# New Talking Boris Hack How-To



## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

Here is my basic How-to for my Boris skulls. 

Just a quick note: I built this with the intention of driving Boris from a LINE LEVEL signal. This setup has been tested successfully using the line out of a PC sound card and also the line out of a portable CD player. Many of the other hacks are using variable or amplified sources such as headphone jacks or tapping into amplified computer speakers. The main benefit of doing it this way is that you are not limited by the volume of your amplified audio output. You can turn your speakers up as loud as you want without ever having to adjust Boris. 

List of Materials: 

1 New Style Talking Boris

1 10K linear taper potentiometer RS# 271-1715 
(an audio taper pot of the same value will work as well)

1 10 Ohm 1 watt resistor RS# 271-151

1 100 micro farad 35WVDC axial lead electrolytic capacitor RS# 272-1016

1 1/8 inch stereo phone jack RS# 274-249

about 2 or 3 inches of wire. 20-22 gauge should suffice. 

Modifying Boris: 

Step 1 : Remove the 4 screws on the back of Boris' head. Carefully separate the 2 halves. There is not a whole lot of wire to work with.









Step 2 : I removed the 2 screws that hold the voice changer controls to the rear section of the skull. By doing this it gives you a bit more slack on the wiring and makes it much easier to move around in there. 

Step 3 : Locate the internal speaker at the rear of the skull and carefully cut the 2 Gray speaker wires (as close to the speaker as possible). Do Not remove the speaker. The pad on the back of it acts as a stop for his jaw, and if you remove it, his teeth will hit when he operates and it creates a very annoying sound. 









Step 4 : Carefully strip back about 3/8" of insulation on each of the Gray wires that went to the speaker. I would suggest you try to use something like needle nose pliers to hold the wires as you strip them so you do not rip them from the circuit board. Solder one wire to each end of your 10 ohm reisistor. 









Step 5 : Use some electrical tape to cover all of the exposed leads on the resistor. You can now re-install the voice changer control panel. Make sure to place the resistor out of the way of the jaw mechanism. You can now reassemble Boris. 









Step 6: Cut off the Microbone. I cut mine just outside the housing figuring it gives me almost 15 feet of included cable to work with. Strip back about 2 inches of the black insulation from the cord. Separate the red wire and braided conductor. 

Step 7: Solder the red wire coming from Boris to the "+" positive side of the capacitor. Solder the "-" negative side of the capacitor to the center lead of the potentiometer. 

Step 8: Solder the unisulated wire coming from Boris to Pin 3 (if you are using the RS part) otherwise it would be the pin that goes to the tip of your audio jack. 

Step 9 solder a small length of wire from Pin 1 (if you are using the RS part) otherwise the pin going to the outer ring of the jack to either side of your potentiometer. Make sure you tape everything on the input up so there is no chance of the wires touching. 

It should look something like this.









Have fun !! You will find that it takes a bit of tweaking depending on the source, and even the file used from that source. 

If you have any questions, please let me know. 

Diabolik

[url=http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e130/astreamk1/Halloween%2007/?action=view&current=Boris007.flv][/URL]


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Thanks for the pics, Diabolik - very easy to follow. When working with the ST100 Cow board (no ISD), and using it to drive a servo, I found that I could get much better control over the servo by not using the spoken words to run it. I used Goldwave to insert a 440 kHz signal on one stereo track, and broke it up to match the words on the spoken track. So the left channel has the spoken words that go to the speakers, and the right channel has a bunch of modified "beeps" that go to the servo. You can move these beeps around easily and control the length, amplitude and decay of each beep. It worked very well for dialing in the jaw servo on the Reaper and it's not as tedious as it sounds. I plan to try this out on a Boris. Of course, this only works with a stereo sound source. I can send a demo file of this method to any who are interested. PM me with an email.


