JamJar's Roaring Carnosaur

My dearest cold blooded friends, it's good to be back on the forums again. Between finishing uni and starting up work lately I haven't spent too much time on the discussion and painting threads, but that will soon change as I wish to begin a little project and I need your help

In short: I'm looking to build a Carnosaur that can let out a blood-curdling roar whenever it charges into combat.

Much like my light up Solardon, this build will require some electrical work inside the actual model. Essentially I'll need to fit a speaker, circuit board, batteries ,and switch inside the model... and most likely the base too.

Since my model is about a month away from delivey, I'll be using this time to gather ideas & methods to go about doing this. I'm all up for ideas from you guys, but my main concerns are:
- How much room is there inside the carno model?
- Obtaining some old roaring dino toy to rip apart and use
- How big will this toys circuit board, speaker & batteries be?
- Are the batteries separate from the circuit? How do I change batteries?
- Putting the model together for future maintenance
- Painting the dang thing
- Base design

I guess I'll be going through it in that order. Is anyone able to tell me if there is much room inside the carnosaur body when fully assembled?

Cheers

- JamJar

 

I'll also be researching possible candidates for roar effects. I might even visit some toy stores and find some dinos to listen to. I'll probably look like a weirdo; a bloke checking out the dino toys, but hey, for Lustria right?

 

It's unbelievable how many dinosaur toys I've bought - I hope people assume I'm taking them for children - You could always grab a sound grab from a film and put it on a device yourself. I'd look at making a custom base for it which could house this so there is an inverted space under the base that it can slot into. Easier to swap out any batteries that way and less work ripping apart your Carnosaur .

 

Its just an idea but maybe look at one of those postcards with sound maybe a there is one with a roar sound, these are even smaller.

 

Jurassic park has/had a raptor that would scream when you squeeze it's legs, a bit shorter than a Carnosaur, and there is a bit of room in the body if I recall, so should be simple enough to do if you can get the jurassic park figure

 

think about how and when u want it roaring also you don't want it going off all the time

 

hay welcome back and about the idea fro a screaming carno i have been kicking around this idea too but for a charge up space sound for my next basti. So if you get yourself one of the Jurassic park t-rex toys they have a few that roar. get one smash it take the guts and boom al wiring ready and done for you ^_^

 

Thanks for your comments guys

It seems I have two options:

Record fear inducing roar onto voice module / greeting card
@SlanntaClause , @De Grote Baas , a uni friend also thinks this could be easier than finding a toy dino. Finding a module or card is no problem, and it means i may also alter the sound frequency for roar variations. Essentially the next step is finding a good chesty roar somewhere on the interwebs.

At the moment I'm tossing and turning between Jurassic park T-rex / Spino, or 1998 Godzilla. I just need to find something without any background noise.

Buy dino toy with fear inducing roar of suitable quality
@Bowser , @Bracnos , this is what i was thinking of going with at first. The problem is finding a toy that could do exactly this, then testing the sound, then ensuring it's not expensive, then knowing if the circuitry is small enough.

Ideally if i could get my hands on a Jurassic Park trex, I'd be set, just whack in the circuit and. However, original Jurassic Park items I've looked up are almost antique and will almost certainly break my wallet. Because it's difficult to find what online store toys sound, this pretty much rules out online stores like ebay. Imma have to visit some stores and try test them.


So either i find a good enough toy and go with that, or record my own audio. I'll give both a go and see what happens. I'll order some modules, visit some toy stores over the weekend and research some audio.

The biggest problem with me is that I'm too fussy with the sound I'd like it to make, especially when I'm about to invest the time and money in this. Yeah the Jurassic Park T-rex roar sounds good, but the movies have too much background noise going on. Plus I'd like it if it were deeper in pitch. For activating the roar, i was thinking of a push switch somewhere on the model or scenery, we'll see what unfolds

 

I have seen the Jurassic Park ones, that should work if the size fits.

