Hi all,

Was wondering if anyone here is familiar with those little toy devices
for your keychain that when you push a button, it gives you some sort
of sound or phrase.

What I'm looking for is how to easily access the preamplifier signals.
I want to add my own sounds and phrases to the unit.
It has the features I'm looking for: cheap, small, low power
consumption, and loud.
I know these things usually have a custom blob IC, but i'm hoping the
amplifier sections can be accessed.

The types of units I'm talking about are like the "Yak-Bak", the
Napoleon Dynamite movie phrase thing, the multicolored 8-button sound
effecter, etc.

Any helpful advice would be appreciated. (except for 'build your own
amplifier' (why reinvent the wheel?))

Regards,
--Electro--
aka The Other David
www.dprg.org

oicurmt wrote ...
Was wondering if anyone here is familiar with those little toy devices
for your keychain that when you push a button, it gives you some sort
of sound or phrase.

What I'm looking for is how to easily access the preamplifier signals.
I want to add my own sounds and phrases to the unit.
It has the features I'm looking for: cheap, small, low power
consumption, and loud.
I know these things usually have a custom blob IC, but i'm hoping the
amplifier sections can be accessed.

The types of units I'm talking about are like the "Yak-Bak", the
Napoleon Dynamite movie phrase thing, the multicolored 8-button sound
effecter, etc.

Any helpful advice would be appreciated. (except for 'build your own
amplifier' (why reinvent the wheel?))

Amplifier circuits (even very tiny ones that run on low
power) are a dime a dozen. Not clear how "access to the
blob" or "access to the preamp" will help you "add sounds"
to them, however. Those sounds are typically hard-coded
into the chips themselves and not changable by you or
anyone else here.

There ARE units that can record sounds for playback at the
push of a button, but not the pre-programmed mass-market
ones you are asking about.

Hi Rich,

I am hoping that just the recorded sounds are on that chip, and if i
input my own line level audio signal to certain traces (or discrete
components) I can get it to directly play it at higher volume... sort
of like adding an auxillary jack to a stereo receiver, it bypasses the
main source of the sounds (AM/FM, etc.) and just amplifies what coming
in externally...

Hope that helps,
--L'ectro--
ww.dprg.org

To access the playback signal, I would suggest simply replacing the piezo
speaker with a connection to a line-level amplifier input. You may need a
good bit of low-pass filtering, or you may not.

Are you talking about devices that also record? In that case, find the tiny
microphone, remove it, and experiment with feeding low-level audio in.

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.misc.]
On 2006-04-12, wrote:
Hi Rich,

I am hoping that just the recorded sounds are on that chip, and if i
input my own line level audio signal to certain traces (or discrete
components) I can get it to directly play it at higher volume... sort
of like adding an auxillary jack to a stereo receiver, it bypasses the
main source of the sounds (AM/FM, etc.) and just amplifies what coming
in externally...

often the amplifier is on the chip.



Bye.
Jasen