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

I've found that adding the capacitor inside the skull, which requires unsoldering the red wire from the circuit board and soldering the + end of the capacitor in its place and attaching the now unconnected red wire to the - end of the capacitor , yields a more "bullet proof" installation. The radial lead cap tucks in nicely along the bottom of the board once the board is re-installed in the skull. The wire itself is knotted as a strain relief. So, once it's installed, it's good to go, not even any extra insulation required.

I also cut the end of the micro-bone wire at the microbone end, but I put a phono plug directly on it. That way, I can run an external potentiometer that can adjust the volume on multiple bori connected in parallel. For this purpose, I an 8 rca jack board RS# 274-370. I connect all the ring connectors together, and all but the top right tip connectors together. That yields 7 parallel jacks on an 8 jack board. The top right tip contact I wire to one outside lug of the 10K pot, and the inside lug of that same pot I wire to the tip contact shared among the other 7 jacks. By putting the input into the top right connector, I can adjust the volume on all of the other skulls with the one 10k pot. There's a gotcha, however, with this approach. it assumes that each boris is connected with a similar length of wire from the jack board. If you have some that are much farther away, you'll have issues with them because the extra length of wire adds to the overall resistance. In that case, you'll want to have individual pots for those on very long lengths of wire. I haven't found this to be a problem in my case, since I positioned all of my skulls within a space that didn't require me to add any extra wire to the original 15' that boris came with.

The next time I build a power supply board, I'll shoot some pics to add to this thread, so you can see how to put it inside without fouling the jaw movement.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

I'm planning to hack a pair of these shortly. I'm going to mount the 10K pots and the audio jacks in the side of the skulls for easy access and cable attachment. Just curious - did the 10K pot work well for adjusting the jaw action, or is a different range preferred?


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

I used a 10K audio taper pot, run from a composite audio source (my pc), and the results were completely satisfactory. If you choose to run from another source with higher output levels, you will need a higher value pot.

Mount the jack and pot on the back under the speaker, taking care not to foul the jaw movement that uses the speaker as a stop. No sense in having the pot stem and plug protruding from a visible area when you can hide it around back! Also, leaving the area opposite the circuit board open allows you to later add a 6v power supply board there, after you get tired of changing the batteries.


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## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

Otaku said:


> I'm planning to hack a pair of these shortly. I'm going to mount the 10K pots and the audio jacks in the side of the skulls for easy access and cable attachment. Just curious - did the 10K pot work well for adjusting the jaw action, or is a different range preferred?


I was able to adjust the jaw fairly well using both the output of the PC's audio card and the line out of a portable CD player utilizing the 10k linear pot. The Cowlacious board was the only setup that really gave me no adjustment. 

I have a 50k sitting on my desk that I haven't had a chance to try. I'll try to get on it this weekend and post my results. 

Also, I bought a female cable end type phone jack to use on the Mic cord. That way I can still utilize the 15 foot of wire that comes with Boris. 

I am going to mount the pot and cap internally while I am in there too.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Thanks for the info! I will be using a portable CD player for the sound source. The Line Out volume doesn't respond to adjustments of the Headphone Out volume control (no surprise there). Hopefully the Line Out will have enough power to handle both Borii. I'm going to try wiring the jaw motors to the Line Out and using the pots to dial in the jaw motion, and plug in some computer speakers to the Headphone Out.


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## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

Otaku said:


> Thanks for the info! I will be using a portable CD player for the sound source. The Line Out volume doesn't respond to adjustments of the Headphone Out volume control (no surprise there). Hopefully the Line Out will have enough power to handle both Borii. I'm going to try wiring the jaw motors to the Line Out and using the pots to dial in the jaw motion, and plug in some computer speakers to the Headphone Out.



I did find that the line out jack on my portable discman was a little bit hotter than the output of the PC sound card. If you are planning to split is between 2 Boris, then Iwould think using the 10k pot on each will suffice.


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

Diabolik said:


> I did find that the line out jack on my portable discman was a little bit hotter than the output of the PC sound card. If you are planning to split is between 2 Boris, then Iwould think using the 10k pot on each will suffice.


