Trying to FIX: 1985 TOMY CHATBOT
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2019
- Hi, this 'trying to fix' video shows me attempting to repair a faulty Tomy Chatbot from 1985. I bought this from eBay in a joblot with other faulty items.
Remember that this is just for entertainment and I am not an expert in these repairs. The processes in the video may not be the best way, the correct way or the safest way to fix these things.
I do love fault finding and trying to fix broken things so I hope that comes across in this 'Trying to FIX' series.
Many thanks, Vince. - Jak na to + styl
My favorite videos are ones where you say "might just be a corroded battery contact and the video might be short" at the four minute mark and there's an hour and fourteen minutes to go. Keep up the hard work. Love your vids.
when you were working with it, i pictured it suddenly projecting a hologram saying, 'help me my mate vince, you're my only hope.'
Stop...
Even if your videos were 2hrs long I'd still watch the whole thing and never be bored.
That's a great toy! Having that magnetic disc with a read/write head is amazing for that time! Floppy drives weren't cheap back then, so basically building one into a toy had to have been a pretty penny. I'd like to know what this cost. Amazing job restoring it!
Love the long videos, not gonna lie though, I watch the long one then the short ones to see what's been cut out. It drives the wife crazy, she's like, didn't you just watch that video. 😂
We all remember Andy Pandy.
Haha the short ones are cut to hell but I hope they are still watchable :-) Apologise to the wife for me :-)
This was an awesome fix Vince!!! I really do love the old toy fixes, they are by far the best ones!!
Always a pleasure to see your videos and take stuff apart Vince! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Clifford :-)
Brilliant video like always I throughly enjoy the toy ones an hour of pure entertainment
Again many thanks for your uploads. Very enjoyable. Love taking things apart and trying to repair them.
So happy that this channel exists.
I got this for Christmas but wanted the Omnibot but Santa couldn’t afford it. This one was returned before I received it but this video is ,along me happy. Thanks Vince,
Oh mate! This toy is amazing. Really loved the video and went through the frustration with you. Your fix it's are like roller coaster of frustration and sheer pleasure. Well done mate 👍
Love your videos . I hope you keep them the same going forward . I don't like it when people edit out the little tinkering bits , it's great watching you figure it out like anyone else watching so honest it's refreshing. P.s thanks for the uploads I'm a big fan .
It’s a magnetic disc-similar to cassette tape
You are the best u tuber! Your patience is grand and your determination is unbelievable ... Thank you vince you made a fan of me ... Much love and respect ...
Amazing Vince!!!!! Love it & all the vids mate. Stunning.
Thanks mate, that mean a lot. Nice one :-)
Great video Vince, your enthusiasm is a joy to watch as you delve deep into these toys, which for their time were quite complex. Keep up the good work mate! :)
I had one when I was a young lad in 1989 from a carboot sale . Brings some memories back
Really love these longer ones!! Who’d even watch the short ones!! And yes a speaker 🔈 can be used as a microphone 🎙
What a cute little robot! Great vid Vince, very interesting to see how it works and figure it out along with you.
It's good to see a bot from the 80s back up and running... not to mention it's adorable! ❤
Another great video, I really love watching your channel. Keep up the good work
Thanks :-)
Great toy, I want one, great video Vince, one of the most enjoyable for me.
Yesssssssssss been waiting so long for a good Vince vid
Great informative vid as always Vince I do the same sort of repairs as you but I don't video them, glad you do, really appreciate all the hard work you do to educate and entertain us thanks.
Thanks mate for the very kind comments :-)
Awesome robot :) Love these videos about 80's toys. Disc drive type mechanism for the voice recording & playback is pretty impressive for an 1985 toy. Electro-magnetic switches and all, pretty fancy stuff, must've been expensive toy at the time.
Have myself a Ford Escort mk3 which changes direction by clicking sound. It has a microphone inside the roof and electronics controlling the motor. I've had it since I was kid in the 80's and it still works :)
Thanks JSV, can't find out much info about it so I don't know the original cost. If I had to take a guess I would bet it would have cost around £40 to £50 in 1985. I remember my Birthday money limit was around £30ish unless I needed a bike or something deemed more useful so it would have been expensive back then :-)
Smashing video vince
I have a great memory of these when I was 8 and 9 years old in the mid 80s and wanting these
I had a dingbot,and a spotbot if I recall,but always wanted this one or the one next to it in the pic on the box!
