I am looking to create a simple talking stuffed toy and have no idea
how to build the ?simple talking? part.

Requirements:
-Playback pre recorded voice messages
-store 5 to 10 minutes of pre recorded voice
-playback one message at a time
-playback begins when user pushes a button

What I need to know is the following:
-What components do I need?  Right now I am thinking, battery, battery
holder, speaker, and some sort of sound chip with x amount of memory
available, and finally some sort of software that allows me to record
the sound to the chip.  (Do I hear an electrical engineer laughing
somewhere?:))  Also, I am looking for specifics, not just, "yes, those
are the components you need".  I'd like to know Manufacturers, specs,
even product numbers if possible.
-I also need to know where to buy these components and approximate
cost per unit (First run of ~100 and ~500 units).  This cost does not
include the toy itself, just the electronic components.

Are there any all in one units that I can just stuff into the toy and go?

Thanks for your help.

---

Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 13 Aug 2005 17:21 PDT

Hi!

It seems that 5 to 10 minute sounds are quite on the higher end of
things. I can find you some suppliers or custom makers but ordering
information and pricing are usually done during individual
negotiations so I can't help you with that.

Would contact info for the makers be enough as an answer?

Thanks!

---

Clarification of Question by whatthefug-ga on 14 Aug 2005 16:33 PDT

Hi, thanks for your help.  Unfortunatly, only receiving manufacturer
contact info would not be of much help to me.  I was able to find
custom toy manufacturers and IC manufacturers as well.  For me the
most important aspect of an answer would be the pricing and a listing
of the components needed to create the toy.  Thanks again.

Hello " what_the_  what? "


 To get a custom chip made, comes to couple thousand dollars - and you
would still need an EE to put it together.
 So will respond to this part of your question.


Are there any all in one units that I can just stuff into the toy and go?

 Answer is yes. Units small enough and cheap enough just came on the market.

 You do not need any special software: Any MP3 can loaded using ordinary
PC (with fairly  common software) or you can record directly to the device.

Cost: about $50


name: OEM- USB 128 MB Flash Driver + MP3 Player Recorder E35

  they are quite small size: 2 x 5 x 1 cm 

 There are just comming on the market.

I just bought one from the ebay (this one seemed to me like best deal,
after a detailed search, and I took a risk and ordered,
even though it looks suspect). To my surprise, it came and it works.

One reason I was dubious is that they hide the real cost.
They advertise initial price as
 	GBP 0.01 (Approximately US $0.02)
	
and only in the small print they hide high shipping cost and mandatory
insurance.
Shipping Cost		Services Available		Available to
GBP 16.98		Royal Mail 1st Class Standard		United Kingdom Only
Will ship to Australia, N. and S. America, Europe.

Apparently made in mainland China, ships from Hong Kong,
manual is in atrocious English, 
but it will do what you need.

One (past) auction is here
http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-128MB-Flash-Driver-128M-MP3-Player-Recorder-E35_W0QQitemZ5799886345QQcategoryZ14980QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 You can find other ones if you search on ebay for

MP3 player recorder
ttp://search.ebay.com/MP3-player-recorder_W0QQsojsZ1QQfromZR40
Hedgie

---

Clarification of Answer by hedgie-ga on 18 Aug 2005 19:06 PDT

That last link should be


http://search.ebay.com/MP3-player-recorder_W0QQsojsZ1QQfromZR40

it lost the h on the beginning during paste operation.
Sorry about that.

Hi,

I am requesting a refund for my question for the following reasons:

Stuffing an MP3 player into a stuffed toy is a pretty simplistic
approach and will not meet my requirements as outlined in the
question…Specifically, the requirement that the unit only needs to
store 5 to 10 minutes of playback.  To spend fifty dollars on an item
that can store 2 CDS worth of sound when I only require 5 to 10
minutes would be impractical.  I also mentioned that I would need a
list of components, one of those components being a speaker.  The MP3
player requires headphones.

Furthermore, I feel that I was pretty careful in making it clear that
I wanted specifics on the individual components that would be required
to build the item from scratch and that I wanted details on which
components I would need.  When I asked if there was an all in one unit
I could stuff in the toy and go, I feel it was apparent that I was
talking about something targeted specifically for the purpose of
storing short bursts of audio for playback in a toy.  Similar to the
researcher’s option of using a full blown MP3 player, I could also use
a tape recorder, television, answering machine, or even an 8 track
player, but those options really wouldn't be practical either.