If your discman has higher output than 1v peak to peak (composite standard), you'll need a higher value pot. If you connect two bori to it, each with a 10k pot, you're not getting any additive resistance unless you hook the bori up in series to each other. If you connect them in parallel, you take the cumulative resistance and divide it in half. It's better to run the audio into one pot, and split the output of that pot into two (or more) parallel inputs for the bori. As long as you keep use the same length of wire between the pot and each boris, it works perfectly.


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## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

CraigInPA said:


> If your discman has higher output than 1v peak to peak (composite standard), you'll need a higher value pot. If you connect two bori to it, each with a 10k pot, you're not getting any additive resistance unless you hook the bori up in series to each other. If you connect them in parallel, you take the cumulative resistance and divide it in half. It's better to run the audio into one pot, and split the output of that pot into two (or more) parallel inputs for the bori. As long as you keep use the same length of wire between the pot and each boris, it works perfectly.


Sorry, I was thinking about the premise on splitting left and right channels between 2 Boris (thus 2 pots). Only thing I noticed was with the CD player, I had less control over Boris. He was just a little bit to the hot side, and his jaw hung just a bit too long at times. a 20k pot would probably be sufficient to curb this I would think ? I could not obtain one locally, so I grabbed a 50K. Mi intent is to use him with the Cowlacious board ultimately, and it is way hot right now.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

CraigInPA said:


> If your discman has higher output than 1v peak to peak (composite standard), you'll need a higher value pot. If you connect two bori to it, each with a 10k pot, you're not getting any additive resistance unless you hook the bori up in series to each other. If you connect them in parallel, you take the cumulative resistance and divide it in half. It's better to run the audio into one pot, and split the output of that pot into two (or more) parallel inputs for the bori. As long as you keep use the same length of wire between the pot and each boris, it works perfectly.


That sounds like a very workable configuration, Craig. The additional parts (caps, pot and a couple of mono jacks for the outputs) could be mounted in a small project box that is plugged in between the CD player Line Out and the Bori.

Later: I wonder if locating the caps further away from the Boris board would pose any problems? Typically the best place for a cap is as close as possible to the component, such as when using a cap across a DC power bus.


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## Vlad (Nov 2, 2003)

Whoa. This is a how to for people who already know how to do it, lol. I'll have to start from scratch and look up what each of these parts like the potentiometer do, before I can fathom any of this!


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## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

Vlad said:


> Whoa. This is a how to for people who already know how to do it, lol. I'll have to start from scratch and look up what each of these parts like the potentiometer do, before I can fathom any of this!


Vlad, actually all the parts are readily availible from Radio Shack thus the RS # on them . There are variations on this hack obviously, but I gave all of the part #'s used for that particular skull. I think it was about $6 worth of parts and everything except the potentiometer came as a 2 pack. 

As soon as I get some time, I'll finish Boris 2.0 and post some pictures.


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

Mounting the caps inside your project box is the same as mounting it inside boris itself. 

The reason it's the same is that it's hooked in-line with one side of the circuit. No matter where in the line it goes, it will do its job of filtering voltage. If you were using it across both lines of the circuit, as you would be in a power supply application, you need to move it closer to the voltage source, since you're actually then using it to clip stray voltage ripples and smooth the voltage sine wave. The additional wire between the source and the cap, in that case, adds resistance, which limits the ability for the cap to do its task effectively. 

The 2 electronic parts in the boris hack are used as follows:
potentiometer-a variable resistor which is used to adjust the volume from the audio source to make the jaw movement of Boris optimal. If you eliminate this part, you will have to adjust your audio source volume. If your audio source has an adjustable composite audio jack, you're fine. If your audio source does not have an adjustable composite audio jack (like many disc players and stereo devices), or your audio source only has a "headphone" connection (which is higher voltage than composite audio), you need to add the potentiometer. A composite audio plug has a 1 volt peak to peak (+1v to -1v) signal. Boris has a "sweet spot", giving the best jaw movement, around the middle of that range.

