# New Boris Hack



## slimy

I got the new style Boris and wanted to see if a recorded sound could be used to make the mouth move.

I cut off the 'microbone' and added an eighth inch mini plug. That can then be plugged into an mp3 player, cd player, or even an old school tape deck, whatever you have.

The results:

Halloween 2007 :: Talking Skull video by amyrosalina78 - [email protected]@[email protected]@http://vid72.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid72.photobucket.com/albums/i178/amyrosalina78/Halloween%202007/[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@i178/amyrosalina78/Halloween%202007/talkingSkull

I would split the signal coming out of the headphone jack of whatever audio source you use. One would go to control the mouth. The other would go to cheapy computer speakers for sound. Then I would consider removing the speaker from the skull, as it is garbage.

You are going from an 'amplified' headphone out to a really 'hot' mic input. So keep the volume on the player low. Otherwise, the mouth will just stay open.

Super simple. For the money, this is my favorite thing this year.


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## Darkside

I looked around everywhere (local stores anyway) last year and couldn't find any. Where did you find yours?


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## slimy

Big Lots. 

They have a lot of cool stuff. Very reasonably priced. 

$20. Can't beat it.


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## ScareFX

Great job slimy! The perfect simple hack. Thanks for experimenting for the rest of us! This is one of the best mods of the year.


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## Beepem

So you cut it off, and soldered the wires into an 1/8 plug?


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## Sickie Ickie

YAY!! Way to go Slimy!


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## Dark Lord

The best improvement on this new one is that the servo motor on the mouth is stronger.You can tilt this one at any angle & the jaw moves at full range. the old original had to be striaght up, any rearward or forward tilt & the jaw would not move at all.It might be a little cheesier looking skull than the original,but at least the batterys are accessable without removing the skullcape / no skull cap cut looks better & stronger jaw servo & for $20 getting a basic talking skull works for me !!


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## Dr Morbius

YAY!!! Way to go slimy..it don't get better than that!


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## slimy

Beepem said:


> So you cut it off, and soldered the wires into an 1/8 plug?


I wish it was more complicated then that, Beepem, but it's not.

Simple is good.


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## SpookySam

Good to hear this is a simple setup. I've been waiting for my Big Lots to put out their Halloween stuff.


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## turtle2778

Cool. Im getting two fo those today. THANKS slimy.


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## Beepem

slimy said:


> I wish it was more complicated then that, Beepem, but it's not.
> 
> Simple is good.


alright, sounds good....I think I'm smart enough to handle that..


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## Vlad

Black Cat and I picked up three this evening. I can't wait to give it a try.


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## JohnnyL

How's everyone wiring up new speakers to these? Can they be gutted and installed in a bucky?


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## Wyatt Furr

Thanks for the hack,Slimy.
Now if only my Big Lots would get the stuff out...


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## dave the dead

schweeeeet! I now have a reason to buy one. Thanks for the courage to cut that cord, dude!


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## Moon Dog

That's so simple that it's down right scary! 

Have you tried that with a line level input?

Maybe a 10db pad circuit could help as well.

Thanks for the report Slimy!


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## heresjohnny

Thanks for posting this Slimy   , I was wondering if this would work and here you have already done and posted a video. Awesome, I will have to get a couple of those this weekend.


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## Desmodus

The only thing about the Big Lots Boris (and I bought one a few days ago) is that the skull itself looks like a gimmick: you need to hide this Boris's head in a hood or something. It does work well though, at least. Hard to complain for $20. 

On that note, does anyone know how to hack the older, traditional Boris from wireless to wired? I have the old wireless version but the selectivity of the FM receiver is so poor it constantly picks up garbage noise, ruining the effect. I really just want to cut the receiver out and make it a regular wired version.

Thanks


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## heresjohnny

I plan on buying 2 tomorrow. One is gonna be a ghost head reading stories, not sure what the other is gonna be yet.


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## Daughter of Darkness

*Cool*

cOOL, I want one of these! My Biglots doesn't have any of those yet. Hopefully they will get them. If anyone has an extra to sell lemme know.
Nice find


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## edwood saucer

I bought one today!
Anyway - TWO questions...

1 - Can the jaws hold any weight? Or do they have ANY inherent strength? I want to affiz a witch mask to mine somehow and use it as my witch.

2 - The sound isn't great - does anybody have GOOD sound settings? I didn't go through all the combinations.

ALSO (maybe this is #3) - What about replacing the speakers? Can you pop in a different speaker? What would anyone recommend?

