery for a temporary replacement. I've actually installed one backwards before to lower the voltage to a more desirable level. If you'd like some more simple hacks, please let me know. You are smarter than you realize and learning electronics can be difficult, especially in the analogue world. You've either taught or inspired countless people. I think both as a communicator and what may be called an influencer, understanding rudimentary electronics is important. After all, we are in an electronic world.
I was that uncle that gave "annoying noise toy" gifts. It became a tradition. One Christmas I found a plastic ball with motion sensor triggered sound, very similar (at least in how annoying it was) sound track to the gun you showed. But I went the opposite direction from you: I opened it up (not so easy with three-point philips head screws) and replaced the crappy zinc-carbon batteries with lithium cells. After reassembling it, I turned it on "loud" (there was a power/volume switch) and then covered the switch in epoxy. That was 20 years ago. My sister still has it and it still works.
I usually attach a potentiometer (variable resistor) like you did with the clips (one outer lug and the center lug) then adjust it to the desired level. Disconnect the clips and measure the resistance on the two lugs with a meter, and grab a fixed resistor with a similar resistance and use that. Just another way; both methods get the job done.
I don't know if/when I'll ever be able to use such a tip, but I learned something today, and that is always worth it! Also, I've never been a fan of noisy toys. Even as a kid I thought they were too loud and awkward.
Just restored my childhood Tie fighter and Snowspeeder- absolutely correct- no sound chip just a small motor and piece of flexibile plastic that flicks across one of the cogs on the motor. Such a simple solution.
Got a great tool tip to go along with this video for anyone who wants to understand electronics and wants some fun project material. Elegoo Arduino Starter Kit: I have a small project that I needed to make a toll gate. I have never coded but I know enough about electronics to be dangerous. This kit has some small boards, resistors like in this video, and a very helpful pdf guide that will walk you through some lessons that will have you build everything from a smiple LED switch to making things appear on a screen and all for under 40 bucks. I think a arduino by itself starts at about that anyway. I really want to go get a toy like this and see what I can do with my new found skills and play around with it. Thanks for the video and thanks for inspiring new fun projects all the time.
After working in a model / toy shop as a young man, I promised myself that I would never subject any parent to toys that make all those sanity eroding noises. So many "try me" buttons 😵💫. I am happy to say that so far I have kept that promise.
I`M PRETTY EASY GOING, AND TAKE CARE NOT TO GET TOYS I KNOW WILL DRIVE PARENTS NUTS, HOWEVER ONE PARTICULAR PARENT TREATED ME LIKE CRAP ONCE TOO OFTEN SO THEIR 6 YEAR OLD GOT A DRUM KIT! LMAO, MY ADVICE FOR PARENTS ON BATTERY OPERATED TOYS IS NOT TO TAKE THE BATTERY OUT BUT FLIP IT AROUND SO WHEN THE KIDS WANT TO CHECK THE BATTERY YOU CAN TAKE IT OUT PROVE ITS WORKING IN ANOTHER ITEM AND SO OBVIOUSLY ITS THE TOY IS BROKEN NOT THE BATTERY HAS RUN OUT! WORKS EVERY TIME TILL THEY ARE TEENAGERS AND GET A HANDLE ON HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS HEHEHE
To be fair a lot of toys from the major brands have now included a "quiet mode" in some toys. The new furby is incredibly quiet compared to past furbies and most of the toys by moose toys company have a quiet mode you can set it on. Check the back if the box before you buy
My children got a gift when they were real small... it was a farm truck looking thing that made noise if you rolled it or pressed the floor of the bed. Then it would go off every so often for like 15+ minutes. It had no off switch and no quiet mode. They ended up being given two... the cat would bump it in the middle of the night and it would go off. We finally had to get rid of it 😂
Unless your kids know how to change the volume and insist on it being on the loud setting. 😕 So far all the toys have just a button on the outside. I have 1 or 2 where the volume control is hidden away inside the battery compartment.
Another method to quiet a toy, if you don't have the means to install a resistor, is to put in layers of paper towel over the speaker and close it back up.
To get the light flickers back you can add a second resistor in parallel with the resistor and speaker, so the overall resistance is about the same. For example, if the speaker is 8 ohms, and you add 32 or so ohms of resistance in series, you can add 10 ohms back in parallel to mimic the load of the original speaker. And in general, 1/10 the power will sound about half as loud, so if you want half the volume you'd use a 72 ohm resistor(or more realistically, a 68 ohm resistor, because that's a common value and close enough). For organizing a resistor kit, I have a grid, bottom to top is E6 prefix (1, 1.5,2.2, 3.3, 4.7, 6.8), and left to right is order of magnitude. Values other than those I buy as needed.
This is technically called the voltage divider and that's the way you should do it if the circuitry has more smarts than this very analog setup in the video.
@@MikkoRantalainen The second resistor is in parallel, not series. Though resistor divider is closer to correct if you're talking about Adam's modification without the extra resistor to make the lights flicker.
I thiiiiink 8ohm would be a bit over 1/2 the perceived volume, because assuming the voltage drops by half, that'd be -6dB (and each 10dB drops by half perceived volume). And 80ohm would be -20dB, so a quarter volume. They actually make logarithmic potentiometers specifically for volume bc it's all nonlinear.
Thanks Adam! I randomly came across this video over a month ago and thought it was such a great idea, but never going to need it. Then last week my wife and toddler came back from a trip visiting family and his grandparents “blessed” us with a toy bus that had no business being so loud. I remembered your video instantly. Now the Tiny musical bus is reasonable and my boy is non the wiser with his new favorite toy. 😂
You are so right about songs that stick in your head from kids movies. I've dated ladies with kids and yes the over play of movies in inevitable :) When I buy old toys with cool sounds and electronics to reuse in my costumes I make and I install a volume or mute button the sounds. You just gotta do it lol. Thanks for doing this :)
The furby community has been quieting furbies with a much simpler method for years. Just open up the toy, put some painters tape over the speaker, seal it back up and your done. That way the mod can be removed if it becomes a collectors item down the line 😂
My kids learned to look for the tapes, so I had to start doing the resistor trick. The speaker's impedance is somewhere between 8-32 ohms, so that gives us a good starting point for the resistor values. A set of 3 resistor values gets you quite far with kids toys: 15, 39 and 82 ohms or anything close to those. If possible, do the quieting down before the kids get a taste for the full volume 😊.
@@JiiPeeHoo69 the reason it still works with furbies and furreal friends is because the speaker is under the outer fur covering which is zip tied on the toy. With other toys yeah kids will probably peel off the tape 😂
@@strayiggytv Similarly I have a Vectrex games console from the 80s, for technical reasons it has an inherent buzz in the speaker, and there are numerous complicated fixes available online that involve lots of wires, parts and soldering. I fixed some black acetate over mine by its outer edges, it dulls the high end and itself vibrates re-transmitting the sound via this new hiss-minimising membrane. And if ever I want to sell it, once the membrane is removed, it’s still as it was when bought in the store.
