Here’s a fun little HOW TO on disabling the annoying beeps from a toy Microwave without disabling the rest of the electronics…It’s really simple, just a snip of a speaker wire, but I bet there are lots of parents who’d like to put some of the toys in useful-but-silent mode. Link. You could also start learning circuit bending and make it a musical instrument too.
9 thoughts on “DIY of the Day – BeepKiller”
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I have altered many of my kids’s noisy toys. My favorite mods:
Superglue the “loud/soft” switch that comes with some of them to the “soft” setting.
Open the case and tape cotton or kleenexes across the speakers for those toys which do not have volume controls.
Alternately, put clear packing tape across the speaker holes on the outside of the toy, which muffles the sound somewhat.
Ripping out the speaker is okay if the kid doesn’t know it’s supposed to beep in the first place, but once they know it makes sound, your only hope is to control the volume. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with some sound, the goal is to control it, not eliminate it.
A suggestion: Follow these direction but solder or crimp a trim potentiometer between the cut ends of the wire. Now you have a volume control – use a screwdriver to set the volume low enough to preserve your sanity, then close the toy back up.
Now the toy works just like before, only quieter.
I’ve found that clear tape over the speaker hole does wonders. Its cheap, and really easy. Most of the time my kid (under 2) doesn’t notice it.
Hardly Make-worthy.
DIY of the day? Childs play. Really.
not everyone is an uber electronics person, little projects like this often help people start to tinker…
I always would just stab the speakers until it stopped… I remember back in the day, someone in highschool had this annoying beepy toy thing, and decided he wanted to kill it. I think we ended up completely immersing it in water, and drilling numerous holes through it before it stopped.
-Jesse
“You could also start learning circuit bending and make it a musical instrument too.” Hey, wait, I want to know how to do THAT. My 3-yr old son is totally into pushing buttons, activating things, and loves phones. It’s gotta be totally simple to take a used phone, and make it so the buttons make different beeps or sounds when pushed. Where do I go to learn THAT?
You guys that dissed this entry- hey, not all of us are totally adept at circuitry and all. Snobs! *I* found this one interesting!