I was think about hiding a powered computer speaker under the witches dress - but didn't know if this was dangerous.

Actually hoping for a "How To"

:^)
Thanks!


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## Dark Lord

These seem to have a better/stronger jaw servo, you'd have to try a mask to see if it will work.As for the sound & speakers, the only setting that i could understand hearing words from was the amplified setting(setting D),The rest are too muffled.The speaker may be able to be replaced, but being it is facing rearward, ,i find using aux speakers to be better for a group of TOT to hear whatever they are saying.& it is ok to use aux power speakers under the outfit,just give it some air space, 
Another thought in case the jaw doesn't hold the mask, is cut off the jaw area of the witch mask, attach the rest of the head of the mask & use latex & create your own witch jaw with minimal amounts of material & color it best you can to match mask........


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## Hellspawn

edwood saucer said:


> I bought one today!
> Anyway - TWO questions...
> 
> 1 - Can the jaws hold any weight? Or do they have ANY inherent strength? I want to affiz a witch mask to mine somehow and use it as my witch.
> 
> 2 - The sound isn't great - does anybody have GOOD sound settings? I didn't go through all the combinations.
> 
> ALSO (maybe this is #3) - What about replacing the speakers? Can you pop in a different speaker? What would anyone recommend?
> 
> I was think about hiding a powered computer speaker under the witches dress - but didn't know if this was dangerous.
> 
> Actually hoping for a "How To"
> 
> :^)
> Thanks!


Heres your answer to #1
http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=7251


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## Desmodus

I'm sure you've still got an impedance mismatch happening here though - microphone input is not the same level as line-in- you could be risking damage, possibly, to Boris over long term use, but then again, for $20... not a big deal.
I don't know the quick fix for the impedance mismatch offhand, but I'm sure there are adapters around.
Just food for thought.


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## oct31man

Desmodus said:


> The only thing about the Big Lots Boris (and I bought one a few days ago) is that the skull itself looks like a gimmick: you need to hide this Boris's head in a hood or something. It does work well though, at least. Hard to complain for $20.
> 
> On that note, does anyone know how to hack the older, traditional Boris from wireless to wired? I have the old wireless version but the selectivity of the FM receiver is so poor it constantly picks up garbage noise, ruining the effect. I really just want to cut the receiver out and make it a regular wired version.
> 
> Thanks


Oops, just realized you were referring to wireless, sorry!


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## Brad Green

Edwood, you should be able to hack the internal speaker by soldering two leads onto the existing ones and running them to a set of cheap amplified computer speakers. I use this to amplify those little scream boxes for my props. I've included a link to Wolfstone that details this a little better.

http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/HalloweenTech/audscr_ScreamBox.html


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## Brad Green

Okay, that one didn't take you to the exact page. Go into the Extreme Halloween header and look for "Scream Box" under audio. It's really a simple modification and should solve your problem.


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## edwood saucer

There is something about a "correction" posted by a Dracula Avatar that I get a subtle kick out of.


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## Death Wraith

First, thanks for the super easy hack. My uneducated (not dumb) question is which wire goes where into the 1/8" plug? When I cut off the microphone I'm looking at a few strands of copper wire and one sheated strand of wire. The plug has two spots for soldering. What do I place where?

DW


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## slimy

There are no dumb questions. Only dumb answers. And that is what you are going to get here. (just kidding)

I've had several replies for an actual how to, and if I can get the wife to download pics, I will post something in the 'how to' section. Until that time, here goes: Cut the cord. Strip back about three fourths of an inch. Take the stranded wire, wind it together and solder it to the longest terminal on the jack ( the one with strain relief for the wire) then strip back the red wire and solder that to the terminal in the middle of the jack. Squeeze the strain relief together, put the cover back on the plug, and in minutes, you are done. 

Again, I will try to get some pics together and post an actual how to this weekend. 

Good luck.


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## Death Wraith

That answers my question! Going to work on it now.

Thanks!!


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## slightlymad

Okay after playing with Boris all day courtousy of Vlad I went out and purchased and quickly striped boris. Its not the speaker that sucks it is the chip. So definitly solder on the jack split the source to amplified speakers and all will be well.


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## Dark Lord

slightlymad said:


> Okay after playing with Boris all day courtousy of Vlad I went out and purchased and quickly striped boris. Its not the speaker that sucks it is the chip. So definitly solder on the jack split the source to amplified speakers and all will be well.