I worked in a special school for some time, and part of my job was to 'quieten' noisy toys by using packing tape over the speakers. The other surgery involved bypassing the battery to connect the toy to a switch called a bigmac/big red button so that children with minimal fine motor skills could operate the toy. We were on a budget. ::shrug::
There is a gadget called a "Resistor Substitution Box" or "Resistor selector wheel" that allows you to to choose from a wide variety of resistor values by simply hooking up two leads and rotating a dial to different values. It's handy for experimentation.
That's just a potentiometer (variable radiator). You have to be careful though. If you're going to use a potentiometer to guess and check, you need to know how much power you're circuit can put out. If you're messing around and stick 5 Watts through a 1 Watt potentiometer, you're gonna have a bad time.
@@alexskywalker888 I would imagine this device to have a stop at a certain resistance, and a rating that allows it to be used safely with lower voltages. For example, a 100 watt rating and a minimum resistance of 100 ohms, or a 1kw rating and minimum 10 ohms. This sounds like a tool for learning about electronics, so it would make sense to have a safety feature like that.
@@alexskywalker888 I agree that you have to watch the power that goes through these devices. They are not made from a potentiometer or rheostat, but an array of resistors arranged in such a way that you can select them individually, and note the exact reading.
I will be employing this technique on future toys. My solution till now has been disassembling the offending toy and placing gaff tape over the inside of the speaker grill. This is quite effective in removing the shrillness of said toy however some are not as easily defeated. Thank you.
Adam and I on the intricacies of electronics. Same page. The function of the items makes sense, but how they all magic together to make things happen is beyond me, and I'm an electrician.... 😂
Starting at 7:17... I now know what a resistor ACTUALLY does... that little resistor fact is now "the most sophistocated things I now know about electronics".. although you say you know very little.... there are others who know even less! Keep sharing!
I thought power was not dissipated by the resistor, that it was just "resisted", meaning it draws less power from the source. I would think the quieter toy would consume less! But maybe it's all more complicated than that. Any engineer that can clarify this please?
Quicker and easier method is to open it up and shove some cotton balls in front of the speaker. Limits the cone travel, requires no parts and attenuates high frequencies to make the sounds less annoying in general. If your speaker has a center tweeter, be sure to add some there specifically.
2 things Adam didn't mention in this video (well he sort of showed, but didn't say out right). 1) When adding a resistor to something like this, always start with the high ohm ones and work your way down. 2) Once you've selected a resistor, test it and make very sure that the resistor isn't getting to hot to possibly melt the toy (worst case scenario). Smaller toys like this one that are fairly low voltage, really shouldn't cause a problem, but when you start going up to toys using multiple C or D cell batteries or even 9 volt... you make blow the resistor if you pick one that is to small (resistors blow because of to much current, causing them to over-heat).
To select a starting point for resistor value, check the resistance of the speaker (usually marked on the back). If you choose a resistor of the SAME value as the speaker, you will HALVE the sound. If you choose double it will be one quarter volume. You don't need to be an engineer, just remember that simple rule.
Never mind that our hearing is log not linear so a 10x decrease in the power is only perceived as a halving of the volume. Pragmatic trial with different resistors seems like a good way to approach this for most of us.
@@MrPhobartYeah, that speaker was probably 4, 8, or 16 Ω and Adam added 81 Ω. If OP's rule was accurate, wouldn't it now be _practically inaudible?_ 🤔 Anyway, I've been an electronics hobbyist for around 10 years and I generally know what I'm doing, but I would have used essentially the same technique as Adam. I have equipment to make things easier, like resistor substitution boxes and potentiometers, but it'd still be trial and error. And honestly that's probably faster than trying to calculate it! :)
@@AndrewGillard youre an electronic hobbyist for 10 years and say try and error is faster/better then taking a multimeter and doin a quick ohms law in your head? Dont even need a calculator for that...im a hobbyist aswell and got no electronics background, but that shit was the first thing i learned when first dealing with electronics. Try and error..pfft..dont want to know how much stuff you broke when trying to fix something..
Hey, for those interested here are the formulas: -20 * log(1 + R / 8) = the change of audio power in dB Where R is the value of the series resistor and 8 is the resistance of the audio speaker. So the 82 ohm resistor Adam used corresponds to a 21 dB reduction of audio power. For those interested in the inverse formula, here it is: R = 8 * (10^(-x / 20) - 1) Where x is the change in dB, so for a decrease of 20 dB x = -20
Figured people might want to see where this comes from. The resistor splits the voltage with the voltage coil proportionally. So the voltage across the coil will be: V_n = c(V_o)/(c+r) where V_o is the original voltage across the coil V_n is the new voltage across the coil r is the impedance of the resistor c is the impedance of the coil So the voltage gain is: V_n/V_o = c/(c+r) This can be converted into dB power as: 20*log_10[c/(c+r)] The 20 is due to the fact that power is proportional to a square power of the voltage. Note that the OP used the inverse of the voltage gain: V_o/V_n = 1/[c/c+r] = (c+r)/c = 1 + r/c Because he used the inverse voltage gain, he has to multiply by -20 instead of by 20 to compensate. We can also calculate the power directly. The power of the coil is given by the voltage/resistance power formula: P = (v^2)/c So the power gain is a square of the voltage gain since c is constant: P_n/P_o = (c/c+r)^2 This can be converted into dB power directly: 10*log_10([c/c+r]^2) 10 since the voltage has already been squared.
When I was still a kid, my dad dealt with the same situation you did (I am also currently 24, same as your sons) Toys from that time were very noisy and we used to do "operations" on basically all my toys that made sound. It always got me very excited for some reason, it must have been interesting to me to see the inner workings of my toys. Either way, usually he would take out the noise maker and leave the lights and such in. I didn't care much for the noise either, so I would happily let my toys be tinkered with.
This works for other household items like bread machines. I like to run mine so there is fresh bread in the morning but I don't need it beeping at 5:45am to let me know it's done!
I used to put tape over the speaker holes. Helped a bit. Did not want to open new advanced toys, like talking Transformers, just in case i did not get it back together. Older toys, Shure.. A resistor and a soldering iron is a blessing. I also got "allergic" to RGB blinking/cycling lights over the years.
Speaking of old pre-soundchip sound toys, a method like described in the Han Solo blaster or Stormtrooper E-11 were not exclusive. Although I'm definitely not old enough to remember, I've seen plenty of people who are (i.e., James May). If you were a kid in Britain in the mid-late 20th century and loved trains, then you might remember the classic Hornby Flying Scotsman that's still produced today. However, this is a unique set not only as a Christmas branded set, but the tender of the locomotive contained a metal rod that scraped against sandpaper to create a chuffing sound. If you were just a common pleb with a silent locomotive, then you were probably scum.
