help fix old audio toy (headphone speaker)

[gliptitude]

i just bought a toy made in 1991 which was not opened from its original package until i brought it home today. it does not seem to work and i want to get it working.

it is a miniature plastic replica guitar amp, intended as an accessory for some action figures from the movie 'bill and ted's excellent adventure'. it comes with a cassette tape and supposedly when you plug it into the phone jack on a tape player, it plays music through it's mini speaker. in addition to the mini rca jack, there are two other cords coming out that plug into the action figures (which i do not have). (i guess they are motorized or something). the unit does not require batteries or external power.

my tape player is broken, so i tried it on a radio and on my imac and nothing happened. i don't know why it wouldn't work. i opened it up and the connections appear to be solid.

:shock: the only thing i can think is that it requires the action figures to complete the circuit. is this possable? if so can i rewire it to work by itself? how? :shock:

i tried to attach a diagram i made to this post, but i will describe it also. the box contains: 1)a speaker, 2)a small board with four copper stripes on it, and 3) three cables. THAT'S IT! the cables vary a little bit. the headphone output has three leads (red,black,white). the other two have two leads (red,black). there are four spots where wires connect: 1)the positive speaker terminal, 2)the negative speaker terminal, 3)the far left copper stripe on the board and 4)the far right copper stripe. the connections are as follows:

-speaker positive: the black leads of both action figure cables

-speaker negative: black lead of headphone cable

-far left copper stripe: red lead of left action figure cable and red lead of headphone cable

-far right copper stripe: red lead of right action figure cable and white lead of headphone cable.

does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[audioguru]

Hi Glip,
1) Since it is a speaker, not a headphone, its plug should plug into the external speaker output of a tape player or radio not a headphones output. A speaker needs a lot more power than headphones.
2) Your sketch shows that the positive speaker terminal connects to nothing except the "action figure" cables. Those cables also connect to the external speaker plug. Therefore if you short one "action figure" cable, you will hear the speaker play one stereo channel and short the other cable and it will play the other channel.
Don't short both cables at the same time.

 

[gliptitude]

thanks for the tip. i just returned to the websight to add a new note to say, nevermind, i already figured it out.

i removed the board and both of the action figure cables and simply soldered the black lead of the headphone cable to the negative speaker terminal and the other two leads to the positive. now it works!

although it is a speaker not a headphone, it is very small and does not get very loud. it is just like the computer speakers that hook into headphone jacks, only smaller. so i guess that is why it is able to draw sufficient power from the radio/tape player etc.

yeh! :wink: