Teddy Ruxpin hacking

Last updated Tuesday, 05-Jun-2012 10:26:20 PDT

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A while back, I was exploring Wacky Willy's (now out of business), looking for some CAT-5 wiring blocks. For years, they've had crates of Teddy Ruxpin cassettes for sale, but this time, I found a shipment of Teddy Ruxpin display units for $3. Ok, had to have one.

Like I said, it's a display unit. What does that mean? Well, I took it home and got it out of the box. The first thing I noticed was the threaded rod up its, well, butt. Good way to secure it to a store shelf, I guess. I popped open the tape door and found no playback equipment. There was just a bag of nuts (3) for the rod, and a three-wire cable that evidently connects to some sort of demo playback system.

Obviously I had to take it apart to figure out how to do something useful with it, so here's the process (not complete):

Disassembly

I have 13 pictures, below. I understand this model to have only one servo to control all facial features. I've gained access to the main circuit board, but not the head assembly yet. By the way, there is no speaker in this display model. It also lacks the cassette playback mechanism, making it apparently dependent on an external demo system.

The three wire external cable remains a mystery. The white wire connects to a terminal labeled B- on the circuit board. That's probably battery negative. I couldn't make out labels on the other two wires; I'll try to scan the board soon for a high resolution, no glare view. Pictures will, of course, end up here.

Just to avoid confusion, there's another three wire cable visible that plugs into a socket on the board. This cable, along with a two wire red/black cable, protrudes from the head cavity. I'm less interested in these particulars, as driving the control board with externally-generated signals is my goal.