Thanx for the tech 411.Was wondering if the speaker or chip was the culprit.
For $20 bucks, i guess we weren't getting a gold toliet seat....... & now would you please put boris back together,we can't have a naked/striped boris running around this forum catching it's death of cold ! :googly:


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## Sickie Ickie

freezing to the bones.


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## Vlad

So during this hack, did you all disconnect the speaker that came with it?


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## Troy

I didn't (should have), I use small powere PC speakers and just run them from the Line Out jack of a CD Player, Borises go into the earphone jack.


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## Troy

I used Audacity for the voice overs but really not happy with the "scarey" aspect of the finished product. Got the left/right channels seperated without a issue, just not real happy with the finished product. Any tips to make the voices sound more menacing?


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## Hellspawn

Just bought another Boris today to finish my "whos on first" set, before I start altering my boris cosmetically, I want to disconnect the internal speaking completely, anyone know if I need to do anything other than just "snip" the speaker wire? do I need to add a resistor or anything? if so, anyone know what resistance I should use?


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## Death Wraith

I was wondering the same thing. I thought I had read there may be a possibility that snipping the speaker would disable the servo somehow. Electronics in the one thing I know the least about!


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## Dark Lord

You will disable the jaw as the speaker serves as an inductive load. I think Someone was going to try replacing the speaker with a resistor ( trading an inductive for a resistive load) haven't seen a update post on that yet & I haven't had time to play with mine yet,but following a few others trial & errors. Otaku has had some good insite as has others.Check this & Halloweenforum,between the two you should get all answers to get your Boris yaking the way you want.


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## scare-m

Ok..got my Boris, it is much cooler in person than I have initially thought.

How do I add a motion sensor to it so it only speaks when someone passes by?

There must be a switch that I can change to the little weird inbox demo "push to try" switch

Any ideas


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## edwood saucer

Is there any reason why you couldn't solder leads to a set of powered speaker to the internal speaker leaving it intact(and still connected)?

I'm glad I read this as I was going to snip them tomorrow - I may - and just resoldier if theres an issue.


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## Dark Lord

If you snip off the wires to the speaker the jaw will not operate & you need load as the speaker provides (inductive).
Check thru all the past posts here & try this link to a boris hack from the 1st version,from what I've heard the electronics are about the same.Wolfstone did alot of playing around with the 1st version boris,here is his site,
http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/HalloweenTech/anibor_BorisModifications.html
& http://www.deathlord.net/LaceratedLarry/lacer2.htm
As for motion sensored...... it is possible,but have it trigger your pre recording you would have to hack a message/recorder playback with a motion detector & set it to trigger recording (hacked-plugged in to boris)
http://www.deathlord.net/MotionTrigger/motion1.htm
http://www.deathlord.net/MotionTrigger/motion2.htm
http://www.unpleasantstreet.com/index.php?x=projects/2003/shaking_cage&y=main-04
http://www.vilethings.com/id44.htm
http://www.hauntedillinois.com/motion.php
Some reading for ya !


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## Dark Lord

edwood saucer said:


> Is there any reason why you couldn't solder leads to a set of powered speaker to the internal speaker leaving it intact(and still connected)?
> 
> I'm glad I read this as I was going to snip them tomorrow - I may - and just resoldier if theres an issue.


You can,but from what Slighltymad & Vlad said that the chip sucks,so you'd probably be better off hacking a pc power speakers & route the sound from the origin to aux speakers directly,unless you plan on using the voice changer......then come off the speaker terminals from the skull.


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## edwood saucer

I tell you what - I'm going for the cheap and easy splitter hack wolfstone describes. 

Thanks for the links DL.


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## slightlymad

I havent touched since my last post but that is more or less my plan. 
Disconnect the speaker leaving the chipp intact split an mp3 source from the microphone (one to the chip to work the jaw and one to a powered set of speakers) I donot plan on messing with changing th load R) on the speaker as it just doesnt seem worth the effort. The jaw needs clear sharp speach and music just seems to lock it in the full open position. The servo makes full turn and the jaw is in effect open and closed by a string.


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## edwood saucer

The only issue is that everything I've read or heard is that you take a risk disconnecting the speaker unless you bridge it with a "resistor?

So for what I'm planning - I'm just leaving the speaker intact. 

Also - regarding music - I have two witches incantations - and will probably use the one that has distinct pauses in between the words - so not to lock the jaw open.