Great video, that would be real useful a couple years ago. But at the time I managed to fix the noise by taping some pillow foam in front of the speakers of my kids toys, that works too.
That's awesome. My dad was a radio mechanic during Vietnam, you would think he would have shown any us how to do something with analog electronics. Oh well, great video for new parents. My kids are adults now also😁
When my toddlers demonstrated the ability to replace the batteries, I started superglueing the switch in the off position or the buttons. Noisy toys are hard to take. Thank you for the tutorial, the nieces and nephews will reap the rewards
you can squirt hot glue into the speaker's voice coil to dampen the sound too. also, to make it easier, instead of cutting the wire and putting the resistor in series, you can put one in parallel across the speaker terminals and accomplish the same thing without needing to cut the wires
When my nieces & nephews were little, I would only buy loud toys if I was mad at the parents. X-mas one year I gave my Goddaughter a Tigger KARAOKE machine to annoy her mother. LMAO 🤣🎤👩🎤🤣
OMG, I'm legit horrified by Adam sawing apart that toy in such a cavalier manner. I think even if I was planning to trash the thing, I'd still turn myself inside out trying to put it back together correctly. 😅
It's crazy how those batteries lasted 24 years without you touching that package. Also, super weird that you still have a 24 year old toy in it's package.
As a new father of a four month old that has no understanding of electronics. This is quite a gift my one nephew is old enough I know how…fun…loud repeated sounds can be.
Great project. I thought it worth mentioning that you can still find Jamco online which is where radio shack got most of there stuff and it's kind of like shopping at an online radio shack
The timing of this video is amazing... was embarking on solving this problem in the exact same way a week ago. Good to know i'm not the only one who suffers from this :)
I love Adam's perspective on this. My years of EE knowledge which told me offhand the correct value would be around 8-80 ohms would have saved him *one* random attempt, maybe 60 seconds. +1 to reducing barriers to entry! (For low danger things like battery powered things, or USB devices. Electricity'll kill ya quick if you mess with the wrong thing, like house wiring or opening some appliances even if unplugged! No guessing here, find somone who can tell you what the dangerous parts are because you absolutely cannot guess.)
I don't know if this works with the IC chip and the speaker, but maybe solder 1 plus pole and 1 minus pole on the batteries together, so you only need 2 or 3 of them. This should lower the voltage and therefore the noise and light flickering if it doesn't underpower the IC, you'll also need fewer batteries when you do this. If the IC would be underpowered, a possible fix would be to replace the voltage reducing resistor in front of the IC power input line with one with a lower resistance. In this particular case it seems like the IC is powered with 4 1,5V batteries in series, and I assume a resistor is placed in the line to reduce the 6V to 5V. I would definetely still put a resistor in this line to prevent high currents.
A quick search for "Standard Speaker Resistance" will give you 4 to 8 ohms. I generally just remember 8. Given this, you're cutting the voltage to the "original voltage * 8 / (82 + 8)" or roughly 1/11th (the portion of the drop across the speaker compared to both the speaker and the resistor). 80ish ohms should work for a lot of speakers, BUT, you should be careful with resistors close to 100 ohms when you're dealing with 5V systems. Common resistors are often rated around 1/4 Watt. The equations for this are V=IR, P=IV, P=V^2/R, so your wattage in a 5V system across a 100 ohm resistor is 5V*5V/100, or 1/4 Watt. Lower resistance, higher power, so 80 ohms is above the rating for common resistors. Good hobby rule of thumb, check your power when you're near 100 ohms in low voltage systems. If the power is lower, you can plug in the numbers you are using in the equations above to find your limit. Hope this helps!
Something like the internal circuit from that could also be fun to hack with a relay or transistor and a proximity based motion detector circuit with a random delay timer. But then it's a matter of making sure it's well hidden and also louder.
Beyond the keeping a toy for 24 years that "isn't worth keeping", I like how Adam went through the trouble of hacking the electronics to restrict the electrical flow to reduce the speaker volume. My shadetree method was usually just hacking the box it came in for some cardboard to cover the speaker with to restrict the air flow and muffle the speaker volume. I suppose his way made for a more interesting video. (I have done the "clip the speaker" method too)
Love this video. Seeing Adam go through the exact same process I went through with my own kid’s toys (one in particular was loud enough to cause hearing loss) makes me feel much better about my level of electronics knowledge. 😁😁😁
Amazing. I will have to test this. For now I have just taped over the speakers because I personally find it really loud and I think my baby son that sits WAY closer to the speakers than I do will get ringing ears after 5 minutes when he mashes on his toys :D Edit: Thank you Adam for bringing me fond memories of Mythbusters and for showing me how I wanted to (and still want to be) as an adult and father now.
I did this with a portable induction cook top. Every press of the button was just an obnoxiously loud beep, and if you took the pan off while it was running it beeped continuously. I Tore it apart and tested resistors till the sound was quiet enough but not so quiet that I wouldn't notice it beeping. So even if you don't have kids, this is a good trick.
Thanks Adam been doing this for years to my kids toys lol although i would use a preset so i could adjust the level a keep our sanity along with surgery on teddy to replace the stitched in coin cell keep up the awesome work.
The part about not having a natural understanding of electronics resonates strongly with me. I've held off on messing with LEDs beyond pre-assembled packages because of that. Tested, one of you should definitely make a similar guide for how to setup LED circuits!
I did this to a toy that had a speaker and a motor(fan) and putting in the resistor also reduced the fan speed so had to balance quite well. It also made the batteries last longer which was a bonus!!
Adam describing the physical noises that laserblasters made, reminds me of a short I saw recently of how sequential tail-lights worked back in the day before IC's... It was so simple! It was just a small motor, with a bunch of cams attached to it that would open and close a different circuit while rotating... it was somehow simplistically beautiful, and I want one even more now... :D Each cam was clearly tuned for duration, so you could have the desired effect... :D
I never realized that I know more about electronics and electricity than Adam Savage. This man was one of the reasons I went into that field. I guess Grant was my actual inspiration and I never realized it. Man.
Why they say never meet your heroes haha. Personally I've found it really refreshing to realize that most people that we idolize and look up to aren't really any different from someone you might know, and you can probably do something similar or maybe better if you stick to it and don't get caught in the wrong details.
You never gave the toy gun to your kids! I'm not sure if you are a monster... OR the smartest person in THIS WORLD! My son has had some very loud toys too... after a few hours, they usually met with a timing "unauthorised wiring modification" with a pair of side cutter dikes! OR stage tape over the speakers! Parenting FOR THE WIN! :) If you really want to quiet the toy or device (I have a few noisy UPS units, that like to beep during the night time!) down for real, a well-calculated resistor voltage divider circuit will always fit the bill perfectly! Yes, Adam those semiconductors are magic! and it took several years of school to learn which way the electrons and the holes go through them, without letting out the magic smoke! :) Great content as always sir!
