Thread: "Motor Mouth" Alternatives

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Two years ago, I successfully used a "Motor Mouth" DC Servo controller from Hauntmaster to hack a Gemmy Talking Head from one of their animated balls. In our home haunt, we removed the head from the ball, then mounted in on a Gemmy "Edwardian" butler to replace the Fester head that was in place.

We used a PIR trigger to activate the head and the body, and a small MP3 player to feed our desired audio track. In our application, the butler was used as a greeter and provided a brief summary of the rules while ToT's waited in line.

It worked great, but I notice now that Hauntmaster has eliminated the Motor Mouth from their product line. That's a shame, since it worked so well with a variety of the inexpensive "talking toys".

Has anyone found a good alternative? I'm not really interested in the AC servos used by Scary Terry to animated Bucky heads...but rather something that will work with DC motors.

Any help appreciated....we're almost ready to go with another addition of "Ravenwood Manor".

Here is one alternative method that has been used:

Talking Bust

Hauntmaster Jim posted a schematic of the Motor Mouth circuit a while back:

index

It looks pretty easy to build and is designed for DC motors. I know some on the Forum have used this circuit - maybe someone could chime in on this.

Originally Posted by WBOO

Two years ago, I successfully used a "Motor Mouth" DC Servo controller from Hauntmaster to hack a Gemmy Talking Head from one of their animated balls. In our home haunt, we removed the head from the ball, then mounted in on a Gemmy "Edwardian" butler to replace the Fester head that was in place.

We used a PIR trigger to activate the head and the body, and a small MP3 player to feed our desired audio track. In our application, the butler was used as a greeter and provided a brief summary of the rules while ToT's waited in line.

It worked great, but I notice now that Hauntmaster has eliminated the Motor Mouth from their product line. That's a shame, since it worked so well with a variety of the inexpensive "talking toys".

Has anyone found a good alternative? I'm not really interested in the AC servos used by Scary Terry to animated Bucky heads...but rather something that will work with DC motors.

Any help appreciated....we're almost ready to go with another addition of "Ravenwood Manor".

I have nothing useful to add, but I'm glad someone actually sees the Fester resemblence in that butler. haha.

Cowlacious Scary Terry Products

This should work...I have one and works great to make the DC motor "talk" in my haunted clock......ZR

EDIT- Actually I have the old version....Not sure if this would work the same as the old version....The old version also has an audio chip built in....Not sure why they did away with that?......ZR

LAST EDIT- You should be able to use this to power a DC motor with the new chip on the board as advertised here-
"NOT JUST FOR DRIVING SERVO's ANYMORE!!! We have included a ULN2803 chip that allows you to drive devices such as relays, lamps, solenoids for pneumatics, etc. in sync with the sound you are playing."

Send them a message....They should be able to answer that easily....Good Luck!....ZR