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## edwood saucer

Okay - 10 minutes (6 of which letting the soldering iron warm up)

I snipped the mic and peeled away the wire coatings being careful to separate the ground from the live (not that it is hard - they are just thin)

soldered them to the 1/8" plug.

Plugged that into a splitter connected directly to an iPod shuffle.

Plugged my computer speakers into the open socket of the splitter.

Hit play and it worked fine*.

*I add the asterisk because of a couple issues and things to keep in mind.

1 - you need a track that is basically vocal only - the Boris picks up any background noise in the track - like boiling bubbles - and freeze the jaw open. Also - if some vocal levels are low - the jaw will sit closed not sensing anything.

2 - my speakers arent the best - so the more powerful the better.

I used the Witches Brew track from Haunti. BUT = I am going to take it into Garage band and see if I can't tweak the vocal to amplify it. 

If I can - I will let everyone know. The goal - which probably cant be attained without a re-recorded voice over - is a clean vocal only track.

On the Boris - we set it to "D" on the side toggles which is "Your Voice Amplified" - while it is not "Your Voice" per se - all that setting is doing is piping through whatever is played without adding any effects to it through the Boris circuitry.

More to come.


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## mem22

Just FYI: Before I read the whole thread I did cut one of the speaker wires and it didn't stop the servo from working but it absolutely reduced it's output dramatically. Needless to say, I soldered it back together.


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## Moon Dog

Just curious if this would work...

Disconnect the speaker, drill a hole in the back of the skull, install a 1/8" mini earphone jack, solder 
the speaker wires to the jack, then plug in your amplified computer speakers to said jack.

Just thinking outloud here...


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## Kurt

Be careful making assumptions about this new boris as opposed to the version Wolfstone wrote about. This is a newer version that is significantly different that the battery requirements have changed.

The "servor" that moves the jaw is just a small electric motor that winds up some string that pulls a plastic lever that moves the jaw. A small spring pulls the jaw closed again.

THe speaker is an 8 ohm 0.5W speaker.

Looking at the connections, the motor and the speaker seem to be on isolated on the circuit board. One terminal of the speaker is connected directly to -ve terminal of the battery back. THe positive is DC isolated via a 100 uf capacitor. I'm not knowledgable enough to trace it much further than that.

However, it does seem that the speaker is more or less isolated from motor.

If I had time, I'm fire up the old soldering iron and disconnect the speaker (I don't want to take the cutter to the wire just yet) to see what happens (sorry mem32, I didn't fully understand what you were saying about your experience).

I can't play with this thing until I get back in town from a work trip. 2 wks..I don't know if I'm gonna make it!

I want to run two boris's (or is that just Borii?) on seperate channels and have them chat. 

If I can't drive speakers using the existing wires (which I think is a long shot since the system is driving an 8ohm speaker, but Line-IN for speakers expects something like 100ohms), I might just put a Y splitter and run one set of lines up to the boris and another to the speakers. This is still splitting the resistence which will have the affect of halving the resistence as perceived by the play (I think... resistence in parallel???), but it might work.

Happy hunting. I"ll check back in two weeks to see if anyone has a good Boris II hack solution.

Warlock


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## haunted_hallow

very simple hack... worked great.. I got two of them connected with 1/8 phone plug as others described with left/right channel for the joking boris.. using a cd player with both line-out and headphone input (one to 2 skulls other to computer speakers)


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## scare-m

Haunted Hallow

Got a on couple questions on the 2 headed Boris hack.

I thought these 2 Boris started via motion sensors, is this correct?

If so arent you encountering problems with the audio being activiated mid sentence by the props? I am guessing you would have the CD player on a loop otherwise you would consistently need someone to press play to activate the sound at the start.

If this is the case, the other set of speakers coming out of the splitter on the cd player must also be playing the vocal loop even when the Boris hasnt been activated by the motion sensor.

Can you please elaborate?

thanks


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## Hellspawn

Scare-m,

The borises are not motion activated, the application im planning on using just has them on continuous loop playing the "whos on first" routine.

They will continue to play/talk all night untill I manuall turn them off.

There is a way to make them motion activated with a sensor and a audio chip that will restart everytime the recorded audio ends, then rest for a specified time before being able to be activated again.

id love to get into that kind of stuff someday, I just dont have the time or money right now to do it.


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## Dark Lord

Hellspawn, how about a twist on that with who's on the 1st slab?
http://www.goblinville.com/pages/wri...hosonfirst.htm
Scroll down to bottom for download skit.