I'd say that disc probably works exactly like the tape in a cassette works. I'd say it's just configured differently.
Agreed. It looks like a hybrid. The magnetic recording being laid down in a spiral like an LP, vs. a linear recording via a strip of tape. Also, on speakers, yep, rather than electrical impulses making the coil in the speaker vibrate the diaphragm, in reverse, when the diaphragm is made to vibrate (by sound), it's moving the coil producing variable electric impulses which can be recorded. Layman's terms, but that's the idea of it.
Ah, cool! Yep, that's the idea I was thinking. Excellent.
@@YoureUsingWordsIncorrectly Thats exactly what i was going to say it looks like the inside of a 3.5 floppy disk
Another great video vince keep the vids coming and don’t worry about the vids being to long as we all enjoy the latest no videos
Thanks Roddy :-)
Omg that looks just like my old Omnibot. I love that guy!
Great product and video Vince.
It is a good robot toy. Thanks for the comment :-)
@@Mymatevince You're welcome. Anytime.
Pretty complicated toy. I looked at it and couldn't make sense. In my neighborhood, this is called "WATCHING HOW BACILLUS TO THE PHARMACY" or "WATCHING AS CALF (pig) TO THE NEW DOOR ". I finally understood and I'm glad you could fix it. I was missing a video from you.
Great video as always ❤️👍🏻
Thanks mate :-)
1st class video to watch thank you take care kind regards from me kenneth🙂🙃😉😊
Try watching the techmoan video on the Seiko exclusive egg because it is the exact same mechanism,
Its basicly a disk made of a tape material and using a vinyl like mecanism to read and record the audio.
To record you speak in the speaker because when recording it acts as a microphone.
The usual suspects of not playing back the recording might be because the disk is not on the head properly.
This comment took all of the length of the video to write.
Thanks Supertoine. I have just watched the Techmoan video which is brilliant. Thanks for letting me know about it :-)
I was just watching the techmoan video and I know that mechanism
Great video!
Glad I'm not alone in appreciating these old school mechanical/electronic mechanisms in old toys, you just don't see much of it these days.
Hey Vince. Here's a tip for when using superglue. Get a bottle of CA glue and some precision tips, they're only a few pounds off Ebay. The tip fits over the end of the bottle, then narrows down to a fine point at the other end so you can put a little drop exactly where you need it to go. You can get different viscosities of glue as well so you could use thin glue if you need it to get right down into a crack. I got some recently, and combined with the superglue accelerator it's been an absolute lifesaver
Tip: use a basic (high pH) chemical instead of super glue accelerator. Spray bleach or baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) works a treat.
Best super glue I've used is Gorilla super glue. The tapered nozzle has a fine tip that doesn't get clogged or dry out due to the cap having a metal rod in it that perfectly fits the nozzle.
It's also sold in gel form which is my favorite, because it's way easier to control.
I'm a pinch penny, but this stuff is worth it. I'm never buying another brand of CA glue again. And the $7 bottle lasts forever.
I've been a fan of Gorilla products ever since I worked for a non profit nursery with a small budget, and we regularly used waterproof Gorilla tape to patch our leaky hose.
Cheers
I wanted one of these SO BADLY when I was a kid
brilliant vince well done!!!
Thanks :-)
Excellent video and quite a complex design. I have a feeling there will be a revisit on this one...
Thanks, it was more complex than I thought it would be. Quite a good toy for the 80s :-)
Pretty impressive for a toy from 1985 to record and playback like that. Despite the cheeky comments from Mr Chatbot :) Love these long form vids Vince. Hoping for round 3 with TronicsFix soon!
Thanks Tony, hopefully round 3 will be released in October :-)
Speaker and microphone are interchangeable in the same way a motor and a generator are. A speaker is basically a linear motor. So moving the speaker coil backwards and forwards induces a current in tbe same way that spinning a rotary motor does.
Awesome Sauce Vincy!
Hey Vince, your videos are great! honest and down to earth review and full talk through about everything you attempt to repair whatever it is your working on. Keep up the great work!
Thanks mate :-)
welcome back missed you!