capacitor-also called a "choke", this is is used to filter out the DC voltage created by Boris. Originally, Boris came with a microphone that required DC voltage to operate. When you hack Boris to put in a direct audio jack connection, you need to remove this voltage. You do so by installing the capacitor.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Cool. Thanks, Craig! My plan is to use the Line Out on a CD player to run the two Borii by splitting the stereo signal into two monos, with one voice track on each channel. The Line Out volume is constant, so I'll use a stereo volume control (R/S 271-1732) to adjust both channels simultaneously and dial in the jaw action. The Headphone Out will go the computer speakers. I'll skip the project box and just use a short splitter cable on the Line Out and attach the 1/8" mono plugs on the Boris wires. The caps can live in the skulls.


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

The dual ganged potentiometer, Radio Shack 271-1732, is 100K. That's really too much resistance for this use. If you use the 100K pot, you won't really have fine control over the jaw movement. You probably will have to use two 271-1721 (10K audio taper) pots instead. 

None of the RS pots are sealed for harsh environmental use. So, if you decide to skip the project box, encase them in a plastic bag, layers of electrical tape, or something to protect them from water and dirt.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Yeah, I was wondering if the value of that pot would be too high. Serves me right for trying to get off cheap LOL! The two 10K Ω pot config is fine - perhaps I can mount them in the side of the skulls. The plan for the Borii is to make a pair of talking witches, so the heads will be modified and shrouded and will hide the pots. The weather in Northern CA has been very nice on Halloween (crosses fingers and knocks wood) so water shouldn't be an issue.


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

Hey Otaku, how is your mod working. I too am planning on wiring mono plugs to the Borises... Boris'... Bori? I wanted to plug these in turn to each end of a splitter I modified. The female jacks are mono and they both connect to a stereo headphone style plug, one for right, one for left channels. The splitter works great, even with my god-awful soldering job.

My first question would be... is there an advantage to plugging these into line out instead of headphone out? I was thinking headphone to allow me to use the volume control on the player to adjust the movement, and line out for my powered speakers, because they have their own volume control. Would this set up allow me to bypass the pots on to the Bori?

I still plan on installing the resistors and caps as suggested.


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

If you plug into "headphone out", you need to be very careful that you don't send excessive power to Boris. If you're running from a walkman, you should be able to adjust the volume to produce an optimum jaw movement, because the walkman doesn't generate huge amounts of power to its headphones. If you're running from a 150 watt per channel stereo, you have so much power there that you would be using only a tiny sliver of the volume control, which makes adjustment very difficult. And, the potential that if you accidentally turned the volume too high, you'd fry Boris. 

Better, IMO, to spend the extra $2.99 on the pot and run from the line out than having the constant danger of accidentally burning out Boris by bumping the volume too high.

There's enough space to mount the potentiometer below the speaker to one side, so that it will stick out closer to the back of the neck. You could also consider using a trimmer pot (R/S 271-343), which is tiny enough to mount inside. Hot glue it in place, and drill a tiny hole in Boris's head to get to the adjustment screw. Alternatively, you could also glue it on the outside (to keep water out, mount with adjust screw pointing down or put a blob of plumbers putty on it), since it's so tiny.


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

Thanks again for the help Craig. I plan on running primarily off my minidisc player (read portable) but iff there is any chance at all of frying my Bori I will add the pots and run off the line out. 

Had another question about the jack Diabolik used... it appears to be a female connector. There is no problem with me using the male monos, right?


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

I suspect Diabolik used a jack because he had a plug-to-plug cable available. 

I used a R/S #274-451 plug on the end of my microphone cord. I had an adapter made up that allowed me to plug 7 male RCA plugs in at once to my audio system, so it was more convenient to have the RCA plug on the end of the cord than a socket. 

My 7-in-1 adapter is a R/S 274-370 board, with all 8 ring connectors tied together, and 7 of the tip connectors tied together. The 8th tip connector is connected to the 10K pot center connector. The other 7 tip connectors are connected to one of the 10K pot's outside connectors. When you feed audio into the "8th" connector, you can then adjust the volume with the pot for the 7 remaining connectors. 

