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I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of toys cried out in confusion and were suddenly silenced.

I love that Adam has kept this toy unopened for 24 years, only to cut it apart for this video.

I have 4 young children with plenty of loud toys and my wife came up with the genius idea to just put clear packing tape over the speaker to muffle the sound. It works great most of the time and the kids still love playing with the toys... just another option if you are less inclined to take apart toys and installing resistors.

Use a knob! That is, clip in a variable resistor (potentiometer) and adjust it to your liking. Then measure the value with a meter and replace it with a fixed resistor (if you want); makes it easier to fit inside tight spaces. Or leave the pot in there so you can change the volume later if appropriate.

As a uncle can we have a video on making toys louder? 😂

Adam: This is a beautifully heartfelt gift from a friend whom I haven't seen in 20 years. Also Adam: Anyway I am gonna dremel it in half

Yesterday was my 3yo's birthday and he chose the loudest garbage truck in Target. No volume control what so ever. I'm reimplementing this knowledge this weekend, thank you 🙏

You can tell Adam was actually around his children, he knows exactly how kids press the button of a noisy toy 😂😂

Hey Adam! Teensy weensy slightly deeper dive into the stuff you're doing. That speaker is most likely 8 Ohms, that's a standard resistance for dinky little speakers like that. So when you put the 330k Ohm in series, it drinks up all the voltage drop ("electricity"), since 330k is way, WAY bigger than 8. But with the 82 Ohm, the speaker is getting about a tenth of what it normally does (8/(8+82) to be exact). But we're talking sound here, which is a logarithmic scale. For sound and voltage, every 10x in voltage corresponds to 20 dB. So since you dropped the voltage by a little more than 10x, you dropped the sound by a little more than 20 dB.

Watching your show as a kid was a massive inspiration for me to start diving into science and engineering, and this led me to become the electronics person you described! I came to become OBSESSED with analog electronics for music and sound and am now happy to be a guitar pedal designer at Death By Audio in Queens. Thank you so much for leading me on this path and blowing up some cement trucks along the way!

When I was a kid, I got a Hungry, Hungry Hippos game one Christmas. One day, I went to play with it and noticed something different. My Mom had cut little white squares of foam tape and stuck 2 of them to the underside of the "front lip" of each hippo. I asked her, and she said that she made them because they needed their big teeth on either side like on the box art. I started playing and quickly found out that it no longer made the loud clacking noise of the hippo mouth slamming down on the game surface. I told her I didn't like it and proceded to pull them all off. Ahhh...the best laid plans of mice and Mothers failed that day, lol!

Adam you're as always far too modest! Every one of your videos is a how-too master class for how to live life with curiosity, inventiveness and enthusiasm! My day wouldn't be the same without a daily dose of Savage sage wisdom. Thank you whole Tested team for inspiring us!

Loving this Adam dad advice! My daughter is 2 years old and the sound of the walrus from her animal book have created me an inner fear for walruses in general, I will fix it.

With small speakers, the enclosure is often a key factor in how loud the toy sounds. We once had a small wine refrigerator that had a fan to circulate the air periodically (independent of the actual refrigeration). The noise drove me crazy. I discovered it was equivalent to most of the fans used in desktop computers, so I bought a very quiet PC fan to replace it. On the bench, the new fan was clearly much quieter. But installed, it was just as loud. The problem was the fan mounted to the center of a 2-by-3-foot sheet of thin pressboard--essentially a sound board that amplified any fan vibration whatsoever. (It was a terrible, cheap design.) The solution was to mount the fan to the board with rubber grommets to dampen the vibrations. Changing how the speaker in a toy is mounted, where it's mounted, or filling the empty space inside the speaker enclosure with soft material are all viable solutions. No expensive wire strippers needed. ;-)

Quick tip! I usually just put a piece of tape over the speaker grill (if it has one) on my kids toys. Most of the time that reduces the volume significantly :)

It's an 8ohm speaker, so a 8ohm resistor will half the outout. The 82 ohm resistor reduces it to about 1/10 volume.

Hey, for those interested here are the formulas: -20 * log(1 + R / 8) = the change of audio power in dB Where R is the value of the series resistor and 8 is the resistance of the audio speaker. So the 82 ohm resistor Adam used corresponds to a 21 dB reduction of audio power. For those interested in the inverse formula, here it is: R = 8 * (10^(-x / 20) - 1) Where x is the change in dB, so for a decrease of 20 dB x = -20

To select a starting point for resistor value, check the resistance of the speaker (usually marked on the back). If you choose a resistor of the SAME value as the speaker, you will HALVE the sound. If you choose double it will be one quarter volume. You don't need to be an engineer, just remember that simple rule.