This is so very necessary for some of the toys weve collected from the grandparents. Some of the toys have volume settings thats fine. But the VOLUME of one of these toys... You can hear it down the street I swear
Today’s video is made possible by our friends at iFixit. iFixit's Skip the Upgrade is going on now and throughout September. They marked down all iPhone parts up to 20% off. And, when you buy any iPhone part and use the code BOGOCASE at checkout, you get a free iPhone case. Just visit www.ifixit.com/tested
at 15:00 Adam says you will provide a link.
If Adam ever comes to Germany again, maybe he wants to arange a visit to the Georg-Simon-Ohm vocational college in Cologne.
@@sorrowschismMissing that link.
Where's the link?
You can look it up. It's a Weidmüller STRIPAX.
I love that Adam has kept this toy unopened for 24 years, only to cut it apart for this video.
Right?!
and yet claims he's not sentimental about it 😅 @@tested
I mean a toy is meant to be played with right?
I'd say after 24 years it has finally fulfilled its purpose! lol
He kept it long enough to determine it did not become a collector's item.
@@ShagShaggio That's what Pixar keeps telling us. If Sid was a villain, then Adam must be a cruel and capricious god.
I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of toys cried out in confusion and were suddenly silenced.
I was trying to think of something witty to comment, I loved this.
Ha!
You win the Internet today!
😂
In my defense, they had it coming. =D
I have 4 young children with plenty of loud toys and my wife came up with the genius idea to just put clear packing tape over the speaker to muffle the sound. It works great most of the time and the kids still love playing with the toys... just another option if you are less inclined to take apart toys and installing resistors.
That's what i do, works good enough for me
Not an expert, but, isn't it possible that tape can be pulled off and become a choking hazard? Just asking, not criticizing.
You can also put some play-doh into the audio holes. That should be safe to the children if they can get it out from the toy.
I'm not so sure that modern toys are anywhere near as accessible to be taken apart either. That was a LOT of screws and wires in this one... that stuff is expensive! (Yay, late stage capitalism!)
Came to say exactly that! And it's totally customisable. The more little holes you cover, the quieter it gets!
Use a knob! That is, clip in a variable resistor (potentiometer) and adjust it to your liking. Then measure the value with a meter and replace it with a fixed resistor (if you want); makes it easier to fit inside tight spaces. Or leave the pot in there so you can change the volume later if appropriate.
the potentiometer would be the thing to get when you dont have a resistor box :P best upgrade to a furby ever
@@nfnworldpeace1992a box of pot(s) works wonders for quieting kids dow now that its legal in so many places. Ps I am not suggesting anyone do this really...it's bad for the kids' mental capability.
a small trim pot - set it with a screwdriver, and just leave it there.
And as a bonus, if your toddler opens the toy and cranks the potentiometer back to full volume, you know you have a budding maker in the works. 😉
@@machinate This is likely the best approach. No having to dig through a selection to decide things, and as a component it's cheap enough.
Watching your show as a kid was a massive inspiration for me to start diving into science and engineering, and this led me to become the electronics person you described! I came to become OBSESSED with analog electronics for music and sound and am now happy to be a guitar pedal designer at Death By Audio in Queens. Thank you so much for leading me on this path and blowing up some cement trucks along the way!
Yesterday was my 3yo's birthday and he chose the loudest garbage truck in Target. No volume control what so ever. I'm reimplementing this knowledge this weekend, thank you 🙏
Adam: This is a beautifully heartfelt gift from a friend whom I haven't seen in 20 years.
Also Adam: Anyway I am gonna dremel it in half
To be fair, I feel like any friends of Adam would know that this is a likely fate for any gifts to him.
Yea, I was kinda gutted to be honest.
Kept it for 20+ years with the note from the friend who he remembers fondly who gave it to commemorate something that was intentionally a solemn moment in time.
TO THE BANDSAW WITH YE!
For a guy who saves everything, just seemed weird that he was going to cut it up and most likely toss it aftewards.
Adam you're as always far too modest! Every one of your videos is a how-too master class for how to live life with curiosity, inventiveness and enthusiasm! My day wouldn't be the same without a daily dose of Savage sage wisdom. Thank you whole Tested team for inspiring us!
one of the most important things I've learned from watching his videos is that sometimes just eyeballing a measurement it TRULY sufficient. I made some leather watchbands recently, and I used to have to calculate the precise measure, and now, I'll just wrap the leather around my wrist and say, "Yep, that's exactly how big it needs to be."
As a mechanical engineer, I often see the biggest mistakes come from people who overthink something simple. @@lotharbeck71
So good! I always reduced the volume of my kids toys by sticking a ball of cotton in the speaker compartment which kept the speaker membrane from moving as much.
"I'm going to show you how to make toys quieter" Takes batteries out..... Love you, Adam. Thanks.
As a uncle can we have a video on making toys louder? 😂
More power, bigger speakers, etc
Put in a second speaker wired in parallel to the first one.
Damn yooou! 😂
I don't normally curse people, but I curse your sir...😅😅😅
You can put in an amplifier to get more of the speaker. Depends on the circuit, but you might be power limited by whatever is used for voltage regulation. Even then, you can just power the amp circuit from the battery directly if it has enough juice (or add another battery) and use the output of the existing speaker a your source. If you threw an 18650 into that beast with a 12V regulator, you could blow up any dinky little speaker they make lol.
The best part ofthis is that they made a "Star Blaster" with a recording of someone saying "Blam!" 😆🤣😆🤣
Loving this Adam dad advice! My daughter is 2 years old and the sound of the walrus from her animal book have created me an inner fear for walruses in general, I will fix it.
You can tell Adam was actually around his children, he knows exactly how kids press the button of a noisy toy 😂😂
by pressing the button, do you mean holding? haha
@@Tully-Henderson I meant the manner in which he repeatedly pressed it before holding it down so it started the sound over and over and over lol
@@goosenotmaverick1156 He's teaching you how to deliberately break it, but he's also clearly enjoying playing with it. Adam truly is a nine year old.
I know what you mean. I one had a job selling a toy dor to dor that was even louder than this gun, I would not have tolerated it in my home so I could not sell it as I could not recommend it. I quit after half a day.
@@agw5425Shouldn't be legal to sell toys to kids with overly loud soynd - they literally damage their hearing, which a lot of adults have issues with
With small speakers, the enclosure is often a key factor in how loud the toy sounds. We once had a small wine refrigerator that had a fan to circulate the air periodically (independent of the actual refrigeration). The noise drove me crazy. I discovered it was equivalent to most of the fans used in desktop computers, so I bought a very quiet PC fan to replace it. On the bench, the new fan was clearly much quieter. But installed, it was just as loud. The problem was the fan mounted to the center of a 2-by-3-foot sheet of thin pressboard--essentially a sound board that amplified any fan vibration whatsoever. (It was a terrible, cheap design.) The solution was to mount the fan to the board with rubber grommets to dampen the vibrations. Changing how the speaker in a toy is mounted, where it's mounted, or filling the empty space inside the speaker enclosure with soft material are all viable solutions. No expensive wire strippers needed. ;-)
Paging Dr. Woz! When Adam is discussing how some people have that sense of how individual electronic components work together, it reminds me of reading Steve Wozniak’s autobiography. Fascinating and fun read.