If you're only running a single Boris per audio channel, you may find it most convenient to put the pot in Boris's head and a plug that fits your audio source on the microphone cord. If you're going to run more than one per audio channel, you'll want to do it my way, since the resistance in parallel of the various pots in the Bori will cause you a problem (resistance in parallel is the average of all the pots, so when you adjust one, you'll mess up the others).


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## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

Yes, I mainly chose the 1/8" jack because I had cables readily availible, but also because I was planning to use a portable CD player or Cowlacious board as a sound source and they both are equipped with 1/8" line out jacks. 

I started Boris 2.0 which will have the pot and cap internally mounted and a "cable end" style jack on the end of the mic cord to clean things up. As soon as I get him done, I'll take more pictures. I also need to test Boris using the 50k pot against the cowlacious board to see if I can control Boris a bit better using that source. 

I had also considered splitting my left and right audio, only I was going to try using my Cakewalk software to mix the appropriate audio to each channel for each Boris (if it ends up being voice only) which for greeters, I had not planned on a musical track. 

Also, on the subject of Pots, you could easily cut down the control post of the RS pot so you don't have that huge stem sticking out of the back or Boris' head.


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

Hey guys, me again... I am trying the hacks and had a couple questions. First of all, am I right in assuming the resistor placed across the speaker wires can go either way? No worries about positive and negative?

Second... I am trying to wrap my brain around the in skull addition of the pot and cap. I drew up a little schematic (PLEASE don't laugh at my drawing... made it really quick and with limiting brain use). Would it work the way I have it laid out? The red wire that used to go directly to the circuit board goes to the neg end of the capacitor. The positive end is hooked up to the rightmost pin of the pot, the center pin then is hooked to the place the red wire was unsoldered from. The uninsulated line from the mike gets left alone.

http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee46/bilbo1969/?action=view&current=schematic.jpg

or would it be better to attach the red wire to the right pin on the pot, the center to the cap's neg, then the cap's pos to the board?

Boy, someday I need to take a Wiring for Dummies class!


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

Either would work, but I think you'll find that wiring it the second way will fit better inside the skull. You can tuck the cap right below the circuit board, and might even have enough wire on the other end of the cap to connect to the pot, which you'll mount through the back of the skull.


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

Excellent!! Thanks once more Craig! I figured it would also be an easier solder job too. Well, here goes nothing! I'll let you know how it works for me.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Bilbo, I have pics of the Boris hack I just finished. Many thanks to all the contributors to this hack!

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

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


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

Wow, Otaku, that looks like a much easier solution than I went with... I unsoldered the red wire from the board and wired the capacitor in it's place. Talk about a PITA! I could have just cut the cord like you did and wired everything from there. Oh well, live and learn. Plus, I got a lesson in soldering I would not have gotten had I taken your route.

I did finish mine as well. I closed them up without taking any pics, but I may open again to show the hack solder job that still seems to be working for me. I downloaded the "who's on first" parody everyone knows about by now and burned it to cd, just to test. Very little tweaking with the pots and it's looking pretty good.

Now I have to do something about the eyes and figure out what I shall have them say on the big night.

Anyone have any ideas??

Oh, and thanks to Okatu, Craig, Diabolik, Here'sjohnny, Wolfstone, and everyone else who helped learn me to crack these here skulls and makes em do whats I wants em to!


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## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

Otaku said:


> Bilbo, I have pics of the Boris hack I just finished. Many thanks to all the contributors to this hack!
> 
> http://halloweengallery.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3760
> 
> http://halloweengallery.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3761


Looks good. Nice job.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Eyes, eh? I'm thinking about disconnecting the blinking circuit and wiring the LEDs to stay on. The blinking is OK but a bit cheesy. It also looks like there's enough room in the skull to drop in a small fader circuit. Hmmm...