I found taking the batteries out was a great way to quiet things. “I’ll buy you some more batteries when I go shopping” “ I’m sorry I forgot “

After working in a model / toy shop as a young man, I promised myself that I would never subject any parent to toys that make all those sanity eroding noises. So many "try me" buttons 😵‍💫. I am happy to say that so far I have kept that promise.

The furby community has been quieting furbies with a much simpler method for years. Just open up the toy, put some painters tape over the speaker, seal it back up and your done. That way the mod can be removed if it becomes a collectors item down the line 😂

You were supposed to keep it intact but make it LOUDER so you could gift it to one of your Grandchildren!

Adam, I think I can speak for us all when I say you've taught me humility, kindness, and problem solving just to name a few. Keep making

To be fair a lot of toys from the major brands have now included a "quiet mode" in some toys. The new furby is incredibly quiet compared to past furbies and most of the toys by moose toys company have a quiet mode you can set it on. Check the back if the box before you buy

Quicker and easier method is to open it up and shove some cotton balls in front of the speaker. Limits the cone travel, requires no parts and attenuates high frequencies to make the sounds less annoying in general. If your speaker has a center tweeter, be sure to add some there specifically.

Never thought I'd hear Adam say "Baby momma"

I usually attach a potentiometer (variable resistor) like you did with the clips (one outer lug and the center lug) then adjust it to the desired level. Disconnect the clips and measure the resistance on the two lugs with a meter, and grab a fixed resistor with a similar resistance and use that. Just another way; both methods get the job done.

Starting at 7:17... I now know what a resistor ACTUALLY does... that little resistor fact is now "the most sophistocated things I now know about electronics".. although you say you know very little.... there are others who know even less! Keep sharing!

There is a gadget called a "Resistor Substitution Box" or "Resistor selector wheel" that allows you to to choose from a wide variety of resistor values by simply hooking up two leads and rotating a dial to different values. It's handy for experimentation.

So good! I always reduced the volume of my kids toys by sticking a ball of cotton in the speaker compartment which kept the speaker membrane from moving as much.

Thanks so much for sharing your years of knowledge with us. Your curiousity and enthusiasm as a maker is infectious and inspiring.😁

"I'm going to show you how to make toys quieter" Takes batteries out..... Love you, Adam. Thanks.

I don't know if/when I'll ever be able to use such a tip, but I learned something today, and that is always worth it! Also, I've never been a fan of noisy toys. Even as a kid I thought they were too loud and awkward.

To get the light flickers back you can add a second resistor in parallel with the resistor and speaker, so the overall resistance is about the same. For example, if the speaker is 8 ohms, and you add 32 or so ohms of resistance in series, you can add 10 ohms back in parallel to mimic the load of the original speaker. And in general, 1/10 the power will sound about half as loud, so if you want half the volume you'd use a 72 ohm resistor(or more realistically, a 68 ohm resistor, because that's a common value and close enough). For organizing a resistor kit, I have a grid, bottom to top is E6 prefix (1, 1.5,2.2, 3.3, 4.7, 6.8), and left to right is order of magnitude. Values other than those I buy as needed.

Oh yeah, that's perfect, I'll have to pick up some resistors. I've opened up my kid's toys many times, for a variety of reasons. Volume is one of the more common reasons. My solution has usually been to stuff some strips of neoprene foam into the compartment to physically dampen the vibration of the speaker and muffle the sound, but that's always reliant on clearance, etc. A resistor is a lot easier to find space for in these things, since there's usually lots of room around the wiring itself, but not always in front of the speaker. I screws around with pots (potentiometers) a long time ago trying to control the speed of a tiny blower that I was using to cool an LED fixture I had made, which was fun, but this is much more practical for this application. Awesome

2 things Adam didn't mention in this video (well he sort of showed, but didn't say out right). 1) When adding a resistor to something like this, always start with the high ohm ones and work your way down. 2) Once you've selected a resistor, test it and make very sure that the resistor isn't getting to hot to possibly melt the toy (worst case scenario). Smaller toys like this one that are fairly low voltage, really shouldn't cause a problem, but when you start going up to toys using multiple C or D cell batteries or even 9 volt... you make blow the resistor if you pick one that is to small (resistors blow because of to much current, causing them to over-heat).