 

I did come across that toy on ebay, an original Jurassic Park toy. It would cost an arm and a leg to buy before I tear it apart, plus here it is with sound:


Also there's a Jurassic World T-rex


Hmm, neither T-rexes have their heart in it. Oddly enough, the Jurassic World Rex sounds more artificial than the Jurassic Park one! I'll still have to look for more dino toys. I'm beginning to doubt toys would have the roar I'm after. Then again, the roar I AM after would probably sent children screaming.





Check what I bought:

This voice module lets you record audio (push-button No.1) and play the audio out loud (push-button No.2). Easy. Plus it's tiny. I mean look at it. Only setback is if the microphone quality is shocking or speakers are too quiet.

I also bought a couple of cheap MP3 players (ipod shuffle size). A little similar to the above, but this time I'll be able to store audio via micro SD card, rather than by microphone. Set backs are things to do with the rechargeable battery. Also whether the MP3 player plays automatically when switched on. ALSO I've just realised that a simple push switch probably won't get the sound going. Even then I'd need to connect a speaker to it, hopefully it will be loud enough. We shall see.

I'll post some progress once the modules and MP3 players get delivered

 

Ooooooooohhh weeeeh look what I found on ebay today!


It's essentially the voice module and MP3 player in one!!
It plugs into computer
Comes with a speaker
Push button activates sound
Batteries are separate from main board
Can store multiple sound files and play different ones each time button is pressed!!!
But the main board is 2.15" x 1.13" or 55mm x 29mm. Hopefully this can fit - I did some intensive comparative scaling on MS paint, but the PCB might be slightly too large. I could probably get away by cutting some corners... hahah get it?? no? aww

Oh man, it's postage costs more than the actual board ...

I shall ponder upon this and wait for my cheap modules to turn up in the post this week

Plus I found some dino sounds online

 

Fit it in a styrodur rock with a slit (for audio output), maybe let it look like two big rocks lying on top of each other =)

 

I know, I know, I could put it in a rock. But it would be more impressive if I could hide the PCB inside the actual carno and not even have to worry about a large compartment in the base. Similar to how I did it with my solardon, I'd like to make use of the space inside the body - however the solardon didn't have a circuit to worry about, just the batteries.

Anyway, here's my super-duper detailed picture of the PCB in the carno

Spoiler: cutting corners

Let me know if my image isn't showing, I couldn't upload the file before, either this site is messing with me or I'm just special

Base compartment still an option though

 

So over the last few nights I've scoured the interwebs and came across some pretty cool sounds I found

Spoiler: here,

Spoiler: here

Spoiler: and here.

I've managed to grab the audio, load the files into an audio software and pick out the better roars. I made a file with my top 10 roars, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to load it to this thread. and here it is



I'm starting to think a playlist of roars would bring a better effect rather than the same boring roar again and again. And yes, I'm getting way ahead of myself right now because audio is pretty much ready, but I'll still need my cheap modules delivered next week or order that fancy one in.

 

Right so i have been thinking on a few points...

1. I dont think the module you got will fit easily in side of the carno. It has ood places were the plastic is fromed...

2. I think your going to have a few holes drilled into the mouth or side of it in order to let the sound out and not sound muffled.


3. I can see this working well if you make a removable part....oh like cut the side out then use magnets to keep it i place that way of the batteriesneed replacement or if your speaker rips. It will be easier to fix..

 

You guys raise some good points. I must say it was easier with the solardon because i can simply snap the shell off and lightly glue it back on. I see how the carno can be more difficult for any maintenance, especially if things are inaccessible without destroying the model.

For the speaker, i was going to swap for a small one and place in the mouth of the carno. I'm not sure how well or loud to sound will end up sounding, but I'll have to see once the carno arrives.

hmm that could work.

 

The playlist of 10 roars work really well together I really hope you can pull this off if you have to have wires outside the body of the carno you could always cover them up as vines or reigns of some description