When I was a kid, I got a Hungry, Hungry Hippos game one Christmas. One day, I went to play with it and noticed something different. My Mom had cut little white squares of foam tape and stuck 2 of them to the underside of the "front lip" of each hippo. I asked her, and she said that she made them because they needed their big teeth on either side like on the box art. I started playing and quickly found out that it no longer made the loud clacking noise of the hippo mouth slamming down on the game surface. I told her I didn't like it and proceded to pull them all off. Ahhh...the best laid plans of mice and Mothers failed that day, lol!
Oh yeah, that's perfect, I'll have to pick up some resistors. I've opened up my kid's toys many times, for a variety of reasons. Volume is one of the more common reasons. My solution has usually been to stuff some strips of neoprene foam into the compartment to physically dampen the vibration of the speaker and muffle the sound, but that's always reliant on clearance, etc. A resistor is a lot easier to find space for in these things, since there's usually lots of room around the wiring itself, but not always in front of the speaker. I screws around with pots (potentiometers) a long time ago trying to control the speed of a tiny blower that I was using to cool an LED fixture I had made, which was fun, but this is much more practical for this application. Awesome
Adam, while a good approach, I happen to have a different one. Generally I start out with a potentiometer (variable resister) in a case like this. The reason is how speakers and amplifiers work. When reading speaker impedance, it is listed in ohms. They tend to range from 4 ohms to 32 ohms. Impedance ratings are a little different than resistance as we're talking about coils. As you are showing basically a 6VDC power supply on what presumably is a 5V circuit, perhaps lowering the voltage may have an affect. I'd have to study the circuit for a minute, but typically on children's toys, this can be an easy modification without the need for opening them up. I might try it on 3 batteries verses 4. A simple test might be to use a weak battery for a temporary replacement. I've actually installed one backwards before to lower the voltage to a more desirable level. If you'd like some more simple hacks, please let me know. You are smarter than you realize and learning electronics can be difficult, especially in the analogue world. You've either taught or inspired countless people. I think both as a communicator and what may be called an influencer, understanding rudimentary electronics is important. After all, we are in an electronic world.
I have a 4 month old boy, this is gonna be a great help, cheers Adam!
I found taking the batteries out was a great way to quiet things. “I’ll buy you some more batteries when I go shopping” “ I’m sorry I forgot “
Do you want dead TV remotes? Because in my childhood experience this is how my parents ended up with eternally dead TV remotes 😉
I was that uncle that gave "annoying noise toy" gifts. It became a tradition. One Christmas I found a plastic ball with motion sensor triggered sound, very similar (at least in how annoying it was) sound track to the gun you showed. But I went the opposite direction from you: I opened it up (not so easy with three-point philips head screws) and replaced the crappy zinc-carbon batteries with lithium cells. After reassembling it, I turned it on "loud" (there was a power/volume switch) and then covered the switch in epoxy. That was 20 years ago. My sister still has it and it still works.
I usually attach a potentiometer (variable resistor) like you did with the clips (one outer lug and the center lug) then adjust it to the desired level. Disconnect the clips and measure the resistance on the two lugs with a meter, and grab a fixed resistor with a similar resistance and use that. Just another way; both methods get the job done.
That's a good idea to lower the sound of a toy great idea thanks for sharing 👍
I don't know if/when I'll ever be able to use such a tip, but I learned something today, and that is always worth it!
Also, I've never been a fan of noisy toys. Even as a kid I thought they were too loud and awkward.
Just restored my childhood Tie fighter and Snowspeeder- absolutely correct- no sound chip just a small motor and piece of flexibile plastic that flicks across one of the cogs on the motor. Such a simple solution.
Got a great tool tip to go along with this video for anyone who wants to understand electronics and wants some fun project material.
Elegoo Arduino Starter Kit: I have a small project that I needed to make a toll gate. I have never coded but I know enough about electronics to be dangerous. This kit has some small boards, resistors like in this video, and a very helpful pdf guide that will walk you through some lessons that will have you build everything from a smiple LED switch to making things appear on a screen and all for under 40 bucks. I think a arduino by itself starts at about that anyway.
I really want to go get a toy like this and see what I can do with my new found skills and play around with it. Thanks for the video and thanks for inspiring new fun projects all the time.
5:00 "Lets try and make this puppy quieter, shall we?", takes batteries out. He could have ended the video there 😂
After working in a model / toy shop as a young man, I promised myself that I would never subject any parent to toys that make all those sanity eroding noises. So many "try me" buttons 😵💫. I am happy to say that so far I have kept that promise.
That sounds like an unintended challenge to your friends and relatives! 😄
@@HockeyPop29 A challenge to make me give them noisy electronic toys?
I`M PRETTY EASY GOING, AND TAKE CARE NOT TO GET TOYS I KNOW WILL DRIVE PARENTS NUTS, HOWEVER ONE PARTICULAR PARENT TREATED ME LIKE CRAP ONCE TOO OFTEN SO THEIR 6 YEAR OLD GOT A DRUM KIT! LMAO, MY ADVICE FOR PARENTS ON BATTERY OPERATED TOYS IS NOT TO TAKE THE BATTERY OUT BUT FLIP IT AROUND SO WHEN THE KIDS WANT TO CHECK THE BATTERY YOU CAN TAKE IT OUT PROVE ITS WORKING IN ANOTHER ITEM AND SO OBVIOUSLY ITS THE TOY IS BROKEN NOT THE BATTERY HAS RUN OUT! WORKS EVERY TIME TILL THEY ARE TEENAGERS AND GET A HANDLE ON HOW YOUR BRAIN WORKS HEHEHE
Adam, I think I can speak for us all when I say you've taught me humility, kindness, and problem solving just to name a few. Keep making
To be fair a lot of toys from the major brands have now included a "quiet mode" in some toys. The new furby is incredibly quiet compared to past furbies and most of the toys by moose toys company have a quiet mode you can set it on. Check the back if the box before you buy
My children got a gift when they were real small... it was a farm truck looking thing that made noise if you rolled it or pressed the floor of the bed. Then it would go off every so often for like 15+ minutes. It had no off switch and no quiet mode. They ended up being given two... the cat would bump it in the middle of the night and it would go off. We finally had to get rid of it 😂
Unless your kids know how to change the volume and insist on it being on the loud setting. 😕 So far all the toys have just a button on the outside. I have 1 or 2 where the volume control is hidden away inside the battery compartment.
Another method to quiet a toy, if you don't have the means to install a resistor, is to put in layers of paper towel over the speaker and close it back up.