Got a great tool tip to go along with this video for anyone who wants to understand electronics and wants some fun project material. Elegoo Arduino Starter Kit: I have a small project that I needed to make a toll gate. I have never coded but I know enough about electronics to be dangerous. This kit has some small boards, resistors like in this video, and a very helpful pdf guide that will walk you through some lessons that will have you build everything from a smiple LED switch to making things appear on a screen and all for under 40 bucks. I think a arduino by itself starts at about that anyway. I really want to go get a toy like this and see what I can do with my new found skills and play around with it. Thanks for the video and thanks for inspiring new fun projects all the time.

Adam, while a good approach, I happen to have a different one. Generally I start out with a potentiometer (variable resister) in a case like this. The reason is how speakers and amplifiers work. When reading speaker impedance, it is listed in ohms. They tend to range from 4 ohms to 32 ohms. Impedance ratings are a little different than resistance as we're talking about coils. As you are showing basically a 6VDC power supply on what presumably is a 5V circuit, perhaps lowering the voltage may have an affect. I'd have to study the circuit for a minute, but typically on children's toys, this can be an easy modification without the need for opening them up. I might try it on 3 batteries verses 4. A simple test might be to use a weak battery for a temporary replacement. I've actually installed one backwards before to lower the voltage to a more desirable level. If you'd like some more simple hacks, please let me know. You are smarter than you realize and learning electronics can be difficult, especially in the analogue world. You've either taught or inspired countless people. I think both as a communicator and what may be called an influencer, understanding rudimentary electronics is important. After all, we are in an electronic world.

Love this video. Seeing Adam go through the exact same process I went through with my own kid’s toys (one in particular was loud enough to cause hearing loss) makes me feel much better about my level of electronics knowledge. 😁😁😁

Paging Dr. Woz! When Adam is discussing how some people have that sense of how individual electronic components work together, it reminds me of reading Steve Wozniak’s autobiography. Fascinating and fun read.

Adam and I on the intricacies of electronics. Same page. The function of the items makes sense, but how they all magic together to make things happen is beyond me, and I'm an electrician.... 😂

Thanks Adam! I randomly came across this video over a month ago and thought it was such a great idea, but never going to need it. Then last week my wife and toddler came back from a trip visiting family and his grandparents “blessed” us with a toy bus that had no business being so loud. I remembered your video instantly. Now the Tiny musical bus is reasonable and my boy is non the wiser with his new favorite toy. 😂

The best part ofthis is that they made a "Star Blaster" with a recording of someone saying "Blam!" 😆🤣😆🤣

That's awesome. My dad was a radio mechanic during Vietnam, you would think he would have shown any us how to do something with analog electronics. Oh well, great video for new parents. My kids are adults now also😁

This works for other household items like bread machines. I like to run mine so there is fresh bread in the morning but I don't need it beeping at 5:45am to let me know it's done!

I was that uncle that gave "annoying noise toy" gifts. It became a tradition. One Christmas I found a plastic ball with motion sensor triggered sound, very similar (at least in how annoying it was) sound track to the gun you showed. But I went the opposite direction from you: I opened it up (not so easy with three-point philips head screws) and replaced the crappy zinc-carbon batteries with lithium cells. After reassembling it, I turned it on "loud" (there was a power/volume switch) and then covered the switch in epoxy. That was 20 years ago. My sister still has it and it still works.

Feeling your way through the mathematical world of resistors is a beautiful thing, I appreciate this greatly thank you.

I have that blaster. It indeed works like that. I was perplexed when I opened it up. As i did with all my toys.

I like the idea that Adam spent "an hour" looking for the battery directions instead of just trying the 16 possible permutations.

Amazing. I will have to test this. For now I have just taped over the speakers because I personally find it really loud and I think my baby son that sits WAY closer to the speakers than I do will get ringing ears after 5 minutes when he mashes on his toys :D Edit: Thank you Adam for bringing me fond memories of Mythbusters and for showing me how I wanted to (and still want to be) as an adult and father now.

You are so right about songs that stick in your head from kids movies. I've dated ladies with kids and yes the over play of movies in inevitable :) When I buy old toys with cool sounds and electronics to reuse in my costumes I make and I install a volume or mute button the sounds. You just gotta do it lol. Thanks for doing this :)

Speaking of old pre-soundchip sound toys, a method like described in the Han Solo blaster or Stormtrooper E-11 were not exclusive. Although I'm definitely not old enough to remember, I've seen plenty of people who are (i.e., James May). If you were a kid in Britain in the mid-late 20th century and loved trains, then you might remember the classic Hornby Flying Scotsman that's still produced today. However, this is a unique set not only as a Christmas branded set, but the tender of the locomotive contained a metal rod that scraped against sandpaper to create a chuffing sound. If you were just a common pleb with a silent locomotive, then you were probably scum.

you can squirt hot glue into the speaker's voice coil to dampen the sound too. also, to make it easier, instead of cutting the wire and putting the resistor in series, you can put one in parallel across the speaker terminals and accomplish the same thing without needing to cut the wires

Just restored my childhood Tie fighter and Snowspeeder- absolutely correct- no sound chip just a small motor and piece of flexibile plastic that flicks across one of the cogs on the motor. Such a simple solution.

