As probably all of you know, the mouth synchronization isn't the best on this particular pirate. The problem was even worse with mine- on every other gemmy life-size skeleton mouth mechanism, there are two springs that pull the jaw back up, and on most cartoon drakes, they also have this extra spring. Inexplicably, mine only has one, and has no mounting point on the inside of the skull to add the second spring, even if I had one to add. I ended up hooking up a 20 ohm resistor to the mouth motor, and the mouth is moving much more naturally compared to what it used to move like. You can actually see the mouth programming a lot better. The movement is also now far less violent, which will save the mech a lot of wear and tear.
The downside is now the lights in the eyes are...strange. There was a 150 ohm resistor hooked up to the eye lights before, and I figured that replacing that with a 100 ohm resistor due to the added resistance would be enough to get the eyes to glow brightly all the time again, but they sorta just flash and dim sporadically now.
If you have any recommendations on how to adjust that let me know! I'm not really that concerned about it, since the LED's in my opinion don't add a lot to this prop.
I also added proper grease to the eye mech and the head mech, which stopped the head from gliding. Everything works like new again, even with the motor in the head being an aftermarket one. This somehow has the original body turn motor and 10 tooth gear still on it, which is crazy after 17 years.
#gemmy #gemmyhalloween #deadeyedrake #gemmypirate