Thread: Finally finished the $15 Picaxe Talking Skull Controller

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I've been working this season on expanding my use of the Picaxe chip for controllers to use in my haunt. With hpropman coming up the concept and the help of Fritz42_male, we've come up with an inexpensive and easy to build controller utilizing the entry level Picaxe 08 to take an audio input and have it drive a servo for a talking skull. Cowlacious makes a great off the shelf unit, but I wanted to see if we could make one cheaper and with the ability to program it to better fit our needs. The basic board costs around $15 in parts if you order in quantity once you have the Picaxe download cable which runs about $20. The code for the board is very simple and you can just cut and paste it into the free editor.
So here is the basic board. I'll be modifying it yet to utilize the other 2 outputs in order to have it triggered by a PIR and to use one of the 300 second audio boards from Electronics123.

Great work, I ordered my first picaxe proto kit and usb cable yesterday. I can hardly wait to try doing some of these projects.

looks like the one from halloween2go

I found a number of useful things on Halloween2go, but I didn't see this one. They describe a servo driver using a Pic 16F84 chip. Is that the project you're referring to?

Nice job!

Any chance of getting a complete parts list for this or should I wait until your final mods?

Originally Posted by Jack Skellington

Any chance of getting a complete parts list for this or should I wait until your final mods?

Here's the parts list for the board as shown above.

Parts List for Picaxe 08 Audio/Servo Driver

PART PART NUMBER SUPPLIER COST EACH
1. PC Board 276-150 Radio Shack 2.19
2. 1/8 Phone Plug 274-286 Radio Shack 1.60
3. 5K Pot 43078 Jameco 1.25
4. 8 Pin Socket(2) 112206 Jameco .13
5. 0.1 Capacitor(2) 15229 Jameco .06
6. 10uF Capacitor 1946367 Jameco .05
7. Header 160882 Jameco .59
8. 1K Pot 253982 Jameco .95
9. 330ohm Resistor 690742 Jameco .03
10. 22K Resistor 691180 Jameco .03
11. 10K Resistor(4) 691104 Jameco .03
12. 2.2K Resistor 690945 Jameco .03
13. 1K Resistor 690865 Jameco .03
14. 47K Resistor(2) 691260 Jameco .03
15. N4148 Diode 179215 Jameco .05
16. LM1458 23131 Jameco .35
17. Microcontroller 08 Picaxe phanderson 2.65
18. 5V Power Supply PS-513 AllElectronics 4.50
19. Assorted Wire links


Even though I've started to modify the board already, I still need to decide on what I'll be using for an audio source and then I can update the parts list. Currently you'll just need to cut a few more headers, use a couple of resistors which you should have plenty of if you buy from Jameco since they sell them by the hundred and add the following components.
2N4401 Transistor 38421 Jameco .06
1N4401 Diode 35975 Jameco .05
5V Relay 2081414 Jameco 2.49

Thanks for the list, I appreciate all of your hard work and expertise!

Here's an updated diagram of the circuit with the resistors labeled -

I finished the modifications and have the board running from the stereo audio board and being triggered by a PIR. The whole setup including the PIR, computer speakers, audio board and SD card, power supply and the audio jaw servo circuit came to less than $50.

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