Thank you :-)
Brilliant! Chatbot was pretty cool really. Commenting before I’ve finished the video so......Hope you fix him.
Keep up the good work fella!
Edit: ☺️
Thanks Retro :-)
4 minutes- "this might not be a very long video..."
An hour and 14 minutes later...
😂😂😂
Birdie Numnums, that takes me back, what a party !
Speakers and microphones do happen to be pretty much the same thing and It can often work both ways. Obviously a proper mic will record better quality sound as will a proper speaker produce it. In this case sound quality is obviously not a requirement.
My thoughts too.
Thanks Simon, I thought that may be the case but I wasn't really sure :-)
@@Mymatevince Thanks for replying. You're one of the few CZcamsrs to reply to my comments and on multiple occasions too. You're probably one of my favourites right now too.
@@SimonNemeth Thanks Simon, that means a lot mate. I do try to reply when a video has been released, but I struggle to get back to messages on the older videos :-)
@@Mymatevince That's understandable. I watch your videos as you post them so that's not really a problem. I'm always happy to help if I can.
Hey. Those heads on the disk work like a tape. One for record and on for play. A bit of IPA to clean the heads might help.
Hey Vince, great video. Why don't you use your power supply for the 9v while you're testing instead of wondering whether the batteries work?
My CZcams Channel of the year. BR from Germany
Great Video Vince, please post more i love and relax alot watching your amazing videos
Happy your back!
Thanks :-)
As someone who owned a Chatbot as a child (still have mine in the loft!), the whole of this video had me screaming for you to put batteries in both the robot and the remote! The lever pulls down to rewind the recording mechanism. Then you hold the “record” button on his head, and record your message. You then pull the lever down to rewind the recording. To replay the recording, just press the “play” button on the remote. I’ve not watched all of the video, but I hope you get him working again.
Haha, I know, I really should have looked up the instructions on this one before videoing it. I underestimated the toy and thought it was a simple RC toy (I was wrong). I would have saved about 1-2 hours if I had :-)
At around 1:08:02, when looking at the wires soldered to the board, there are comments on the board in Japanese. If I'm reading them correctly they wires are labelled top to bottom as: red, grey, purple, purple. Looks like they ran out of the right colour wires :)
(and on the left hand side, they're labelled: red, black, yellow, brown - which is better!)
Wanted to let you know that in professional reccording studios, they use a big subwoofer to record bass drums. They put it right in front of the bass drum and it acts like a microphone.
I had a Hootbot (6:56)! Actually, my dad did. He was into owls and I gave him a Hootbot as a gift, either for Father's Day or Christmas or his Birthday, which was Christmas! He passed away in 2013, but I *think* it's still at my mom and dad's house! I would have been 11 in 1985...
I know this is just a video, but I keep feeling like that swinging antenna is going to hit me in the eye >_
AND IT WILL
Love the end :D
lol! Great video! Interesting to see it use a disc like that. From what I could see, it seems to have a tape head and that scans over the disc as it rotates there.
Hey Chris, thanks mate. I wasn't expecting the inside to look like that. You're right.... Here is a copy and paste from another comment which seems to sum it all up :-)
Allrock123
1 hour ago (edited)
the spring drive mechanism moves the magnetic audio recording head across the disk towards the center of the disk at a set speed while the disk rotates , the magnetic media disk is recorded just like a tape but in a spiral path that's very record behavior like, but erasable and re- record able just like a tape , I think a few office dictation machines worked like this as well.. search "Magnetic disk audio recorder" , but this example uses magnetic media that also had a follower groove cut into its surface to guide the magnetic head along behind it ..
@@Mymatevince BTW - I forgot to say "The Party" is an awesome film! I laughed so hard watching that movie when I was a kid. After you doing that "birdy num num" I've had birdy num num going around my head all night whilst sleeping lol. It's all I can think about this morning lol.
@@GadgetUK164 Haha lol so good. Num num birdy num num.
That is a cute little robo! It really makes me wanna pick up one of those remote controlled BB8s for my apartment lol
I Had Got one from my Grandma when was 10 11 years old. Loved it. I don't have any more. My mom threw it out.
Nice one!
Thanks.
