Welcome to that time of year that the shops start filling up with Christmas stuff. Well, they've been filling up with Christmas stuff for a while and this is a hand chosen item from. eBay It is fabulous. Uh, ethnic Santa Who looks like Mr T in a way.

Um, why does he have black beard? Is this a cultural thing? Also, the gold Lami is that even the correct word for it? The very ornate trim here. It seems like it's aimed at a more exotic culture than ours. Definitely is a very young Santa It looks quite good. but anyway, this thing is musical.

I Shall warn you in advance because I'm about to turn it on and it's about to make loud musical noises I've not run it too long for that reason. So this is the music option, right? So the way this works is you dangle it from this, uh, chain of beads and it skips in. The empty section at the top, goes down to the bottom, stops just short of the bell, and then slams into reverse. right? That's enough.

That's enough there. Try and turn it off. Quick. Turn it off.

No. turn it off. That's better. It's uncontrollable.

Uh, there is a little bell at the bottom here. a little tinkly bell. I Think the reason for this is that because if the last beads went up the bottom, then Santa might come um, off the end of the beads. So it just basically that's a sort of end stop.

to prevent that. Let's open this up right to open it up. I'll pull this package off first because there that just gets in the way. Maybe I won't.

Maybe maybe I'll just leave that on there. But you pull these little panties down like this to reveal the switch and there is a switchmart on and off. but if you switch it to off, it's actually on. But it just uh, it does the Motions without the music.

Um, let's try opening this. so there are four screws that I can see here. two at the bottom and two at the top. I'm not sure how much you're going to access this will give.

I mean I have to rip off all the Hot Melt glued trims to actually gain access to this. So this is the fourth screw. I can feel it slipping so that should be it. That is not it.

Is there something I don't know about here? Hold on. Let me look up the end. It looks like oh, it might be clamped by his head. Do I have to pull his head off? That seems a bit mean anything else up here that's hidden.

Oh the head looks like it is a soft plastic that could pull off right? I'm gonna have to pull his head off one moment. Don't let your children. Oh no I've killed Santa Oh, it's got metal Staples Going through. That's lovely.

Aren't they a little light? Perhaps we were what was making it light up. What? There was a little light. Oh, it's an LED. That's all right.

So now it should open to reveal lots of wires. Far too many wires. There's Electronic Module it's tiny that is really small for the amount of noise this thing was making I Suppose it's just a sort of, well, generic little audio chip thing. Let me see if I can pop that out.

it may not come out I think it's Hotmail glue. hold on. Let's squat some isopropyl alcohol into it and see if it does its magic. Actually, you know what I should take the batteries out for shouldn't I For a short, this out in the Santa bursts into flames I put GCB batteries in because Earth moving batteries seem like a good idea for that.

GCB batteries that say seven times the capacity and energy of a normal battery and then in very small prints say computer zinc carbon which is a pretty much an obsolete technology now, so not surprising like that's doing all the music that's horrendous right too. All right, before I go any further. I'm going to take a picture of actually I don't need to take a picture because I can look at the video later so it's black and green. Uh, red.

so that'll be negative positive, hopefully. And then uh, the two white. LEDs I See there's a weave resistor on the LED here and I guess the two white ones are going to the speaker. No, uh, it's the speaker is being switched.

uh down here. All right. Okay, I shall trace this out afterwards. Anyway, here is the mechanism which you're kind of interested in.

There's a little Classic Motor down there. how does it do the reversing? Does it have a end of travel? There's the ball bearing mechanism. Is there something that physically it switches? Direction Oh I Can see a little cam down there. Oh I can see a little cam and the gears actually slide backwards and forwards in that.

so if I turn around that way it will slip down into that little housing and then it actually moves the gears backwards and forwards into two positions. By the look of it. All right. Say what? I Think we need to demonstration that one moment, please? Okay, let's explore.

Watch this little feel right down here. I'll use something thinner to point it to actually use this to point it. You'll see this wheel and assembly click backwards and forwards. Either this wheel is driving directly onto the main Drive wheel or it comes back and it seems to engage with this feel which then reverses the direction.

But it's notable that gearing is different. so they go at different speeds. That's maybe to compensate so that as Santa's going up, maybe it goes up slower than when it's coming down. Um, or it would come down slow and going up because that would compensate for the speed of actually traveling, the weight of it having to carry its weight.

Yes, that. Uh, let's see if this is the music setting or not. So every so often you'll see that switch the gears. That's quite neat.

How does it trigger that? uh, switching between? Okay, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to explore this further to see what why that is actually doing Because there's that little ramp. Does it actually stop? at some point? There's something that's there. There's something that's switching this across one moment, please. Oh, I See what it is? This gear here is driving these two wheels, but they've got a very slightly different tooth ratio, which means that one turns slower.

Although they're spinning at a higher speed, one of them is turning slow on the other, and there's a ramp that when it reaches the point that it drops into the other fuel, that's when it changes gear, but then makes a slow transition back again when they come back out of sync. That is very clever. A lot of our work goes into making these toys. After that, we've got the cam mechanism that does both the hands and also makes the feet go up and down as well.

That is quite neat. Let me, uh, just demonstrate that now you know what's happening. so that these two wheels, moving out of sync, drops in, changes the gear, and then ramps out again. when it comes back around to the outer sink.

there it goes with a slight rasping, crashing gears type noise that's quite a nice LED Actually, that's a really good color. I Actually thought that was tungsten in there right here. That's more or less it. Let's take a look at the audio module.

so I'll just, uh, take things apart and reverse engineer one moment, please? Well, here's the schematic: Uh, what we have is a positive. a negative command I should draw the batteries in here, but next to Santa's very stylish but nonetheless decapitated head this isn't uh ethnic statement I Just want to say that I'd quite like, uh, ethnic Santa is quite a stylish and expressive face. It's very good. Even the beard, the texture of it is actually done really well.

Yes, that's obviously evolved over time. So we have the stack of three double A batteries and it goes to two switches. The first switch is the main power switch, and either way, we'll switch the power to the motor and the motor draws about 270 milliamps. but if you stole it, it goes above somewhere above one amp.

I Decided not to leave it sitting or in an amp for too long, but it will depend on the impedance of the wiring and the batteries. Uh, then we've got the LED which is running at a sizzling 50 milliamps with a 30 Ohm resistor and then the sound module which is this has its own little air built on uh, decoupling capacitor and the output goes directly to the speaker. Plus, it's got another section of that switch that switches and only in one direction. It'll switch the sound to the speaker and that is it.

So it's quite a complex sort of device. I Have to say it's quite neat. Uh, this mechanism is quite intriguing indeed. Let me just uh Focus back into that.

particularly things I noticed afterwards this: Little Feel here can jump to the side as well, which uh, maybe helps kick it out the way when uh, it's when the gears move into position. it's a clever little mechanism. Someone somewhere in China does nothing but Design toy toy mechanisms and try and make them super complicated. and with random sequencing and automatic sliding gearboxes, it's all very neat.

But that is it. The hidden secrets of uh I'll just put that I'll just put the head up the disembodied head up there. the hidden secrets of random Christmas toys. This is the little sketch I did before I drew it down on here.

Um, the random Christmas toy stuff that you find at this time of year and how quite complex it is, but also is very much a battery eater that's a current and also, if you turn the music on, it's going to be super annoying. So it's the only sort of thing that you just put on on and off briefly to please the kiddies who wanted to see it and then just probably turn it right back off again afterwards. But other than that, you know it's pretty neat. I Like it.