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## Sickie Ickie

I get a 404 Valdemort...er...darklord


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## haunted_hallow

scare-m, as hellspawn pointed out the borises are not motion activated... I was planing to do the cd player on loop play mode just on halloween day. I don't know any high tech way to make them motion activated but I may use motion detector light thingy and attach cd player power adapter to that and set the time to stay on for couple of minutes or so once it's activated..I haven't tested it out if this will work on or not because I'm not sure If my cd player will start playing the first track automatically as it's turned on by motion sensor.. I may soon post a link to a video of my progress so far .. I'm in the middle of getting them rest of the body as they'll be sitting on the chair playing poker and telling jokes..


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## Dark Lord

Sickie Ickie said:


> I get a 404 Valdemort...er...darklord


???? er,404 Valdemort....?....(brain flop)
So have you seen a doctor for this ?! or is that a new IRS audit type.....


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## Hellspawn

404 page not found error....


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## Hellspawn

http://www.goblinville.com/pages/writings/misc/whosonfirst.htm

I think I found it

**yep, thats it, thats the one I am using.


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## Dark Lord

Sometimes i do a copy 'n paste site address & it isn't correct.:googly: ...? oh well,glad you found it,i used it last year.Great off shoot of the original for halloween.


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## Big Howlin

Man I want one so bad but can seem to find one in Canada.


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## BudMan

ok, don't know what I did wrong. soldered on the 1/8" plug. if I hook Boris to the head phone jack on the computer, he works fine. if I put the splitter in and plug him into the splitter, nothing. I get sound from the power speakers though. Any advice?


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## BudMan

Scratch that, the splitter that they gave me was actually to take a stereo signal and make it mono, got the right one now and it works!


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## edwood saucer

Regarding the Boris head...

I am trying to figure out a way to stick my hacked boris head on a witch I'm building using ScareFX's witch/cauldron project as a base. (you can find that here: http://www.scarefx.com/project_witch.html)

So - the head will turn and move it's jaw and speak.

But it's not as easy as drilling a big hole in the base of the skull as I may damage electronic parts.

Any thoughts or ideas? Thanks!


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## CraigInPA

I bought three of these, and immediately noticed the difference between the old version and the new version. Saved me a lot of work when I built and installed the 6v power supply boards inside the heads. 

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the addition of a 100mfd capacitor on the input line, which was absolutely necessary on the last version. The last version had a microphone that required voltage on those two wires and the capacitor cut it out to allow a regular line level input. I installed the cap in the new ones, just in case, but now I'm wondering if it was actually not necessary?

Also, I'm wondering what value potentiometer to put on the line input so I can adjust the volume going to the skull independent of the volume of the audio? Too low an input, and the amp connected in parallel just can't generate enough sound. Too high an input, and the mouth just hangs open.


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## Long_Tom

From what people are describing as to these being a new mechanism, are these the same basic mechanism as the new Gemmy linked talking skulls? (Two skulls connected by a 6foot cord, that talk to one another.) You can get that prop for $19.99, which gives you two skulls to work with for the price.

From the pictures, the following three props all seem to be based on the same "skull with moving jaw" mechanism:
http://www.gemmy.com/product.cfm?productId=27477&subCatId=298&parent=41
http://www.gemmy.com/product.cfm?productId=29271&subCatId=298&parent=41
http://www.gemmy.com/product.cfm?productId=27445&subCatId=298&parent=41


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## slimy

Long Tom, not only do all of those have the same mechanical jaw, they are all the exact same skull. The problem is that the Boris is only one that will accept an input from something other than the sound chip that comes with the skulls.

You have to use the 'toy motor circuit' to hack the others.

See this thread:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=6652

Read the responses, you will see only marginal success with that circuit.

The Boris hack needs NO extra electronic gizmos. Read the responses. Boris is SOOOO much easier to deal with.


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## Shakes

I've been working on a brain transplant between the Boris and the moving eyeball gemmy skull long john is talking about. The boris was an easy hack for sound input. I believe the eyeball moving skull has pre-programmed jaw movement - which is why I didn't purchase the skulls that talk to each other figuring they used the same technology. If they used a simular chip, it will not be hackable for sound input like boris. If it works I'll have a talking moving eyeball skull. Total cost $20 for boris $10 for moving eyeball gemmy - $30.


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## Sickie Ickie

I'll be following your progress closely shakes, so keep postin'!


