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Another problem, which had to be resolved, was that some of the solenoids operated on 12 volts and some on 24 (thanks, George)! This required a scheme using two batteries, a 12 and a 6 volt, connected in series. The 18 volts produced, was sufficient to power the 24 volt solenoids. Two 12 volt batteries would have been easier, but I felt that 24 volts was pushing the electronics too far! The 12 volt circuits were tapped in to the 12 volt battery alone.
A microprocessor system was built to ‘play’ the solenoids. This can play either from an eprom memory ‘chip’ (groan) or from its MIDI input, which can be fed from from a disk player, or PC.
The system was finally completed in 1999 and has been entertaining the public (and us!) since then.
Other ‘gadgets’ have been made. ‘Clever Trevor’, is a collecting doll. This uses another one of my boxes of electronics, called the ‘Voicemaster’, which stores speech digitally and plays it back when a coin hits a sensor in the money box. He can also be programmed to say a welcome message periodically. There is a solenoid driver output, which moves the mouth, when he speaks!
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