#ft 002b

[furbytech]

Higher-quality versions of the images in this post!

[furbytech]

How to Clean a Tilt Sensor

I’ve had a lot of furbies (all from the same ebay listing) with wonky tilt sensors (and other corroded metal parts), and from what I’ve found, there are two (or possibly more) different types of tilt sensor. Only one of the types can be opened for cleaning, and the other cannot. They will vary in color, but it’s the shape that matters. Please, only do this if your Furby has an intermittent tilt sensor. It is not a part of general maintenance and repeated cleaning may damage the tilt sensor.

The tilt sensor on the left can be opened, and the tilt sensor on the right cannot.

Additionally, you’ll be working very close to the circuit board on this one: Avoid touching the board with your bare hands or metal tools as much as possible, and do not leave batteries in your Furby.

First, you’ll want to get the wiring for the speaker out of your way. Be careful with all of these wires, but especially with the very thin wires that connect the tilt sensor to the circuit board. The amount of hot glue in this area varies furb-to-furb, and you may have to do some cautious pulling, tearing, or cutting to get the wires free.

Use a flat-tipped tool (I used a flathead screwdriver) to pry the top or bottom (depending on the type of plug) of the plug out of the socket, and peel the wires free from any hot glue. If your Furby has wires that are all the same color, mark the first wire on one end so you can plug it back in correctly (the order of the wires matters! Don’t plug it back in backwards!)

Wedging a speaker plug out by the top edge. Alternate which edge you push up from to avoid warping the socket.

Wedging a speaker plug out from the bottom. Work your tool in horizontally, then twist, alternating which side you lift from to avoid warping the socket.

Once you’ve moved the speaker wires out of the way, clear the hot glue out from around the upper two metal pieces (contacts) sticking out of the tilt sensor and off the top. The top of the tilt sensor may have been slightly melted to keep it from coming off-- you should be able to easily cut or break through the melted areas, as the plastic has become fairly brittle with age.

Then, carefully slide a thin flat tool (I switched to my craft knife) between the top of the middle contact and the bottom of the tilt sensor’s lid. Lift it to break the seal, and then gently work it off with your fingers.

Lifting off the lid.

The underside of the lid.

The tilt sensor itself is built kind of like a sandwich. From top-to-bottom, it has the upside-down sensing contact, a donut-shaped contact, a ball bearing, and another donut-shaped contact. These should all be a mirror-finished brassy or gold color when clean.

Tilt sensor with the lid and top donut-shaped contact removed. the ball bearing and bottom donut-shaped contact are still inside.

Tilt sensor with the lid, top donut-shaped contact, and ball bearing removed. The bottom donut-shaped contact cannot be removed, as it is connected directly to the circuit board.

You can use rubbing alcohol or contact cleaner to clean these parts. I use q-tips to clean the donut-shaped contacts and rub the ball bearing around in a lint-free cloth. Once they’re clean and dry, re-assemble the sandwich and plug the speaker back in! Once you’re sure you’ve put everything back correctly, use a little hot glue to hold the lid down again.

[furbytech]

Baby furby component comparisons. The one on the left with the yellow board is a series 2 “Primary” furb from the WT factory. It works, but is mute and the eyes were assembled wrong (just a cosmetic problem). The one on the right with the blue board is the series 1 “Peachy” JT furby I’ve been trying to get working.

Though a little difference is to be expected, because of different manufacturing dates and factories, you can see that the JT baby has a lot of hand-added parts (the blue capacitors in the front-left and the components in the middle-right next to the daughter boards). Both of these furbs are a very strange mix of through-hole and surface-mount parts.

Interestingly enough, baby furbies use exactly the same board and cam gears as adult furbies, including the framework for them to tip back and forth.

[furbytech]

*weird science plays in the background*

[furbytech]

If anyone needs me I’ll be spending the next 3,000 years looking at this furb’s circuitry

There’s... something wrong with it, and I think it’s another poor solder job, but finding the ONE faulty contact among all of them is a pretty huge undertaking, and I don’t have enough hands to test a lot of the parts. I know this furb isn’t completely dead though, because veeery light tapping on the edge of the circuit board will occasionally produce some garbled, glitchy audio from the speaker.

Another furb I worked on today had it’s eyes assembled wrong, and can’t open them more than about halfway! It’s something that I could probably put back into place, but since I’ll be selling this one, I’ll leave the choice up to the buyer.

[furbytech]

Good news on the JT baby: I managed to pop the melty top off the tilt sensor to clean it. It’ll run now without me having to tap on the sensor or fart around with the reset button.

The bad news: It will still only run when tilted and doesn’t do any programmed behaviors

[furbytech]

Some video of the strange little furb I’ve been talking about in this post. I didn’t even notice until I watched this video back, but the IR emitter is constantly on too! That’s definitely not supposed to happen!

It didn’t do it while I was recording this video, but this furb also occasionally spits out some garbled audio.

[furbytech]

if you fix the jt baby will you sell them? at this point I'd keep it tbh, makes it feel special

I’ll probably end up selling them, yeah. I’d like to continue trying to fix them, because any repairs I try to make will just be more experience for me. At the very least I’d like to make sure they’re not going to cause any problems.