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## Shakes

I've completed the brain transplant! Ha HA Ha (anyone know how to type a maniacle laugh??)

I had to use both cards from the skullsl connected to the same batteries (I will be making it AC soon). It took a little time, but I'm very happy with the results. I can run my MP3 player through the moving eyeball skull and it does look cool while it talks. The moving eyes are a little loud though. You can watch it here (it is running just one half of the abbot & costello who's on first slab routine) > 




This has left poor Boris completely labotamized. I think I'll light his eyes with a 9v battery and just sit him somewhere. Below is a picture of the finished lobotamy just before I put wire caps on and closed it up. 








:zombie:


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## Dr Morbius

Nice transplant! So If I have this straight, you used the boris card for talking/jaw input, and the original card for eye movement?


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## Moon Dog

Nice job Shakes!


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## Shakes

Dr Morbius said:


> Nice transplant! So If I have this straight, you used the boris card for talking/jaw input, and the original card for eye movement?


Yes, Doctor E. Morbius. The actual talking/moving of the jaw (from the Boris card) triggers the sound sensor on the other card which moves the eyeball for 4 seconds. It creates random starts and stops of the eyes.
:zombie:


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## daveo1101

Awesone job everyone. Tried last night and for the most part it works but seems to miss some of the input - need to pop Boris's head open to make sure line is connected ok internally...

But was a hoot having him (her) sing Leanne Rhymes version of "Blue"


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## marcus132

CraigInPA said:


> One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the addition of a 100mfd capacitor on the input line, which was absolutely necessary on the last version. The last version had a microphone that required voltage on those two wires and the capacitor cut it out to allow a regular line level input. I installed the cap in the new ones, just in case, but now I'm wondering if it was actually not necessary?


I am wondering this too. I just picked up a new-style, wired Boris, and I want to hack a phono plug onto it. Do I need to add a capacitor to keep from damaging my audio source?

I'm knowledgeable enough to follow the directions and solder the wires, but not enough to know what they actually *mean*. ;-)

Thanks!


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## heresjohnny

Hey everyone, finally hacked my boris tonight. Forgive me if I am repeating any information here.

1. Used 1 powered computer speaker, the one with the volume and power plug on it (I didn't use the second speaker that plugs into the one with the volume). Stripped the covering insulation about a foot up from mini phono plug that plus into the source. Mine had three conductors, a bare copper shield, a red insulated and a white insulated. Found out which wire carries the signal for the second speaker (the one I am not using) and cut it, for me it was the white wire. The speaker should still work.

2. Cut the mic wire from the boris (about a foot away from the mic) stripped about an inch off the wire exposing a copper conductor and an insulated red wire. stripped about a half inch from the red wire.

3. Spliced the red wire from the mic to a 100uf capacitor, and the other end of the 100uf cap to the red wire on the phono plug. Spliced the bare copper from the mic to the bare copper on the phono plug. Plug the phono plug in and test the boris. I don't know if you NEED the cap, but if there is a line level voltage present for the amp, the cap should take care of it.

4. I can't stand the speaker on the boris, especially the way it cuts in and out as it opens the jaw. The technique described for the old boris on wolfstone worked for me on the new boris. I only had 27 ohm resistors at hand and I tested several combinations. Cutting the wires to the internal boris speaker caused the jaw to just quiver. 27 ohm resistor connected to the speaker wires and the jaw would open when the speaking started, and close when the speaking stopped, with no movement in between. 13.5 ohms (2 27ohm resistors in parallel) and 9 ohms (3 27 ohm resistors in parallel) gave good jaw movement. I imagine based on this that a 10 ohm would do just fine.

5. To use this set up, simply plug in the phono plug to the headphone jack of your favorite source, place the powered speaker near the boris head, and turn on the boris. Adjust the volume on the source to get the desired jaw movement (you will not hear anything from the boris speaker, sweet!). Then adjust the powered speaker volume for listening level. This lets adjust for the jaw movement and sound level independently.

I am currently recording some ghost stories, leaving the channel that drives the boris clean, and adding some effects to the channel that will be played on the powered speaker. I will post pictures of the final prop when it's done. I am also planning on placing some felt to stop the loud 'clap' when the jaws close.

A big thanks to Slimy for starting this thread!


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## Sickie Ickie

Very creative! Nicely done


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## heresjohnny

Heres a vid of my hacked boris, showing how easy it is to control the jaw movement and volume separately, without dealing with the crappy internal Boris speaker. It 4 meg, but hey, how often do you get to see a boris singing Ozzie? http://johnnyspage.com/video/SG_movie1.wmv


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## slimy

Boris would do nicely as a fill in singer for Sabbath's four hundredth reunion tour.