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

I posted some pics of the splitter cable and adapter I used for wiring two Bori into the $5 MP3 player. This setup should work for any sound source that has only a single stereo output. The cable is stereo input to two stereo output jacks. The adapter is stereo to two mono outputs (left and right channels). The Bori have 1/8" plugs attached to the microbone cables and plug into the adapter.

http://halloweengallery.com/displayimage.php?pos=-3764


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## CaptnJackSparrow (Jul 5, 2007)

Has anyone adapted a talking boris for pan/tilt servos?


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

skygodtj said:


> Has anyone adapted a talking boris for pan/tilt servos?


I'm not tech savvy enough to put in servos and such (yet) to do create my own pan/tilt mechanisms, but I spotted this at the local Walmart and thought it could be used to remotely pan and tilt Boris somewhat... might be nice since you could actually have them turn towards the TOTs while they were talking:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=6958266

So now I am looking at everything I see thinking how I could use it as a prop... does that make me an official haunter yet??


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## Jackielantern (Oct 31, 2005)

Absolutely!


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## Spookzilla (Nov 4, 2007)

Bilbo,

It does have possibilities! The down side could be its size and the fact that you have to operate the controls, then again that might be a plus for your intended use?


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

I posted a how-to over on HauntForum showing how to hack the Boris skull for an external sound source. The PDF is too large to attach here. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions.


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## Madame Turlock (Nov 2, 2007)

Bilbo said:


> I'm not tech savvy enough to put in servos and such (yet) to do create my own pan/tilt mechanisms, but I spotted this at the local Walmart and thought it could be used to remotely pan and tilt Boris somewhat... might be nice since you could actually have them turn towards the TOTs while they were talking:
> 
> http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=6958266
> 
> So now I am looking at everything I see thinking how I could use it as a prop... does that make me an official haunter yet??


I wonder if there is anymore information on the reliability of this product? The rating online looked pretty discouraging, but it was only rated by one person.


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## CaptnJackSparrow (Jul 5, 2007)

Could you post the link to that .pdf page on HauntForum? I couldnt find your project post there..

Thanks


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Sure, here you are:
http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=7237&page=10
The PDF is attached to the post (#95).


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## CaptnJackSparrow (Jul 5, 2007)

Otaku, got it, thanks! Has anyone planned on adding a wiper motor or similar for pan movement? I dont know how much these weigh, but I'm guessing it too much for an RC servo and a wiper motor might be better.. I may put a Boris up on the crows nest skelly or make them the pirates in the jail enticing the dog for the keys(PoTC scene). 

MadameT... I dont think I'd go with that camera base.. especially after the review it got. Plus looks like you would have to run it with that remote control thing and it weighing 1.6 lbs would not make it user friendly on top of a skeleton..



Madame Turlock said:


> I wonder if there is anymore information on the reliability of this product? The rating online looked pretty discouraging, but it was only rated by one person.


teege


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

A Boris is considerably lighter than a Bucky, and lots of people have used RC servos to pan and tilt Bucky skulls. I think the weight wouldn't be a problem. The shape of the Boris is different than a Bucky, and fitting the servos in the skull would be a bit of a challenge. Since the OEM speaker wouldn't be used, it could be removed to increase the space. The jaw mechanism takes up a lot of room due the way it's designed (motor with a string) but there's probably a way to do this.


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## CaptnJackSparrow (Jul 5, 2007)

If the base is flat, then it might be possible to mount a pan/tilt bracket to Boris, 

Mounting the pan servo inside the bottom, with the base up, servo arm down would be a possibility too.. I'll have to get one and figure out a way to mount one..

teege


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## scream1973 (Dec 9, 2007)

Just finished my first Boris hack using the pdf instructions gary posted (mounting pot & cap inside Boris), it seems to work fairly well so far.. I have to get ahold of a splitter so i can listen to what i am pushing through the skull.. I tried the beeps file that you had sent over to me Gary and just by playing with the pc and balance playing just the right channel (beeps ) i couldnt get the Boris jaw to move for the life of me.. But playing the left channel seems to bounce it along quite well.. I'd post pics but my soldering skills leave VERY much to be desired.. 