@@Coffeecrazzii the ones who put the switch in the battery compartment are the real OGs
@@Coffeecrazziia little CA glue should take care of that
To get the light flickers back you can add a second resistor in parallel with the resistor and speaker, so the overall resistance is about the same. For example, if the speaker is 8 ohms, and you add 32 or so ohms of resistance in series, you can add 10 ohms back in parallel to mimic the load of the original speaker.
And in general, 1/10 the power will sound about half as loud, so if you want half the volume you'd use a 72 ohm resistor(or more realistically, a 68 ohm resistor, because that's a common value and close enough).
For organizing a resistor kit, I have a grid, bottom to top is E6 prefix (1, 1.5,2.2, 3.3, 4.7, 6.8), and left to right is order of magnitude. Values other than those I buy as needed.
This is technically called the voltage divider and that's the way you should do it if the circuitry has more smarts than this very analog setup in the video.
@@MikkoRantalainen The second resistor is in parallel, not series. Though resistor divider is closer to correct if you're talking about Adam's modification without the extra resistor to make the lights flicker.
It's an 8ohm speaker, so a 8ohm resistor will half the outout.
The 82 ohm resistor reduces it to about 1/10 volume.
I thiiiiink 8ohm would be a bit over 1/2 the perceived volume, because assuming the voltage drops by half, that'd be -6dB (and each 10dB drops by half perceived volume). And 80ohm would be -20dB, so a quarter volume. They actually make logarithmic potentiometers specifically for volume bc it's all nonlinear.
@@ShinyQuagsire that's why I said half the output and not volume.
If I know anything about decibels it's to stay away from them.
Thanks Adam! I randomly came across this video over a month ago and thought it was such a great idea, but never going to need it. Then last week my wife and toddler came back from a trip visiting family and his grandparents “blessed” us with a toy bus that had no business being so loud. I remembered your video instantly. Now the Tiny musical bus is reasonable and my boy is non the wiser with his new favorite toy. 😂
Never thought I'd hear Adam say "Baby momma"
Right! He didn't leave with the milk though at least haha.
Came here for this exact comment 😂
You are so right about songs that stick in your head from kids movies. I've dated ladies with kids and yes the over play of movies in inevitable :) When I buy old toys with cool sounds and electronics to reuse in my costumes I make and I install a volume or mute button the sounds. You just gotta do it lol. Thanks for doing this :)
The furby community has been quieting furbies with a much simpler method for years. Just open up the toy, put some painters tape over the speaker, seal it back up and your done. That way the mod can be removed if it becomes a collectors item down the line 😂
So many of my toys growing up had packing tape over the speaker openings 😂😂😂
My kids learned to look for the tapes, so I had to start doing the resistor trick.
The speaker's impedance is somewhere between 8-32 ohms, so that gives us a good starting point for the resistor values. A set of 3 resistor values gets you quite far with kids toys: 15, 39 and 82 ohms or anything close to those.
If possible, do the quieting down before the kids get a taste for the full volume 😊.
@@JiiPeeHoo69 the reason it still works with furbies and furreal friends is because the speaker is under the outer fur covering which is zip tied on the toy. With other toys yeah kids will probably peel off the tape 😂
@@strayiggytv Similarly I have a Vectrex games console from the 80s, for technical reasons it has an inherent buzz in the speaker, and there are numerous complicated fixes available online that involve lots of wires, parts and soldering.
I fixed some black acetate over mine by its outer edges, it dulls the high end and itself vibrates re-transmitting the sound via this new hiss-minimising membrane.
And if ever I want to sell it, once the membrane is removed, it’s still as it was when bought in the store.
I worked in a special school for some time, and part of my job was to 'quieten' noisy toys by using packing tape over the speakers. The other surgery involved bypassing the battery to connect the toy to a switch called a bigmac/big red button so that children with minimal fine motor skills could operate the toy. We were on a budget. ::shrug::
Thanks so much for sharing your years of knowledge with us. Your curiousity and enthusiasm as a maker is infectious and inspiring.😁
There is a gadget called a "Resistor Substitution Box" or "Resistor selector wheel" that allows you to to choose from a wide variety of resistor values by simply hooking up two leads and rotating a dial to different values. It's handy for experimentation.
That's just a potentiometer (variable radiator). You have to be careful though. If you're going to use a potentiometer to guess and check, you need to know how much power you're circuit can put out. If you're messing around and stick 5 Watts through a 1 Watt potentiometer, you're gonna have a bad time.
@@alexskywalker888 I would imagine this device to have a stop at a certain resistance, and a rating that allows it to be used safely with lower voltages. For example, a 100 watt rating and a minimum resistance of 100 ohms, or a 1kw rating and minimum 10 ohms. This sounds like a tool for learning about electronics, so it would make sense to have a safety feature like that.
@@alexskywalker888 I agree that you have to watch the power that goes through these devices.
They are not made from a potentiometer or rheostat, but an array of resistors arranged in such a way that you can select them individually, and note the exact reading.
@@alexskywalker888 They're talking about one of these things that do indeed have resistors in them ua-cam.com/video/n3joyToqpCc/v-deo.html
Correct. Google resistor decade box. Resistors and rotary switches. @@Warshipmodelsunderway
I will be employing this technique on future toys. My solution till now has been disassembling the offending toy and placing gaff tape over the inside of the speaker grill. This is quite effective in removing the shrillness of said toy however some are not as easily defeated. Thank you.
Adam and I on the intricacies of electronics. Same page. The function of the items makes sense, but how they all magic together to make things happen is beyond me, and I'm an electrician.... 😂
Starting at 7:17... I now know what a resistor ACTUALLY does... that little resistor fact is now "the most sophistocated things I now know about electronics".. although you say you know very little.... there are others who know even less! Keep sharing!
I thought power was not dissipated by the resistor, that it was just "resisted", meaning it draws less power from the source. I would think the quieter toy would consume less!
But maybe it's all more complicated than that. Any engineer that can clarify this please?
@@ToniLeysyou're correct. Adam's description of how a resistor works is not entirely correct. But the fix still works.
@@timharig ooooh that makes sense, thanks for the thorough explanation!
I have that blaster. It indeed works like that. I was perplexed when I opened it up. As i did with all my toys.
Feeling your way through the mathematical world of resistors is a beautiful thing, I appreciate this greatly thank you.
Quicker and easier method is to open it up and shove some cotton balls in front of the speaker. Limits the cone travel, requires no parts and attenuates high frequencies to make the sounds less annoying in general. If your speaker has a center tweeter, be sure to add some there specifically.
2 things Adam didn't mention in this video (well he sort of showed, but didn't say out right). 1) When adding a resistor to something like this, always start with the high ohm ones and work your way down. 2) Once you've selected a resistor, test it and make very sure that the resistor isn't getting to hot to possibly melt the toy (worst case scenario). Smaller toys like this one that are fairly low voltage, really shouldn't cause a problem, but when you start going up to toys using multiple C or D cell batteries or even 9 volt... you make blow the resistor if you pick one that is to small (resistors blow because of to much current, causing them to over-heat).