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## joker

I have a "NEW" style Boris and am wanting to just add external speakers to make him louder. I want to be able to use the microphone input. My son's prop and the sounds in the maze pretty much drowned him out. I don't know if I can get enough volume out of my PC speakers, but it sounds like it.

My only problem is that by connecting the pc speakers to the original speaker wire terminals I get no jaw movement. I have not cut anything, nor soldered anything. I just held the wires to the terminals to see if it would work and noticed no jaw movement.

Any ideas? Did i miss something in this thread??

Trying to get this to work for my 7 year old for tomorrow night. Any and all help will be greatly apprciated. Thanks in advance!!


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## joker

Ok i think i got it figured out. I was using all 4 wires and apparently that was drastically changing something. After using just 2 wires for the single speaker with the volume I managed to get the lights, jaw, and external speaker to work. 
By running the original speaker and external speaker simultaneously will this damage the Boris unit. Honestly if it just works through tomorrow night I'll be fine with that.

TIA


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## heresjohnny

joker said:


> I have a "NEW" style Boris and am wanting to just add external speakers to make him louder. I want to be able to use the microphone input. My son's prop and the sounds in the maze pretty much drowned him out. I don't know if I can get enough volume out of my PC speakers, but it sounds like it.
> 
> My only problem is that by connecting the pc speakers to the original speaker wire terminals I get no jaw movement. I have not cut anything, nor soldered anything. I just held the wires to the terminals to see if it would work and noticed no jaw movement.
> 
> Any ideas? Did i miss something in this thread??
> 
> Trying to get this to work for my 7 year old for tomorrow night. Any and all help will be greatly apprciated. Thanks in advance!!


Joker, you need 8-10 ohms across the leads that go to the internal speaker in the Boris, either by the internal speaker, or some combination of speakers and resistors. At this late hour I would suggest putting a mic up to the boris speaker and amplifying that. Not sure you can use an amplified signal (i.e. the wires to the internal boris speaker) to feed into a powered speaker. If adding the powered speaker gives you the sound you need, you might add a very small resistor (10 ohms) in series with the speakers (boris and external powered connected in paralled). Be warned, I'm just guessing here, this could fry everything


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## joker

hj thanks for the input. So far so good. 

Like you said its late. I wasn't thinking about ambient sound near the placement of Boris and my son is very eager to use him tomorrow night. I was able to get the volume he needed by basically connecting the input wires for the amplified pc speaker to the tabs on the Boris speaker.

Since I really don't know for sure and its working currently we'll just cross our fingers and use it for the haunt as long as it lasts. Besides it'll be a good test.

I'm attaching him to our spider victim just opposite the wall in our maze where my son will be hiding. I'll try and post some pics tomorrow.

Thanks again


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## Montclair

slimy said:


> Long Tom, not only do all of those have the same mechanical jaw, they are all the exact same skull. The problem is that the Boris is only one that will accept an input from something other than the sound chip that comes with the skulls.
> 
> You have to use the 'toy motor circuit' to hack the others.
> 
> See this thread:
> 
> http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=6652
> 
> Read the responses, you will see only marginal success with that circuit.
> 
> The Boris hack needs NO extra electronic gizmos. Read the responses. Boris is SOOOO much easier to deal with.


I had great success with that circuit. I used it to hack a douglas fir talking tree last year. I found the best way to use that circuit is to create a recording with audio on one channel, and beep tones matching the words you want the prop to say on the other. Feed the speaker output of the beep tones to the circuit and let the other speaker play the audio. Works like a charm.

On the Boris front, I thought these were discontinued and had been bummed since mine developed issues after 3 Halloweens of use -- but I ran across two of them sitting in a pile of leftovers just last week at Big Lots, and at a whopping 75% off! Ya just can't beat a Boris, especially for $7.50, so I grabbed both of them!


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## Otaku

You use that trick, too! Works great for me, as well. I use an ST100 servo board and it tends to drive the motor full on, so I tweak the beeps to control length, amplitude and decay. Makes that skull come alive (as much as a simple jaw-flapper can, anyway), especially when laughing.



Montclair said:


> I had great success with that circuit. I used it to hack a douglas fir talking tree last year. I found the best way to use that circuit is to create a recording with audio on one channel, and beep tones matching the words you want the prop to say on the other. Feed the speaker output of the beep tones to the circuit and let the other speaker play the audio. Works like a charm.