Thanks everyone for the great how-tos.. 1 more to do once i am sure everything is good with this one.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

The beep file has very low volume in the beep tones. The reason is that the file was developed for use with a ST-100 servo board which is very sensitive to audio track volume. If you open the file in Audacity or Goldwave and increase the beep track volume by at least 100% it should work for the Boris. Increasing the volume by means of your PC's volume control won't help - it didn't work for me either. And post some pics - don't sweat the soldering skills issue!


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## scream1973 (Dec 9, 2007)

*Pics*

Here are some of the pics of my completed borii .. I still have to cut down the pot on the second boris but they are both completed.


I wrapped the soldered connections in electrical tape to ensure there was no grounding etc and then used the tape to hold the wires down on top of the battery compartment as well


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

Here is a video of my complete skulls at work at my wife's "pirate party" birthday. I found the vocals on this site and modified them so they sound like two different speakers. When I get the chance I will locate the creators so I may credit them.


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## Otaku (Sep 10, 2004)

Arrrrr, matey! A pair of scurvy dogs they be! Nice voice tracks, too.


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## tanliwod (Nov 17, 2007)

Diabolik said:


> Here is my basic How-to for my Boris skulls.
> Just a quick note: I built this with the intention of driving Boris from a LINE LEVEL signal.


Thanks, Diabolik. I appreciate these instructions greatly! While I plan to hack my Boris skull in the very near future, I was able to apply the same concept and components to hacking a Chauvet 751 mono strobe controller. In the excitement of finding it for $22, I didn't realize it had a built in microphone rather than a line level input jack. After reading this thread, a bit of thought, and a trip to Radio Shack, I now have the line input feature I needed to control my lightning strobes. My only goal was to upgrade from the simple color organ circuit I built a couple of years ago to an off-the-shelf strobe controller with built-in DMX. I already had a CD that I made which has a steady hertz signal on one track to control the lightning and the delayed thunder on the other track.


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## MrOCT31 (Oct 15, 2007)

Finished my first hack yesterday following the instructions and it worked like a charm! Not only that but it's a quick hack with outstanding results! Thanks for the effort in getting these going! Now, all I have to do is finish the other 8 I have and it'll all be good!


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## CraigInPA (Sep 11, 2007)

MrOCT31 said:


> Finished my first hack yesterday following the instructions and it worked like a charm! Not only that but it's a quick hack with outstanding results! Thanks for the effort in getting these going! Now, all I have to do is finish the other 8 I have and it'll all be good!


Are you planning on hooking these all up to the same audio source? Note my previous post about putting a potentiometer into each. If you do so, and connect all the skulls in parallel to the same audio source, you will have a problem. As you adjust each one, the total resistance on the group will change. That will either lower or raise the volume on all of the skulls. To solve the problem, use only one potentiometer, positioned on the input before the first skull, to adjust all the skulls as a group. If you keep the lengths of the wires between the skulls the same length, you'll end up with a similar volume on each.

What are you planning to do with 9 skulls?


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

Play talking skull baseball??


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## MrOCT31 (Oct 15, 2007)

No no no...not 9 in one display, just 9 to use where I need. They will most likely replace static heads on bluckys or be used on a single standing prop of some other design. I just got a great deal ($1.37 ea. with tax, thanks Kmart!) on 18 of them after Halloween, sold half and kept the other.


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## Bilbo (Mar 8, 2007)

MrOCT31 said:


> No no no...not 9 in one display, just 9 to use where I need. They will most likely replace static heads on bluckys or be used on a single standing prop of some other design. I just got a great deal ($1.37 ea. with tax, thanks Kmart!) on 18 of them after Halloween, sold half and kept the other.


Ok, MrOCT31, it is official.... I hate you.

