Degus Can Jump

When Nomi cleans out the Degus I have to play babysitter, normally I handle them and play with them. This time I put Pikmin in the recycling box, I soon learned that even a massive box cannot contain a Degu :-)

Tis Green!

A concoction invented years ago by my mate Oli. Blue Aftershock and Red Bull :) pissed and hyper all at the same time. Tastes something like cough medicine... all these years on it still amazes people :)

Spring Robin

Whenever I mow the lawn I always put my mp3 player on full and just get on with it. It's an old mower... So it's epically noisy... Which is why I was so stunned to notice I had an audience... Of a Robin! He really seemed quite intrigued. Even when I got really close with the mower he just sat there. Eventually he flew off of his own accord.

Sound chip for a Goat

A couple of years ago for Christmas I bought Nomi a Plush Goat from the anime Last Exile... try as I might I couldn't get one that bleated like in the show...


So I thought bugger it I'll make one :-)

Sadly... getting hold of a sound processing chip was not easy, so rather than work totally from scratch like I would've preferred, I bought a Bear Factory sound module... and took it apart:



Problem is the Bear Factory module is pressure activated, and the goat in the show is tilt activated.

So off I went to Maplins to get the necessary bits:




A new box to put it all in, a tilt switch and an on off switch (As I figured that otherwise it'd be impossible to cuddle at night).

First step was to remove the switch and replace it with the tilt switch

Couple of wires trimmed up and ready to solder in place.

And the finished soldering... not as petty as I'd hoped, but adequate.



Next I had to drill some holes in the box for the speaker, I used the original case as a template:

Now to install the on off switch:

Again another hole, but this was so big that I needed to use a Q-Max tool to cut a hole (I could have used a drill, but I didn't have one the right size:

Finished hole... bit scored from the Q-Max tool I used to cut the hole, but it doesn't matter as it's not going to be seen:

Here's the whole lot ready to be assembled in place, note that the on/off switch is actually just an isolator for the tilt switch. This is because the chip is incapable of remembering the sounds without having constant power.

Next step was to glue the speaker in place.

Now this is where I made a mistake, which was only spotted after I'd finished. That I never glued in the circuit board :-( so it sadly rattles a little.

Here's the completed unit.

And this is what it sounds like, and how it works :-)




Finally my mum operated on the goat and put the sound module in his belly... I could have done this myself, but my mum's much more deft with a needle and thread than me, and I wanted it to look perfect.

And perfect it is :-)

New Posts

New posts backdated:

• Trees
• Degus Meet Neko
• Jim'll Fix It
• Boobs on the Water
• Mobile
• Seriously... How Can You Not Notice?
• Delicate... But Persistant
• Giant Turkey
• Gwiz

Delicate... But Persistent

I always think of Daffodils as being a delicate flower, given that it's only abundant for a short time. To me seeing them symbolises the beginning of spring, and it's nice to see that even in a world where nature has been paved over to accommodate the ever expanding human race, such a flower will grow even in the unlikeliest of places... namely the central reservation of a ring road.

Eye Chart Haulage

Polish is a funny language... Very melodic... But written down I can't help but wonder how on earth you pronounce something! Especially the name of this company... It just looks like an eye chart to me :)