Talking robot head

[Risu]

Hi everybody, I just signed up, I'm hoping somebody can help me figure out what I need for a project I'm working on. It's a little more advanced than anything I've done before. I have a robot head and I want it to be able to play pre-recorded lines of dialogue, with a light that blinks to the words. I want to have a remote control with a few buttons (not an app on my phone) that correspond to the dialogue options, a sound board that connects to the remote by bluetooth or some other wireless option (I figure IR won't work as well because the board will be inside the head), a connected speaker of a decent volume level, and a sound to light board.

I've been looking at the Velleman MK103 sound to light board. The responsiveness and the adjustable pot look great, but I don't like that it uses a microphone. I'd prefer to wire the output of the soundboard directly into the MK103. I couldn't find anybody in a google search that had done that. I also haven't had any luck finding small soundboards, with or without bluetooth.

Can anybody point me in the right direction to figure this stuff out?

 

[Harald Kapp]

Welcome to EP.
The schematic of the Velleman module is here.
This modification of the module should make it suitable for your application while maintaining the adjustability:

Do not assemble the components crossed by red lines. cut that trace abov RV1 as indicated. Conenct the output of the sound module to the green lines.

If you like you're welcome to publish your procjet in our project log sub-forum.

 

[kellys_eye]

Connect the bottom end of RV1 to ground.

 

[Harald Kapp]

Connect the bottom end of RV1 to ground.

Right, I missed that one, Thanks for pointing out that omission

 

[Risu]

Thank you! I'm really bad at wiring diagrams, but I'll figure it out as I go.

I've been searching around some more for the wireless remote sound board part of the project and the Adafruit Audio FX sound board looks ideal. I can even split the line out to go to a pre-amped speaker and into the sound to light board. Their solution for making it wireless doesn't sound great though. The bigger issue is that it looks like the RF board cuts the number of usable sound files down from 8 to 4. It also looks like you have to hold down the button on the remote for the duration of the sound file. It would be much better if I could press the button to start the clip and let it play out. Do any of you guys know of a wireless solution that would function that way, and allow me to use a remote with 8 buttons?