Recordable greeting cards for sound effects

[NarrowMinded]

I'm sure some of you have seen these and played with them, recordable greeting cards... I had one given to me and quickly tore it apart to see how it was put together, I found by soldering a couple wires onto the board I could jump the record feature and re- record my voice or what ever I wanted to it, I then soldered a reed switch to the trigger and presto... A cheap sound effect when my loco passes over it. the sound isn't the best but acceptable for 3 to 6 dollars, I'm not sure how long the battery will last but when it dies I will hard wire it in with some resistors. If anyone decides to play with these I recommend you make a little box for the speaker for best results

NM

[ryeguyisme]

thats genius, I should do it for the christmas display that way I can have Milwaukee Road train whistles sounding off like in the movie "Danger Lights" loved those whistle

[Jim Banner]

A small step up in price but a large step up in quality is to use a cheap MP3 player (1 GB players on sale here in Saskatoon for $8.88) plus a pair of computer speakers (dirt cheap at garage sales - bought 3 pairs c/w wall warts for $5.)  A reed switch connected across the play/pause button will start a short program every time a train passes or with no modifications at all, the player can repeated play two separate sound files, one to each speaker.

I suspect NarrowMinded's greeting cards are often a better deal, especially for short, triggered sound effects, and especially if you get them free.  The MP# player approach can give you two separate programs of virtually uninterrupted background sounds.

Jim 

[NarrowMinded]

Thanks jim that will be a better choice for the train station on the Christmas layout I'm building for my wifes Christmas village. The card modules are great for say a brakemans voice and switch clank. They are built very thin and are easy to hide.

NM