Easy Button Switch Wiring Revisited
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- The good people at Staples have redesigned the easy button's circuit board to be a little more hacker friendly. But they didn't take into account that some people would just use it for a big, crazy button. So you need to scrape a little varnish off in order to use it properly. Go figure.
I have an easy button that works and it says that was easy when it is pressed
So I tried your connections as shown in the video. I have the newer board, 2011-04. The connection causes the recording to play as soon as connected. Pressing the button does not play because the circuit is already connected. I tried just about every other combination on the board, most play immediately as connected. A few won't even play when the button is pressed. ... Puzzled!
OK, for starters... Disconnect the battery wires and the speaker wires. You are only using the board for the momentary switch. Secondly, if you're running into weird things like that, you might want to cut the circuit. The lead part of the board that I scraped off in the video, right after the removed varnish on your way to the chip take a sharp knife or file and file it down so you etch into the board a little. That way you're guaranteed there isn't any power going to the chip. Let me know how it works out. I have to make some repairs to a system soon, so if you need I can post another video describing this process.
Hey @Shadeydave, I know this is an old video, and I'm a newbie at this. Easy button now makes ones that are recordable via USB. I'm looking to get a recordable one for a project I'm working on... the hard part is that I want to replace the sound chip in a toy with the recordable easy button chip, and wire a separate button switch to activate both sound and function of the toy itself (it moves). Do you think this is at all possible? If not I would probably have better luck with the SD card hack on a regular easy button.
I may need to also add some sort of relay... but i hope that's not the case.. I don't want to go through TOO much trouble trying to make this work
Yup, that should be possible. As with any circuit-bending project, you just need to poke around until something works. In this video, I’m hacking the momentary switch. And using that to trigger another circuit. At worst you’re out a little money and have a pile of unusable parts, but at least you learned something. ;)
@@shadeydave thank you! I had some other ideas that I thought might simplify it a bit. It might be easier to use the easy button as the push button itself for both the animation motion and the speaker. Rather than swapping out the sound chip and going through that headache, i can probably just use the easy button as an ON switch for both desired functions. I Want to hook up a slightly larger speaker for better quality sound. Not sure if I will need to figure out how to add a relay or not in order to get both functions to power up... both the animation and the easy button have batteries so I'm not sure how confusing that might get. As I said I'm freshmeat in the world of wiring and circuitry
@@eggylartiste3612 Keep in mind the way the easy button works is that it's a "momentary switch". So the chip in there is looking for a pin to give a "high" value. Essentially saying that the button has been pressed. Then it goes through a preprogrammed routine, like playing a sound file. If you want to use the easy button as a firing mechanism in this way, you need to ensure the the trigger for the original toy was a "momentary Switch" and not a push-lock kind of setup.
Word of caution, if I'm understanding the issue properly... you can't just run two different power supplies through the same switch. If one is 9v and the other is 5v, let's say, you run the risk of burning out your lower voltage electronics. Because you need to isolate the circuits. The proper way to go about this would be to use a relay.
@@shadeydave thank you again for standing by with your replies. You're bringing up things that I hadn't originally thought about. so I haven't yet received my original toy in the mail but I do believe it is a momentary switch, typically animatronic plush toys come with a "try me" button. My idea was to connect to the wires there, as I have seen many UA-cam examples of people switch-adapting toys via the "try me" button wires. As far as the battery thing goes... I believe both the easy button and the plush toy use the same volt battery, but will need to double check on that one before I get started with wiring. I plan to extend the speaker to the outside of the easy button with 24 gauge speaker wire by around 3 feet which i dont think would be much trouble. The trouble is just the battery situation and how to get it to work when both the easy button and plush toy have batteries. I'm curious to find out if the batteries in the toy would even be necessary to have inside yhe cartridge if the easy button is sending power through to this toy. Like I said, I'm new to modifying electronics so I might be wrong on that one haha!
Are there any mechanical differences between the old and new buttons, or is it just a PCB difference? Asking because I've yet to see a new style button, and I make a replacement PCB for them.
Thanks a lot for the in detail video, you just helped me out a lot. I'm turning the easy buttons into battery disconnect switches for toys they use at physical therapy for kids with disabilities. They are way over priced, because they can. with this hack I cut the price to 1/6th of the store bought item. Two thumbs up man! :)
Nope, no mechanical differences. The newer buttons don't have the little metal weights in them, but they still have the places for them, so I'm inclined to believe that they are still using their original injection moulds for them.
Are you selling the PCBs? if so, PM me a link and I'll mention it in the description of this or any upcoming videos I do on the subject. I think it's a great idea. ;)
Hi Gary, what type of replacement PCB's do you make for the EASY buttons?
I'm working on a project and am wondering if a different PCB would help or make things a bit quicker for me.
Thanks.
Hi Shadeydave, just wondering if you might be able to me with a project that I'm doing. I have a train horn installed on my car, and I'd like to make a Staples "Easy" button to be the switch to trigger the horn. Right now im just using a regular toggle switch.
Is there a way to do this?
- Thanks!
For us amateurs out there....can you please explain step by step how we would install a 9V Radio Shack recording mod to the Newer version of the Staples Easy Button?
how did i get here?
Awesome.