In addition I stated:
"I also need to know where to buy these components and approximate
cost per unit (First run of ~100 and ~500 units).  This cost does not
include the toy itself, just the electronic components."

Pointing me to an Ebay link for one sale that closed and a general
search for MP3 players on eBay does not help me find a 100 or 500 unit
lot.

While I appreciate the effort of the researcher I feel that they
glossed over many of my outlined requirements and took a very
simplistic approach to answering a fairly difficult question requiring
much more detail than was provided for an adequate answer.  It can
also be seen that another researcher who looked at the question also
noticed that the researcher who answered the question left out some
important detail.

Aren't you going to need a speaker and maybe some additional power to drive it?

Shouldn't be a problem.

Winbond (http://www.winbond-usa.com/mambo/content/view/173/306/) makes
chips like that.  I think the ISD4003, ISD4004, ISD5008, and ISD5116
are all capable of 5-10 minutes of voice playback.  These chips are
$10-$20 each in small quantities, and available from suppliers like
Digikey (www.digikey.com) with no minimum.

For datasheets, Winbond and Digikey both have them online.   The 400x
series is simpler and is designed for your application.  It is
designed to be operated by a microcontroller, so it's not a standalone
solution.  The microcontroller would poll the key(s), and signal the
ISD4004 to start/stop playback, etc.  You'd need to program that.  A
good choice would be PIC controller from Microchip
(www.microchip.com).  Even a simple 8 or 16-pin PIC would be fine. 
The entire development kit for these is pretty cheap ($100-$200 or
so), and also all available from Digikey, or directly from Microchip. 
There are also BASIC compilers for the PIC, which would make the
programming easier.

The analog pieces would be a speaker, and probably a small op-amp to
boost the sound, depending on how loud you want it.  A speaker might
be a few dollars, but the rest would be very cheap.  Again, try
Digikey - search for "speaker" to get a big selection area that you
can use to narrow down your search.  Digikey is somewhat like the
google of electronic parts.

A rough guess at total cost in 100 piece prices is around $15-$18 or
so, not including a battery.  The battery choice depends on how long
you want it to last (both in standby and playback), and the current
drain of the circuitry.

Although designing the entire system and programming the PIC wouldn't
be that difficult for a EE with that background (a few weekends
maybe), there would be somewhat of a learning curve for someone
without that background.  There's also the issue of circuit board
design and construction if you're making them yourself.

Formica34

Formica34,

Thank you for getting at the answer I was really looking for, I'm new
to google answers and don't know enough about how the process works,
but I wish I could provide you with payment for actually hitting on
the majority of the details I was looking for.  Thank you for your
help.  I will take a look at the suppliers you mentioned.

No problem, whatthefug - just a EE passing through ....

The relatively high parts cost is mostly due to the long recording
time - if you could shorten it to a minute or so, it would be cheaper.
 At that point, the speaker, button, and other mechanical parts would
start to dominate the costs.

The ISD4004 datasheet shows some sample circuits, one using a PIC. 
Here's some sample BASIC PIC code to talk to the chip:

http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/archive/index.php/t-464.html

Good luck with the project!

Formica34,

Thanks again.  Yes, I porbably will use less recorded voice as your
recommend, the 5 to 10 is my ideal, but I may have to reconsider
unless I expect someone would be willing to by a seventy dollar
stuffed animal. :)  I'll be doing more research using the information
you provided me and will probably post a more detailed question at
some point in the next few weeks.  Maybe if I'm lucky you'll get to it
first and get payment for it.  Oh, one additional some what general
question if you happen to stop by again, how are the words actually
recorded onto the chip?  I saw in the code sample you sent me to that
you would call a sub that would playback a pre-recorded word, is that
part of the $200 kit you mentioned in your first comment?  Would I be
doing something as simple as just recording a voice through a
microphone and somehow identifying a memory location on the chip as
the location for storing the sound bite?
Again, thanks for all your help.

Thanks, but I'm not an official google answer person, so I can't
actually answer a question, just comment.

The $200 development kit was for the PIC, not the voice chip.

You have a few options for programming the voice chip:

1. Use a 3rd party service:

http://www.quadravox.com/services.htm

This would be good for production, but not as good for prototyping
before you're ready to commit.