To select a starting point for resistor value, check the resistance of the speaker (usually marked on the back). If you choose a resistor of the SAME value as the speaker, you will HALVE the sound. If you choose double it will be one quarter volume. You don't need to be an engineer, just remember that simple rule.
Never mind that our hearing is log not linear so a 10x decrease in the power is only perceived as a halving of the volume. Pragmatic trial with different resistors seems like a good way to approach this for most of us.
Thats a voltage divider, but decibels are logarithmic, not linear.
OR...a small volume knob and either adjust to preference and tape it inside or drill a hole in the body (plenty of options there) and install it.
@@MrPhobartYeah, that speaker was probably 4, 8, or 16 Ω and Adam added 81 Ω. If OP's rule was accurate, wouldn't it now be _practically inaudible?_ 🤔
Anyway, I've been an electronics hobbyist for around 10 years and I generally know what I'm doing, but I would have used essentially the same technique as Adam. I have equipment to make things easier, like resistor substitution boxes and potentiometers, but it'd still be trial and error. And honestly that's probably faster than trying to calculate it! :)
@@AndrewGillard youre an electronic hobbyist for 10 years and say try and error is faster/better then taking a multimeter and doin a quick ohms law in your head? Dont even need a calculator for that...im a hobbyist aswell and got no electronics background, but that shit was the first thing i learned when first dealing with electronics. Try and error..pfft..dont want to know how much stuff you broke when trying to fix something..
Video sponsored by I fix it:
Adam: “I am not going to waste time putting this back together”
Hey, for those interested here are the formulas:
-20 * log(1 + R / 8) = the change of audio power in dB
Where R is the value of the series resistor and 8 is the resistance of the audio speaker.
So the 82 ohm resistor Adam used corresponds to a 21 dB reduction of audio power.
For those interested in the inverse formula, here it is:
R = 8 * (10^(-x / 20) - 1)
Where x is the change in dB, so for a decrease of 20 dB x = -20
Doin the loooooords work!
Possibly worth mentioning that a reduction in 10dB is halving the perceived volume, so 20dB is 1/4
Figured people might want to see where this comes from.
The resistor splits the voltage with the voltage coil proportionally. So the voltage across the coil will be:
V_n = c(V_o)/(c+r)
where
V_o is the original voltage across the coil
V_n is the new voltage across the coil
r is the impedance of the resistor
c is the impedance of the coil
So the voltage gain is:
V_n/V_o = c/(c+r)
This can be converted into dB power as:
20*log_10[c/(c+r)]
The 20 is due to the fact that power is proportional to a square power of the voltage. Note that the OP used the inverse of the voltage gain:
V_o/V_n = 1/[c/c+r] = (c+r)/c = 1 + r/c
Because he used the inverse voltage gain, he has to multiply by -20 instead of by 20 to compensate.
We can also calculate the power directly.
The power of the coil is given by the voltage/resistance power formula:
P = (v^2)/c
So the power gain is a square of the voltage gain since c is constant:
P_n/P_o = (c/c+r)^2
This can be converted into dB power directly:
10*log_10([c/c+r]^2)
10 since the voltage has already been squared.
And thus, how much longer has Adam prolonged the battery life?
@@trueKorvus nah mate, I’m done with uni life 😅
Also mech and not electric engineer…
I loved to see the little extra describing the circuitry side effect.
You were supposed to keep it intact but make it LOUDER so you could gift it to one of your Grandchildren!
I think of many tips and knowledge you share more and more lately.
When I was still a kid, my dad dealt with the same situation you did (I am also currently 24, same as your sons) Toys from that time were very noisy and we used to do "operations" on basically all my toys that made sound. It always got me very excited for some reason, it must have been interesting to me to see the inner workings of my toys. Either way, usually he would take out the noise maker and leave the lights and such in. I didn't care much for the noise either, so I would happily let my toys be tinkered with.
This works for other household items like bread machines. I like to run mine so there is fresh bread in the morning but I don't need it beeping at 5:45am to let me know it's done!
Sounds like a good alarm clock if you ask me 😂
I used to put tape over the speaker holes. Helped a bit. Did not want to open new advanced toys, like talking Transformers, just in case i did not get it back together. Older toys, Shure.. A resistor and a soldering iron is a blessing. I also got "allergic" to RGB blinking/cycling lights over the years.
Speaking of old pre-soundchip sound toys, a method like described in the Han Solo blaster or Stormtrooper E-11 were not exclusive. Although I'm definitely not old enough to remember, I've seen plenty of people who are (i.e., James May). If you were a kid in Britain in the mid-late 20th century and loved trains, then you might remember the classic Hornby Flying Scotsman that's still produced today. However, this is a unique set not only as a Christmas branded set, but the tender of the locomotive contained a metal rod that scraped against sandpaper to create a chuffing sound.
If you were just a common pleb with a silent locomotive, then you were probably scum.
Ahem, “with realistic chuffing sound”
Great video, that would be real useful a couple years ago. But at the time I managed to fix the noise by taping some pillow foam in front of the speakers of my kids toys, that works too.
That's awesome. My dad was a radio mechanic during Vietnam, you would think he would have shown any us how to do something with analog electronics. Oh well, great video for new parents. My kids are adults now also😁
When my toddlers demonstrated the ability to replace the batteries, I started superglueing the switch in the off position or the buttons. Noisy toys are hard to take. Thank you for the tutorial, the nieces and nephews will reap the rewards
you can squirt hot glue into the speaker's voice coil to dampen the sound too. also, to make it easier, instead of cutting the wire and putting the resistor in series, you can put one in parallel across the speaker terminals and accomplish the same thing without needing to cut the wires
That was so cool. I love to learn new things all the time. Thanks for sharing.
I like the idea that Adam spent "an hour" looking for the battery directions instead of just trying the 16 possible permutations.
Even funnier it's only 4 permutations because the crossbars dictate each pair of batteries would have to meet the bar + to -
Funnier is that at 10:12 you can clearly see the +/- indicators on the underside of the black battery door.😄
When my nieces & nephews were little, I would only buy loud toys if I was mad at the parents. X-mas one year I gave my Goddaughter a Tigger KARAOKE machine to annoy her mother. LMAO 🤣🎤👩🎤🤣
OMG, I'm legit horrified by Adam sawing apart that toy in such a cavalier manner. I think even if I was planning to trash the thing, I'd still turn myself inside out trying to put it back together correctly. 😅
Never even knew how to spot a resistor. Very informative!
It's crazy how those batteries lasted 24 years without you touching that package. Also, super weird that you still have a 24 year old toy in it's package.
As a new father of a four month old that has no understanding of electronics. This is quite a gift my one nephew is old enough I know how…fun…loud repeated sounds can be.
