Hacking, Hardware, Projects, sirBones

Sir Bones gets a (meek) voice

Sir Bones has had a quiet life, constantly listening and not being able to say a word.

Today will change all that. 

Sir Bones gets a voice (module).

All that is really needed is a speaker attached to a 3.5mm jack, but I prefer to have Sir Bones portable, so we'll be using a USB Sound card aka USB Voip Handset. 

Cheap USB VOIP Handset


Cracked open USB VOIP handset.

The Voip Handset is basically a USB Microphone and Speaker, but it has the added bonus of having 3.5mm sockets. 

This is why a Voip handset has been chosen.  As standard the their internal speaker is not powerful enough to be heard. So will needed to be replaced with a bigger speaker.

An innocent birthday card, cut open

Now we need a bigger speaker.  Something that can be heard.  Musical Birthday cards are very loud and do not use to much battery power.

Quick re-soldering of the speaker on to its new connector.

Speaker connected to 3.5mm jack, plugged into VOIP handset

Connect it all together and we're ready for a test.

For this test I used a streaming radio station, and played it through the speaker.

Holding the speaker in the air, the volume was a lower than expected, but putting on the table helped increase the volume. 

After a successful test, it was time to try it out in Sir Bones. 

Sir Bones with his new voice module

The speaker isn't as loud as I had hoped, but it is loud enough for the time being.

Sir Bones has seen enough Hardware Hacking for the time being.
I have more hardware ideas for Sir Bones, but for now its time to look at software for Sir Bones.

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