I took apart a Cute Drum that I purchased at Riteaid for $7.99. Its simplicity appealed to me, and you can't go wrong with a musical instrument. I think I might like to cover it in fur and make it a musical monster one day...
This is a little video of it working, while it's put together:
Cute Drum from Joana Kelly on Vimeo.
This is the front.
It's got nice big buttons, ideal for small hands. The demo button is also the Off button.
This is the side.
It's a Drum! For kids! With kids faces!
This is the back.
The battery compartment requires the use of a coin and a screw driver for removal.
Here are the instructions for the battery compartment.
Once I finally got it open, I saw all these lovely wires hooked up to some buttons, a board, and to the batteries.
This is what the Cute Drum looks like open.
There's not a lot inside! I was surprised, actually. You can see there's a board, a speaker, some buttons, and that everything hooks up to the batteries.
This is the close-up of the back of the board.
I don't know what hh means, so I'll have to look that up. Maybe it's manufacturer? You can also see some resisters, and a few wires.
The buttons look like this under the board.
It's not a very good photo, but you get the idea. The buttons continue the circuit and allow the chip to play each pre-programmed drum sound.
I unsnapped the board, and this is what it looked like without the board on top.
The buttons unsnap quite easily, but they're not necessary to keep the Cute Drum playing (see the video at the end).
This is the board.
What do all those numbers means? R=370? I think that's a resister. The black blob is hiding the chip underneath. The yellow squares each correspond to a button, and thus to a drum sound. The metal blobs on the right are where the wires are all soldered to the board.
This is another picture of the board.
Shiny and pretty. That's a lot of solder though.
This is the speaker:
It's interesting that the plastic is just melted to hold the speaker into its case.
This is how it looks with the batteries exposed, the speaker removed, and the board.
Without the battery compartment, and just the batteries, this would look even more simple. Who needs that giant plastic mess of buttons? Not me.
Here is a video of it working without its protective plastic shell:
Dissected Cute Drum from Joana Kelly on Vimeo.
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