I'm sure the wheel works the same way a pullstart return clutch works on a lawnmower. It has channels on an angel where when it spins one way the ball bearings can fall into the channels and it spins freely. When spinning in the other direction the ball bearings jam up at one of the channels and it grabs.
Wow vince ,watched most your recent vids, and u tub , showed me this one..
You provoked a thought , when you mentioned , remote aerial, in our days !! I'm 54 ..
So yeah... bit watchout... that antennae. Its got choking hazards , may have lead paint , and it can stab you in the eye ,all in one go ... 😂
How did we survive ....
Hmm good job chisels ,don't get the same treatment ,as kinder eggs !!!!
They'd have to hire beavers
Love the end message very cute🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thanks :-)
I love old robots!
Speakers can work as microphones , if you plug an old set of headphones into a stereo mixer microphone jack and speak into one of the phones it will work.
Thanks for the info Matthew, I have never tried it but I will in the future :-)
@@Mymatevince In fact in my experience some earphones actually outperform a lot of passive microphones, as long as you put them right to your mouth.
25:28 I notice that screw you kept taking out was only holding the contact arm, not the lid, so you were having unnecessary trouble with it making proper contact with the lid off.
Awesome! I have his big brother ”Omnibot” right here. I had him since the eighties. He has an actual tape recorder on board and you could record tones for movement commands and have him move by himself by replaying the tape. Instead of d-cells (is that what they were?) he has a custom rechargeable battery for the motors, unfortunately that is totally dead by now. He also has some rubber treads on the wheels for improved grip, but those pulverise if I touch them. So my Omnibot silently watches over my living room from his perch on top of a book case. Possibly waiting for the call from his brethren to take over the world.
Omnibot sounds very good, I am going to eBay 'Omnibot' right now :-)
Just checked on eBay on they are super expensive. It looks amazing though :-)
My Mate VINCE if I recall correctly, the accuracy was not the very best. But it sure was fun to play with when I was a kid. 🤖
@@Mymatevince To this day, I stillI recall seeing the Omnibot in a toy shop in York. It was £199 back then. I wanted it so badly but it was way too expensive for my parents to buy.
That electro magnetic mechanism is yeah most likely for the sound so it can turn the sound on and off whilst using another mechanism so that it doesn’t have to be a separate motorized section just for that.
You get stabbed. You tried it so hard. And the result is amazing. Love it so much. Greetings from Austria !
Great fun.
Sorry if you cover this later in the video, I just came down to the comment section after you said this, however, the speaker has a diaphragm that works in a similar way to your average microphone. This diaphragm is simply a coil suspended via magnetism, that allows any movement to be picked up as electricity, contrary to a speaker's usual movement, which is where it receives electricity and turns it into movement. I hope this explains why the speaker is the Chatbot's microphone.
good video vince always enjoy your videos usually saturday morning is vince fix it day for me .... you have inspired me to get a soldering station and get a few kits off ebay ( digital clocks and electronic component tester gm328 and a radio) to build and have been really enjoying it
cheers
james D
Excellent, thanks James :-)
Great fix Vince. Really enjoyed watching that with a few beers after a hard week at work. Mick 👍🍻🌝
Thanks Mick, glad you enjoyed it mate. Nice to unwind with a beer or 2 on a Friday night :-)
Haha brilliant 😂😂❤ I absolutely enjoyed this one thanks vince
Vince from the other dimension needs your help.
Recorder mechanism is the same like the inside of the "Seiko Executive Egg" (see also Techmoan video on YT). When the tape disc is wear out (sounds bad) you can try to use a new old stock floppy disk tape disc (with some creativity).
I know this was forever ago, and someone has almost certainly said this already, but that looks like a magnetic disk, not a record. It records the noise by magnetising and demagnetising tbe surface of the disk.
Love it, the curxe of "This might not be a long video" Then look down to see 1hr 18min 😅
Worst CZcamsr??? I think over 400.000 subscribers can't go wrong. Nice video, Thanks!
Haha, thank you :-)
Wow the speaker is the mic I’m impressed
Yeah I’ve seen this in a little memo egg shaped recorder techmoan took apart. It’s a ferromagnetic disc that records when the disc spins and the record head slowly moves to the center.
Impressive Vince
Alright governor
Just give a seconds at the start before recording your voice it should pick up all of your message. Nicely done Vince!