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## Otaku

I finished hacking a couple of Bori this week. I have pics of the resistor, cap and pot installation. I'm gonna have a lot of fun with these guys!

http://halloweengallery.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3761

http://halloweengallery.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3760

Later - added pics of the splitter cable and adapter I used to attach a $5 MP3 player to the Bori. The player will run both Bori and a set of powered computer speakers. The above links will take you to the pics. This setup should work for any sound source that has a single stereo output.


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## Vlad

Just speaking for myself. This thread is very frustrating. As someone who has no background in electronics, it's very difficult to actually hack one of these without a how to that matches pics with instructions step by step. Did I miss it somewhere? Has anyone actually taken the time to show step by step the process using both pics and words? Not just pics, and not just descriptions. To me, a pic without a description added to it is just a pile of wiring.


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## dave the dead

Vlad said:


> Just speaking for myself. This thread is very frustrating. As someone who has no background in electronics, it's very difficult to actually hack one of these without a how to that matches pics with instructions step by step. Did I miss it somewhere? Has anyone actually taken the time to show step by step the process using both pics and words? Not just pics, and not just descriptions. To me, a pic without a description added to it is just a pile of wiring.


Vlad, I am electrically challenged as well, but have found the creative process here fascinating....HeresJohnny has a nice how-to with pix and descriptions that I was able to follow and complete successfully, and with that basic knowledge I have been able to (just barely) follow what Otaku has put together. I will be attempting Otaku's two-boris hack pretty soon...hopefully it will go well.


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## Otaku

The hack I used was kind of a mix of the various methods described in this and other threads. It really is easy to do, with minimal soldering and drilling one hole. Jeff at FE asked me if I wanted to write up the process so he can post it on his site. I'll send him a file after Xmas. The hack is the same for one Boris or many - making them talk together by using a stereo MP3 file is all done after the hack, and is just a matter of having the proper splitter cable and adapter.


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## heresjohnny

Vlad said:


> Just speaking for myself. This thread is very frustrating. As someone who has no background in electronics, it's very difficult to actually hack one of these without a how to that matches pics with instructions step by step. Did I miss it somewhere? Has anyone actually taken the time to show step by step the process using both pics and words? Not just pics, and not just descriptions. To me, a pic without a description added to it is just a pile of wiring.


Thanks Dave! Vlad, let me know if this helps, and what can be done better.
http://johnnyspage.com/borishowto.htm


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## Otaku

I put together a PDF of the hack I used. It's a combination of the work that HJ, Diabolik, and CraigInPA have posted here and on HalloweenForum. There's just a couple of pics, but the text is easy to follow and I put callouts on the pics to show the various components. If any are interested, please let me know.


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## dave the dead

Otaku said:


> I put together a PDF of the hack I used. It's a combination of the work that HJ, Diabolik, and CraignPA have posted here and on HalloweenForum. There's just a couple of pics, but the text is easy to follow and I put callouts on the pics to show the various components. If any are interested, please let me know.


Of course we are interested! Bring it on!


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## Otaku

OK, I was able to get the PDF uploaded and attached to this post. Let me know if there are any questions.


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## Gothyc Designs

Has anyone tried hacking these like a boris. http://www.gemmy.com/product.cfm?productId=21251 by looking at the insides I'm thinking it may be possible, but was curious before I started doing it. I have 2 of these and am thinking of making some talking sconces or a talking chandelier.

Its hard finding the boris talking skulls. I check everywhere and I'm in a metro area, someone has to have them during the season. but unless I get a late start than I think I am in looking. Who knows. so this is the closest thing that I could think of that matches.

Any help or pointed towards link or sites that does this would be great.

Later,
Gothyc Designs


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## turtle2778

Check out www.hauntiholik.com She used those type of heads last year in her haunt as a chandelier. It turned out great. Check on here if you are looking for some. Just put on a post in the wanted section someone should have a few.


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## Otaku

Mroct31 is selling talk-thru Boris skulls in the Classified section. Don't know if he has any left, though.


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## marcus132

Last year I put a phono plug onto my Boris to make him Internet enabled, but I didn't have time to do any of the other performance-enhancing hacks from this thread.

I just did them all, and now my Boris is totally juiced! Thanks to all of you who contributed your know-how to this thread. This year my long-distance Boris is going to rock! :jol:


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