Coolest audible cat toy (that I know of).
This is actually already quite old story for which for some reason I never wrote anything about. But today while having lunch and again telling the tale of the cat toy I decided to finally put something to writing. The cat is actually my wife's. She got it sometime when she was young and travelling in Spain (20-25 years ago). I stumbled accross the cat already some years ago when we were rummaging through stuff for removal and immediately my curiosity rose to see how the cat works.
When I first saw the cat, it didn't work. It was your basic cat plush toy (unfortunately the toy part is somewhere lost at the moment), already quite worn from love and play and it had a switch. Which did nothing. It also had this plastic case stuffed inside which ate AA batteries, but even changing the battery yielded no reaction.
So let's look into the box.
To my surprise it contained only one electric motor, directly wired to the battery and the switch, small disc connected with a rubber band to the motor, small moving needle tracking through the disc and a cone fastened to the needle. Gramophone anyone? It didn't take long to notice one cold solder in the motor and after resoldering I pushed the switch with great enthusiasm. And boy I wasn't disappointed. The most horrid sound emanated from the cone, apparently trying to portray meowing cat, but it sounded more like the cat was being brutally mutilated to death in ear warming lo-fi. But it was so beautiful!
I proceeded to disassemble the rest of the box and all in all the device is ingeniously simple. It even has possibility to change the record!
I don't know how common these kinds of toys were or are, I'm definitely young enough to not having seen anything like this myself when I was a kid.
But alas, unfortunately after years of storage the motor seems to be finally dead, so while I'm looking for a suitable replacement you'll have to brace for the sound sample.