Microphone = magnet. It seems like the same tech as a cassette player, except in disc form, or how you said, like a floppy disc.
The needle is hidden under the metal sheath going over the disc itself. It vibrates with your voice, functioning as a microphone.
At least, that's my theory behind it. I unfortunately didn't have any cool toys like this as a 90's kid.
A similar recording mechanism was employed in the Seiko Executive Egg. Check Techmoan's video on it.
white backer is a good look.
Blank spot at the beginning of playback is probably wear.
👍 Time to invest in a little 3D printer Vice the are not that expensive anymore ,you don't need a big build plate ,you could printed a lot of new gears by now ,and a side mirror for that remote Ford car,printed new chassis for those sort of slot cars you glued .
(the ones you retract and let go and they went by that little flywheel. )
And lots of other broken brittle plastics.
Love those old toy repairs.
I will definitely get one as these older toys all seem to suffer from cracked gears. I have a few bigger projects that I want to work though, but once I get more time in my life I will get my head around the 3D design, which is the bit that scares me the most.
@@Mymatevince Nothing to be scared of
subscribe to these two and you are golden ,even if you are stuck on some project shoot them a email or comment and they will do all they can to help.
czcams.com/users/cadcamstuff
and
czcams.com/channels/iMwMz3RMbW5mbx0iDcRQ2g.html
@@Mymatevince I'd highly suggest an Original Prusa i3 MK3 😀
I've been more than happy with mine.
My first thought on that electro magnet was it was a brake or a lock for the spinning parts possibly to stop it spinning the other way like if you turn it and the gears may be change direction or something
I did think it might have stopped the big red gear but I seen no marks or damage so it confused me. On this fix I should have looked up the instructions online first of all and it would have saved a lot of time/headache. I thought I could work it out, but just like the Bigtrak it was pretty complicated :-)
@@Mymatevince I agree although I don't know about you but I learn so much more and remember more about an item if I've taken it apart as opposed to reading about it . I do love seeing inside these retro toys though too. I believe I was around 1 when this one came out so never got to see one as a kid so thanks for the opportunity too.
Most definitely. This could have probably been fixed by simply cleaning the battery contacts and reading the instructions BUT....now I know so much more about how it works. Probably never take one apart again but it is still nice to see the workings. Enjoy the weekend :-)
Actually a loudspeaker works in the same way as a microphone. While speaking, you move the diaphragm (speaker cone) which is connected to a coil at the center which is inside a magnetic field. moving the coil within this magnetic field creates electricity, negative and positive, as the cone moves the coil in and out of the magnetic field and thats your audio signal which in the cute little robots case will then be recorded via a magnetic head to the ferrite disk. Yep, the disk most likely works like a cassette recorder.
Brilliant info. Thank you :-)
I was kind of different when i was a kid , always fixing record players , amps & cassette decks , watching this makes me glad toys did not interest me when i was young , that thing is the kind of present i would give someone for their birthday or Xmas if i did not like them 😂
If the disk is like a floppy see if you can get an old floppy and change it out...the disk does look like the good old tapes so probably magnetic.
Thanks Simon, others have mentioned that it is magnetic :-)
Basically the speaker is also the microphone which operates the recording head which should be tight against the recording disk and the copper lever keeps. The disc tight against the disc
Before cleaning off that gear I would have marked where the rub marks started and stopped so you would know the previous wear pattern for alignment purposes later
The TA7657P chip is designed for a radio control receiver IC including regulator, amplifier, intergrator, comparator and driver. By combining TA7333P ( Transmitter IC ) and TA7657P ( Receiver IC )
is possible the speaker is also use a mic. A speaker cone can act like a giant microphone diaphragm, and when connected to a recording device or amplifier can be used to capture sound, I see a little inductor close to right back side of the motherboard, I bet that is related. all of the diodes at the bottom seem related to the voltage modulation going to the disk recorder and then the magnetic head of the recorder will just override whatever was recorded previously by using the same principle used in walkman's
the rest is just some capacitors to keep current high for the motors and some light bulbs. they all come from the same power rail hence why the "eyes" dim a bit every time you press record.. the massive coil at the back uses the same power rail
the motor that spins the wheels is on a separate power rail,