Great project. I thought it worth mentioning that you can still find Jamco online which is where radio shack got most of there stuff and it's kind of like shopping at an online radio shack
The timing of this video is amazing... was embarking on solving this problem in the exact same way a week ago. Good to know i'm not the only one who suffers from this :)
My kid is now older but i loved the video .. and that seiko!! Impecable taste in watches .
Super job adam🎉 enjoy your work👍 keep up the great videos 👍
We use clear packing tape over the speaker, can usually lower the sound by 1/3rd or 1/2
Love it. This is way better than all the tape I stuck over the speaker grills of my kiddo's noisy toys
I love Adam's perspective on this. My years of EE knowledge which told me offhand the correct value would be around 8-80 ohms would have saved him *one* random attempt, maybe 60 seconds.
+1 to reducing barriers to entry! (For low danger things like battery powered things, or USB devices. Electricity'll kill ya quick if you mess with the wrong thing, like house wiring or opening some appliances even if unplugged! No guessing here, find somone who can tell you what the dangerous parts are because you absolutely cannot guess.)
I don't know if this works with the IC chip and the speaker, but maybe solder 1 plus pole and 1 minus pole on the batteries together, so you only need 2 or 3 of them. This should lower the voltage and therefore the noise and light flickering if it doesn't underpower the IC, you'll also need fewer batteries when you do this.
If the IC would be underpowered, a possible fix would be to replace the voltage reducing resistor in front of the IC power input line with one with a lower resistance.
In this particular case it seems like the IC is powered with 4 1,5V batteries in series, and I assume a resistor is placed in the line to reduce the 6V to 5V. I would definetely still put a resistor in this line to prevent high currents.
It occured to me that Adam's tale of how toys worked when he was a kid was essentially a "Back in my day...."
:)
A quick search for "Standard Speaker Resistance" will give you 4 to 8 ohms. I generally just remember 8.
Given this, you're cutting the voltage to the "original voltage * 8 / (82 + 8)" or roughly 1/11th (the portion of the drop across the speaker compared to both the speaker and the resistor).
80ish ohms should work for a lot of speakers, BUT, you should be careful with resistors close to 100 ohms when you're dealing with 5V systems. Common resistors are often rated around 1/4 Watt. The equations for this are V=IR, P=IV, P=V^2/R, so your wattage in a 5V system across a 100 ohm resistor is 5V*5V/100, or 1/4 Watt. Lower resistance, higher power, so 80 ohms is above the rating for common resistors. Good hobby rule of thumb, check your power when you're near 100 ohms in low voltage systems.
If the power is lower, you can plug in the numbers you are using in the equations above to find your limit.
Hope this helps!
Something like the internal circuit from that could also be fun to hack with a relay or transistor and a proximity based motion detector circuit with a random delay timer. But then it's a matter of making sure it's well hidden and also louder.
Beyond the keeping a toy for 24 years that "isn't worth keeping", I like how Adam went through the trouble of hacking the electronics to restrict the electrical flow to reduce the speaker volume.
My shadetree method was usually just hacking the box it came in for some cardboard to cover the speaker with to restrict the air flow and muffle the speaker volume.
I suppose his way made for a more interesting video.
(I have done the "clip the speaker" method too)
I’m as old as yours kids lol you helped raise me in a way and helped me fall in love with science and mechanics
Love this video. Seeing Adam go through the exact same process I went through with my own kid’s toys (one in particular was loud enough to cause hearing loss) makes me feel much better about my level of electronics knowledge. 😁😁😁
Amazing. I will have to test this. For now I have just taped over the speakers because I personally find it really loud and I think my baby son that sits WAY closer to the speakers than I do will get ringing ears after 5 minutes when he mashes on his toys :D
Edit: Thank you Adam for bringing me fond memories of Mythbusters and for showing me how I wanted to (and still want to be) as an adult and father now.
Holy crap... I never knew the name of the Spudger before! Thank you so much!
The look of childlike delight on his face when he does it with the resistor nad it works the first time is wholesome😂
I did this with a portable induction cook top. Every press of the button was just an obnoxiously loud beep, and if you took the pan off while it was running it beeped continuously. I Tore it apart and tested resistors till the sound was quiet enough but not so quiet that I wouldn't notice it beeping. So even if you don't have kids, this is a good trick.
Thanks Adam been doing this for years to my kids toys lol although i would use a preset so i could adjust the level a keep our sanity along with surgery on teddy to replace the stitched in coin cell keep up the awesome work.
The part about not having a natural understanding of electronics resonates strongly with me. I've held off on messing with LEDs beyond pre-assembled packages because of that. Tested, one of you should definitely make a similar guide for how to setup LED circuits!
I did this to a toy that had a speaker and a motor(fan) and putting in the resistor also reduced the fan speed so had to balance quite well. It also made the batteries last longer which was a bonus!!
I love my ifixit gear! I got it from one of your previous videos where you talked about it.
I absolutely loved Radio Shack there is and was not another store like it man brings back memories
I love seeing Adam be a "kid" when it comes to props
The pre-electric toys' techniques were downright ingenious. The child-powered echo of soundstage sound effects.
Adam describing the physical noises that laserblasters made, reminds me of a short I saw recently of how sequential tail-lights worked back in the day before IC's... It was so simple! It was just a small motor, with a bunch of cams attached to it that would open and close a different circuit while rotating... it was somehow simplistically beautiful, and I want one even more now... :D
Each cam was clearly tuned for duration, so you could have the desired effect... :D
I never realized that I know more about electronics and electricity than Adam Savage. This man was one of the reasons I went into that field.
I guess Grant was my actual inspiration and I never realized it. Man.
Why they say never meet your heroes haha. Personally I've found it really refreshing to realize that most people that we idolize and look up to aren't really any different from someone you might know, and you can probably do something similar or maybe better if you stick to it and don't get caught in the wrong details.
Phil gives the best gifts ! that note is hilarious.
Now, i need to know how to make the toys louder so i can send them to my sisters children 🤣.
Cheap speakers like that are typically 8-16ohm, so that's a good starting point for resistors to halve the power output of the amp circuit.
You never gave the toy gun to your kids! I'm not sure if you are a monster... OR the smartest person in THIS WORLD!
My son has had some very loud toys too... after a few hours, they usually met with a timing "unauthorised wiring modification" with a pair of side cutter dikes!
OR stage tape over the speakers! Parenting FOR THE WIN! :)
If you really want to quiet the toy or device (I have a few noisy UPS units, that like to beep during the night time!) down for real, a well-calculated resistor voltage divider circuit will always fit the bill perfectly! Yes, Adam those semiconductors are magic! and it took several years of school to learn which way the electrons and the holes go through them, without letting out the magic smoke! :)
Great content as always sir!
This is so very necessary for some of the toys weve collected from the grandparents. Some of the toys have volume settings thats fine. But the VOLUME of one of these toys... You can hear it down the street I swear