Make an Easy Button more interesting?

[Neo3One3]

Sure, an Easy Button is fun at first, it gets a quick chuckle the first few times you press it, but it gets a bit annoying, especially when used on a daily basis, right? Well, my and another team member's Chem teacher was on of these people, pressing the Easy Button at least once per day, to the point where it was painful to hear. Well, this is what we decided to do to get the best of him.

(By the way, apologies on the quality of the pictures, while the Chocolate is a great phone, the pictures it takes leave a bit to be desired)

What you'll need:



An Easy Button
Two short lengths of "borrowed" PWM cable wire
Soldering iron, solder, flux
Small phillips head screwdriver
Swiss army knife (always useful)
And the pièce de résistance, a Build-a-Bear workshop record/play chip (used to make bears say whatever you record into them when you squeeze them)

See where I'm going with this?

First, start to disassemble the Easy Button:



Just remove the soft feet on the bottom, and unscrew the four screws holding the button together.



Go in a bit further, and take off the board on the top, then remove the raised plastic:



Here, I've highlighted the two sets of wires connected to the EB board, the first pair, red, going to the speaker, and the second, white and black, going to battery case. Both of these will have to be removed with your soldering iron, because neither of them is to be connected by the end of our work.



Here is the battery box, because the final Easy Button will be powered by the batteries in the BaB board, we may as well remove the unnecessarily used space, no? Remove the battery box however you want, try to take off as much as possible while leaving the outside intact (we must make it covert). This is what ours looked like once we were done.

[Neo3One3]

As shown in the second image, you can leave the sides of the battery enclosure nearly intact, the front and the back are what need to be removed, as well as the entire bottom of it.



Here is the EB board with the two sets of wire removed. I've highlighted the points where the two lengths of wire need to be attached. This is what will make the BaB board play when this button is pushed.



Now, to the Bab Board:

[Neo3One3]

Here is the back of the BaB board, with the two cables running to the speaker it's originally attached to. Take these off with your soldering iron, and attach the red wire coming from the EB speaker to these points (it doesn't matter which you connect to which point).



Here is the front of the BaB board, and the two highlighted points are where you need to connect the two wires you previously attached to the EB board to. Again, either cable can be attached to either point. These points are a bit closer together though, so do be careful when soldering them.



Fit the board in the area you cut out. It does take a bit of fiddling to get positioned properly. Make sure you leave the two buttons and the microphone in the open area so when the battery cover is removed, you can get to all three easily.

Once you've done this, screw down the plastic portion you removed earlier. After that, screw down the EB board, like so:



Put the outside and the top back on it, and make sure you line up these notches with the cutouts:



for a solid fit.

Finally, check out the job you did by removing the battery cover.



The first highlighted thing is the light that goes one when you are recording. Second, is the play button. Third, the microphone, and last but not least, fourth, the record button, hidden a bit in my placement, though still accessible.

Record something, then press down on the top and hear your newly modified Easy Button.

[Neo3One3]

Congratulations, you've successfully improved your Easy Button.



The best part is, it looks exactly like nothing has happened, bringing us back to my Chem teacher. We replaced his Easy Button with ours, which instead of "That was easy" said "I'm bald", which wasn't quite what he expected when he hit it. Now at least when he presses it on a daily basis, it usually says something different. I hope someone here tries this out too, and by all means post your results here too.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

That's awesome... I almost bought one of those. Now I'll have to buy two, because the first will be the one I break (always happens) and the second will be the completed and working one. Now all I need is a soldering iron, build-a-bear speaker box, and a new set of eyes because I think those camera pictures just trashed my eyes.

[J Franklin]

That a good explanation. But I do have one question, in order to get the Build a Bear sound box do you have to get a bear or is there any way you can buy just the complete circuit board?

[KeatonM]

I've done this before with a small 9v recording module from RadioShack, which may be easier to find than the BaB sound box. I just filed the battery compartment down to accommodate a 9 volt battery.

EDIT: Oops, didn't realize this thread was from 2007. Hopefully J Franklin will see this and it won't all be in waste.