Hackababy

The hardware hack was a simple affair of placing one of those radio-on-a-chip devices into a large set of earphones that had been cord mangled.

Now, whilst I'd love nothing better than to be an Electronic Engineer, I'm a lot "Softer", so lack the basic skills that most EE's learn in first year. Soooo, it took me a lot longer, as I puzzled out the basic circuitry, committed the great sins of lifting tracks and cooking components. Luckily the chip was a hardy Philips TDA7088T and it survived.

Strangely enough the mangled result seemed determined to work and hummed into life first time round. The only issue I have is that I wired the on/off switch directly to the battery, and it seems this baby needs juice to keep the tuning. I'll fix that when I change from battery to capacitor power.

The kids were overjoyed and now run around happily listening to Classical music or whatever the wayward tuning decides to play.

I'm just happy that I finally got to scratch this particular itch. Now that I've worked out what tools and gadgets I need on my workbench, I can look forward to more ambitious projects.