I thought I did well nabbing 2 at 6.75


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## Jackielantern (Oct 31, 2005)

You both have me beat. The Kmart in my area didn't have any left.


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## MrOCT31 (Oct 15, 2007)

Funny thing was that morning I phoned Big Lots from my car at around 8 A.M. who I knew had them (at least they did during Halloween) but they weren't open yet and I just happen to pass the big K and thought well let's see what's left. Had Big Lots been open I would have never gone into Kmart and missed this deal! It was just a lucky find that worked out in my favor for once!


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## whichypoo (Jul 29, 2009)

man got to get to boris. thank you for the thread!


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## mikeerdas (Jan 30, 2010)

Bumping up. I've got one of these units but never used it. But I may now seeing the mod.


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## DaveintheGrave (Feb 12, 2004)

I've used two Boris's for years with the joking skeletons routines. I've really gotten kind of tired of that.

I need to figure out another use for them.


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## mikeerdas (Jan 30, 2010)

DaveintheGrave said:


> I've used two Boris's for years with the joking skeletons routines. I've really gotten kind of tired of that.
> 
> I need to figure out another use for them.


Sounds cool, but I understand wanting to repurpose old gear to create new effects / applications.


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## DaveintheGrave (Feb 12, 2004)

Well, I'm kind of tired of them, but the neighbors sure aren't. They love 'em!


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## mikeythemars (Apr 22, 2008)

Diabolik said:


> Here is my basic How-to for my Boris skulls.
> 
> Just a quick note: I built this with the intention of driving Boris from a LINE LEVEL signal. This setup has been tested successfully using the line out of a PC sound card and also the line out of a portable CD player. Many of the other hacks are using variable or amplified sources such as headphone jacks or tapping into amplified computer speakers. The main benefit of doing it this way is that you are not limited by the volume of your amplified audio output. You can turn your speakers up as loud as you want without ever having to adjust Boris.
> 
> ...


I found that the 10K ohm pot was not effective in adjusting the jaw motion with the the particular line level input I was feeding Boris (he just sat there with his jaw in full open mode regardless of how I adjusted the pot ). I didn't have a higher impedance pot readily available, so I did a work around by adding four 10K 1/2 watt resistors inbetween the braided part of the microbone cable and the pot tab it needed to be connected to. Per my multimeter, that effectively increased the resistance of the pot to around 48K, which was just enough to get the jaw motion adjustment on Boris to work properly.


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## mikeythemars (Apr 22, 2008)

Otaku said:


> Eyes, eh? I'm thinking about disconnecting the blinking circuit and wiring the LEDs to stay on. The blinking is OK but a bit cheesy. It also looks like there's enough room in the skull to drop in a small fader circuit. Hmmm...


Frankly , the stock red leds just scream "cheap prop." I removed them and replaced them with amber LEDS (which work fine, no issues with having to change the load resistors). I then took out a bag of small clear plastic nuggets (about 5/8 of an inch in size) that I found at Michaels and hot glued about six of them over the area where the LEDs are in his eye sockets. So when my Boris talks, the eye effect you get (amber light randomly refracting through the nuggets) is very creepy.


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## Diabolik (Apr 10, 2006)

mikeythemars said:


> I found that the 10K ohm pot was not effective in adjusting the jaw motion with the the particular line level input I was feeding Boris (he just sat there with his jaw in full open mode regardless of how I adjusted the pot ). I didn't have a higher impedance pot readily available, so I did a work around by adding four 10K 1/2 watt resistors inbetween the braided part of the microbone cable and the pot tab it needed to be connected to. Per my multimeter, that effectively increased the resistance of the pot to around 48K, which was just enough to get the jaw motion adjustment on Boris to work properly.


Man, I miss Boris. That was such a great prop. Seems like the days of props like him have passed. I am glad you got him working and I am happy to see there are still Boris’s out there in service!


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## Zaltarsfolly (Aug 10, 2020)

I know nothing about electronics but I want to learn, where do I start? This tutorial is pretty straight forward but even this is a lot.


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