Thread: Cheap talking skull that works with Relays in VSA - No Parallel!

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Greetings all,

In the on-going battle to try and get everything running in VSA and with the least amount of $$$ possible ... I discovered something very cool I wanted to share.

For the past few weeks I have been building / programming 4 3-axis skulls for my pirate display in my home haunt. The skulls are running with VSA and a SSC-32 board.

Now I was looking to add some more "characters" / skulls that only needed their mouths to move so instead of getting more skull models and more servos ... I found a good substitute.

I am sure you have already seen those talking skulls at Lowes and Walmart for about $10. The Walmart ones have "eyes" in them as well. 1 version has the eyes moving with no mouth movement, but the others the eyes light up and the mouth moves. These were available last year as well.

These skulls are cheap and look pretty darn good. There is a little motor inside that tugs on a cable attached to the jaw that is spring loaded to move in sync with the programming on the little chip / processor inside.

My plan was to bypass the internal circuit board and wire a 5v wall wart right to the motor, which was easy.

Now I would just need a relay to trip the power on and off to the skull that would work with VSA as well, so everything would be running on the same system.

Upon the recommendation from several people, I purchased a Kit74 Relay board that works with VSA. I quickly discovered although it works with VSA, it is PARALLEL ONLY! My computer doesn't even have a parallel port on it. So, I'm thinking ..." well I will just go get a usb to parallel converting cable ... easy enough" ... right? Wrong! The USB to Parallel cables, no matter what brand, do not work ...

So still no relays ... or at least inexpensive. I did find 1 that was $30 that connects to the SSC-32 board but it is a single relay ... I would need 4 of them and an extra $120 to drive 4 skulls I just didn't want to do.

So ... I'm on the phone with Bruce at Animated Prop Systems (www.pimpmyprop.com), the guy who created the DTMF board for my DVD products, and I explained to him the whole dilemma I was having ... a simple idea, but I couldn't find anything other than the Kit74 that would work ... but again, thats parallel.

Bruce said he would try and come up with something ... within 10 days, a package arrived from Bruce, and low and behold ... HE DID IT!!!!

He has created a 4 relay board that plugs right into the servo ports on the SSC-32 card.

I immediately connected one of my $10 skulls to it ... and it WORKS!!! See the attached video link.

Video link:

The first things you see in the video is the UNUSED Kit 74 Board.

Now understand I programmed the "Christopher Walked reading Edgar Allan Poe" in about 5 minutes and there were other applications running which is why it skips the word "weary". But other than that, I am absolutely stoked!

Now, another use for this relay board is: you can turn on and off the power to your servos in your 3-axis skulls so you don't burn them out when they are not in use. Simply set it up so VSA turns on the power to the servos a couple of second before the routine and then cut power after ... saving you the headache and extra wear on your 3-axis skull servos.

Not sure when Bruce is releasing the board, but I am sure it is soon.

Hope you enjoy the share.

-HiRez00

Awesome ! That's totally cool, I've seen those skulls at Lowes the other day, had me thinking. Even though I have a nice lil stock pile of 2nd gen Boris's, can't hurt to have more to convert.
Nice that he figured a board to work with VSA & that's great that it can be used to turn the power on & off to the servos, BOC i believe was the only board set up to do that automatically, so that's a big plus to use on VSA & the servo skulls !

Probably could hack those "stone statue" heads to do the same thing.

That's fantastic, I assume you are refering to the Battleswitch? I've got a couple of those ,while very good they are a bit pricey if you need a lot of them. I use one as you suggested , but I turn the entire board on and off instead of the individual relays. I'm using 2 Parallax boards. Will this be compatible with the Parallax boards and are there any thoughts of doing an 8 relay card? Keep us posted please!!

I wonder why Lynxmotion and the folks that make the kit74 can't come up with USB versions of their stuff. I'm thinking that it won't be long until parallel ports and rs-232 ports are obsolete. It looks like the board that he made for you is perfect for your situation. I may have to cruise by Lowes tomorrow.

I have a Velman 16 relay board that works on the TTL outputs of the SSC32 and yes, it is useful as hell!

That board cost me about 100 bucks, so it is not the cheap alternative that Hirez used, but it's essentially the same thing.....it also took me 3 weekends to solder all 550 solder points to assemble the kit.

Yet I digress,

I'm glad you found a board that works for you HR! Congrats, the skulls look real good!

The ONLY critique I have using those skulls, if it even really matters which I doubt, is the bounce you get every time the jaw closes. It can work in your favor for most of the dialogue, but it may give more movement than you want for single syllable words....like I said, not a big deal, just an observation. I notice these things. I need help.

You could also use a DMX power pack and simply plug that wall wart into a channel on it and get the same results....I've done this using the picaboo 105 as the controller also....ZR

I have a couple tower pc's I still keep strickly for parallel port usage ( like for 3 axis & kit 74,etc ). I'm surprised that Lynxmotion hasn't picked this ball up being that parallel port are darn near obsolete !! or at least designed a connector that would work for parallel to usb..........

Just used the same board to trigger my air cannons in VSA in sync with my "pirate" soundtrack. Worked perfectly.

Very very pleased.

Sweet, that board is definitely going to help a lot, wonder what he'll price them at, always been reasonable with his other ones.

Bruce from pimpmyprop.com is a great guy. I use his tri colored led boards on both of my animated props and they work great. One of them had a minor hiccup and within days he sent a replacement. I am hoping by this weekend to finish programming my completed prop and posting a video.