Well, this is the first time I have actually opened up one of these critters. It’s not so bad, really.
A chromium switch for a chromium robot
I had to change the power switch in the robot. It was advertised as a gently loved, pre-owned keepsake that had been used perhaps an hour. It had a remote control and everything, said the ad. When it arrived, I spent nearly an hour with a squirt bottle of Windex and a cup of alcohol scrubbing the crud from the body shell of the Robosapien. Imagine my surprise to discovered that the robot wasn’t gray, it was chrome. Not only that, it was a signature series and Mark Tilden’s handwriting stated his name across the robots ankle.
He's stripped and ready, Doctor.
There was a piece of packing tape over the switch, peeled away by half. Stuffed under the tape was a wad of toilet paper. The purpose of this invention was to press the power switch, using the tape and knot of toilet paper to keep the switch button pressed. It no longer operated properly; pressing once to depress it for on, pressing it again to let it pop up for power off.
The new toggel in place, the old switch hangs loose
I opened up the shell. This is done by laying the robot on its stomach and removing the four screws located two at the hips and two at the shoulders. Once they were out, I was able to carefully lift the back half of the body shell off. It would only move a few inches, being bound to the robot by a ribbon of wires connected to the brain board. Unplugging the connector allowed me to set the robot safely off to the side.
The power switch sits atop a tiny circuit board screwed to the shell. I removed the two self tapping screws and disconnected the board from the shell. I spent a while with my voltmeter trying to figure out how the switch worked. In the end I did the easy thing. I solder bridged the switches connections so that the switch was permanently “on.”
I then identified the power wire coming up to the switch. The blue wire is the one I put the switch into. The red, orange, brown, and yellow wires are not relevant to this process. They’re pretty and all, but it’s best to ignore them. Instead, clip the blue wire about an inch and a half from the switch, strip and tin each of the ends you create.
Getting ready to solder it up
I used a standard micro sized SPDT toggle switch. The choice was made after a brief consideration of not having any other kinds. But to my pleasure. the switch fit pretty nicely into the body shell hole the original switch peek out of. I set the switch in place and screwed down the tension nut to hold it in place firmly. Then I soldered the two ends of the blue wire each to the center and upper solder pads on the switch.
I was started when I plugged the connector back into the brain board. The robot came instantly to life and flipped his arms completely over backward. This would have horrified me, had I not read chapters 13 and 14 of the Robosapien Companion. Because of this, I collected my wits, moved the arms back into their proper front positions and then TURNED MY NEW SWITCH OFF. When I reconnected the ribbon cable connector, the robot stayed quiescent.
It took a little doing to put it back together. The little circuit board containing the bridged switch had to be stuff sideways in between the switch and the wall of the shell. Then I had to finesse the arm wires back into the strain reliefs inside the shell and guide the wires themselves through the decorative pass-throughs. A bit of pressing, looking, turning, pressing was rewarded by a couple of reassuring click noises as the shell halves snapped back together. The seam was tight and properly aligned so I replaced the four self tapping screws to reassemble the robot.
Voila! My chromium signature series Robosapien is ready to go. Flipping the tiny toggle up brings the robot to life. And thus I have the front man for my New Robots on the Block dance troupe.
Boogy down, Robosapien.