Ryan McFarland

Dear Diary,

I hate Teletubbies. I also hate electronic doorbells that don’t actually have chimes and have some midi file play instead. But when you combine two things i hate i get something i like. The Teletubbell. It is kind of like salsa. I’m not a big jabañero fan. Nor do i like tomatoes. But mix them up and i’m digging in with the Santa Fe chips.

Seriously though. Teletubbies are often found at the Salvation Army. Sprawled out with the plush Garfields and the generic bean bag animals you can find them for under a dollar. Every now and then you find one with a voice box thing that says six or so different sayings when you squeeze them right. The black lab got to do her duty and open the teletubby. Eventually (25 seconds perhaps) i had to rescue the plastic box from her death shakes. Actually it was more of a rescue for the dog. I was certain she was going to damage her face with that white brick smacking her head.

Open up that little voice box and you’ll see a couple of buttons, a tiny circuit board and a small speaker. The battery compartment is on the other side. I carefully removed a jack from an old sound card and tested the contacts to see which ones would give me sound through the old powered (this is important because the batteries can’t power a big speaker) computer speaker i wanted to use.

A bit of Dremel gouging and a little cordless drill action and the jack fit in the case. Soldering two small wires in place wasn’t exactly easy. I seem to always need another hand or two to solder well. And then there isn’t enough space for a hot iron dripping with lead to get in there.

In the photo below, i added the light blue box (from the old sound card) and the two wires that connect to the spots with the red circles.

I then connected the black plug (shown) to the output i added to the Teletubby box. I drilled a hole through the wall near the front door. I decided to hide it behind a switch plate cover (drilling from the inside) that covered an abandoned light switch. Since it is quite normal for people to have a light switch just inside their doors everyone should be able to do this. Run the dual male cord through and connect to your speaker.

Naturally, having a speaker by the front door isn’t ideal so i ended up hiding the speaker (a little) under a shelf that i made from parts of wooden spools.

On the shelf is an Amazon.com book sale ready for shipping and a photo frame box that i picked up at the Salvation Army and put in clippings from the chapter cover pages of book about auto repair (also from the Salvation Army).

From the outside the button is too far from the hole in the wall but we needed to cover the spot that the former residents had left unpainted because they painted around their doorbell.

In hindsight i might skip the output jack and just solder the ends of the cord to the circuit board. I’d also run the cord through the bottom of the voice box so that when it was mounted on the wall you had the hole hidden from view. I wanted the jack so that the box was easily reused. Some day I’ll get around to making mp3s of the sounds that it makes to post on this page. I might even take the thing along with me djing some time. Nothing like hearing "big hug!" or "lalalalala la la la" mixed in with some tunes.

A nice thing is that the voice box has a speaker so the person ringing it can hear it too. It has a giant button so it is not easy to miss.