Audio -> Servo PCB

[David_AVD]

As mentioned in another thread, I wanted to make a board that takes an audio input and drives an RC servo for a skeleton or reindeer jaw. The one from Cowlacious seems good, but I'd like to try a slightly different approach.

• 3.5mm audio input and through sockets
• 3 pin header for hard-wired audio
• Jumpers to use left/right/both channels
• Jumper to adjust the bass response
• Adjustments for input sensitivity
• Adjustments for min and max jaw opening
• Possible proportional (to audio level) jaw opening

I was also planning to make it P-DMX compatible for the power, so it could be chained off the same P-DMX system as some other designs I'll be doing soon.

There is also a companion mp3 player board in the works, but that's for another thread.

Comments and feature suggestions welcomed.

 

[Superman]

I have the Cowlacious board and it is great, A major improvement for it would be if it had a couple of extra servo's controlled by DMX which could be for head and neck movement. My current projects for animated skulls and reindeer heads require 3 boards just to make them run. These extra servos wouldn't need min/max adjustment as this is easy to control in sequencing software.

 

[David_AVD]

Hmmm... that's a good idea Steve. Since I was going to put a microcontroller on the board anyway, I may as well add DMX input and the extra servo outputs.

Actually, I could add a few on/off outputs to trigger the (separate) mp3 board. I should also add a WS2801 chip to give 3 DC outputs for eyes, etc.

I've only got the audio input part of the design done so far, so keep the ideas coming.

 

[kel]

add a motion sensor while you are at it ... ty

 

[XDU]

Excellent project DA...... great idea

 

[David_AVD]

Just to clarify, this servo board could operate in 2 ways:

1) A trigger input (button or PIR) on a companion mp3 board starts the audio playback. The audio from the mp3 board is fed into the servo board which activates the jaw servo and maybe the LED outputs (for eyes, etc).

2) The DMX input on the servo board directly controls all 8 servo outputs, the LED outputs and possibly also provides a trigger for the companion mp3 board.

Stored sequences are not part of this project. I'll continue with development and see how I go.