2.  You can buy your own programmer, like the QV400D, that connects to your PC:

http://www.tetraphon.com/QV400/QV400Dmain.htm

This is $250, plus another $40 for an adapter board, which depends on
the exact chip package you end up choosing (probably TSOP if you're
trying to keep it small).
The manual is online, so you can check out how it works.

3.  You could program them yourself with a microphone.  The chip has
analog inputs for recording.  You could bring them to a two-pin header
on your circuit board, and connect an audio input to that.  You'd also
need another button for the PIC, which would put it in recording mode,
or you could use the existing button with some sort of hidden record
mode (e.g. press and hold for 4 seconds, etc.).  The PIC would tell
the chip to start recording.  You could play the same recorded sound
into each module to program them all, or you could take the first one
you did and duplicate via method #1 or #2.

Although it's not too complicated, the PIC programming to handle
recording would probably be as much or more than the rest of the
programming, so you'd probably be better off getting the programming
kit (#2), unless you have more time than money.


If you want to get the total parts cost down, you can do so by trading
off for more development costs.  One way to do this would be to get
rid of the voice chip and do it yourself.  You could get a PIC with an
on-board A/D, and have it record the voice into an external serial
Flash memory (go to Digikey and search for "serial flash" to get a
range of choices.  To record, you'd program the PIC to sample the A/D
converter and store the voice samples in the Flash memory.  For
playback, the PIC would retrieve the samples and play them out into an
op-amp and speaker.  You could still use a small 8 or 16-pin PIC that
would be under $3.  If you're storing more than one recoding, the PIC
would have to keep an index of where they start in the Flash (using
its own on-board memory, which can also be a small Flash table).

Be prepared for a lot of tweaking both in the PIC programming and
analog op-amp circuitry to get the sound quality as good as the voice
chip, though.

Microchip has MANY different PICs, all with different combinations of features.
A suitable PIC would be something like the PIC12F675, which has a
10-bit A/D.  You could step up in voice quality with a 12-bit A/D, or
step down to an 8-bit A/D.

The dominant cost would be the Flash chip, which would again depend on
how long you wanted to record.  If you sampled at 8 kHz, with 8-bit
samples, you'd need 8000 bytes per second, so five minutes would be
10*60*8000 or around 2MB.  The STMicro M25P16-VMF6P is a serial 2MB
Flash that would work, and is only $3 in 100 piece quantities at
Digikey (and around $2 at 500 pieces).  You can buy programmers for
these Flash chips, too, to preload something on them.  You could
either record one with your PIC system and duplicate it, or do it
directly from the PC (of course you'd have to create the Flash image
yourself with some PC programming to take WAV or other sound files and
put them in the format the PIC is expecting).


This method would be quite a bit more programming work for the PIC
than using the voice chip, but would be much cheaper in parts costs. 
The voice quality may not be as good either, depending on how much
work you put into optimizing things in the PIC and external circuitry.
 The parts costs would be less though:

     - PIC microcontroller and related circuitry - $2 - $3
     - audio op-amp - $1 (maybe much less)
     - speaker - $2-$5, depending on desired size, sound quality, etc.
     - Flash memory chip - $3 (five minutes of sound)
     - misc. (power supply, button, etc.) - $2-$4
     - battery - ??

You're getting down to around $10-$12 or so in 100 piece quantities,
but the programming work is probably 4X by not using the voice chip.  
The only difference cost-wise is the cost of the Flash vs. the voice
chip, the rest of the circuit differences aren't significant in terms
of cost.  To pick some concrete numbers, assume 8 minutes of voice
recording.  A suitable Flash would be the 4MB M25P32-VMF6G, at $3.62
each in 500 piece quantites.  The comparable voice chip would be the
ISD4004-08MED, at $9.82 each, a difference of $6.20, or $3100 in total
cost (for 500 pieces).  The question is whether you'd spend more than
$3100 in time programming the PIC to duplicate some of the voice chip
functions.  You probably would if you contracted out a EE to do it.

I'd recommend starting with the voice chip, and then if that goes well
in development, consider just the PIC before committing to 500 pieces
of anything.  You may find that by the time you get the voice chip
working, you've had enough EE work for one project!

Formica34

Formica,

Thanks again.  All your help is greatly appreciated.  The detail was very helpful!