When my toddlers demonstrated the ability to replace the batteries, I started superglueing the switch in the off position or the buttons. Noisy toys are hard to take. Thank you for the tutorial, the nieces and nephews will reap the rewards

It's crazy how those batteries lasted 24 years without you touching that package. Also, super weird that you still have a 24 year old toy in it's package.

OMG, I'm legit horrified by Adam sawing apart that toy in such a cavalier manner. I think even if I was planning to trash the thing, I'd still turn myself inside out trying to put it back together correctly. 😅

Adam describing the physical noises that laserblasters made, reminds me of a short I saw recently of how sequential tail-lights worked back in the day before IC's... It was so simple! It was just a small motor, with a bunch of cams attached to it that would open and close a different circuit while rotating... it was somehow simplistically beautiful, and I want one even more now... :D Each cam was clearly tuned for duration, so you could have the desired effect... :D

When I was still a kid, my dad dealt with the same situation you did (I am also currently 24, same as your sons) Toys from that time were very noisy and we used to do "operations" on basically all my toys that made sound. It always got me very excited for some reason, it must have been interesting to me to see the inner workings of my toys. Either way, usually he would take out the noise maker and leave the lights and such in. I didn't care much for the noise either, so I would happily let my toys be tinkered with.

Beyond the keeping a toy for 24 years that "isn't worth keeping", I like how Adam went through the trouble of hacking the electronics to restrict the electrical flow to reduce the speaker volume. My shadetree method was usually just hacking the box it came in for some cardboard to cover the speaker with to restrict the air flow and muffle the speaker volume. I suppose his way made for a more interesting video. (I have done the "clip the speaker" method too)

That's a good idea to lower the sound of a toy great idea thanks for sharing 👍

I have a 4 month old boy, this is gonna be a great help, cheers Adam!

The timing of this video is amazing... was embarking on solving this problem in the exact same way a week ago. Good to know i'm not the only one who suffers from this :)

It occured to me that Adam's tale of how toys worked when he was a kid was essentially a "Back in my day...." :)

I love Adam's perspective on this. My years of EE knowledge which told me offhand the correct value would be around 8-80 ohms would have saved him *one* random attempt, maybe 60 seconds. +1 to reducing barriers to entry! (For low danger things like battery powered things, or USB devices. Electricity'll kill ya quick if you mess with the wrong thing, like house wiring or opening some appliances even if unplugged! No guessing here, find somone who can tell you what the dangerous parts are because you absolutely cannot guess.)

Love it. This is way better than all the tape I stuck over the speaker grills of my kiddo's noisy toys

The look of childlike delight on his face when he does it with the resistor nad it works the first time is wholesome😂

That was so cool. I love to learn new things all the time. Thanks for sharing.

As a new father of a four month old that has no understanding of electronics. This is quite a gift my one nephew is old enough I know how…fun…loud repeated sounds can be.

I will be employing this technique on future toys. My solution till now has been disassembling the offending toy and placing gaff tape over the inside of the speaker grill. This is quite effective in removing the shrillness of said toy however some are not as easily defeated. Thank you.

Great project. I thought it worth mentioning that you can still find Jamco online which is where radio shack got most of there stuff and it's kind of like shopping at an online radio shack

Heck - poking holes in the speaker cone thru the grille, or dripping Elmer's glue thru the grille on to the cone tends to shut stuff like that up a bit, too... with less disassembly 😉

5:00 "Lets try and make this puppy quieter, shall we?", takes batteries out. He could have ended the video there 😂

The pre-electric toys' techniques were downright ingenious. The child-powered echo of soundstage sound effects.

I used to put tape over the speaker holes. Helped a bit. Did not want to open new advanced toys, like talking Transformers, just in case i did not get it back together. Older toys, Shure.. A resistor and a soldering iron is a blessing. I also got "allergic" to RGB blinking/cycling lights over the years.

I loved to see the little extra describing the circuitry side effect.

Something like the internal circuit from that could also be fun to hack with a relay or transistor and a proximity based motion detector circuit with a random delay timer. But then it's a matter of making sure it's well hidden and also louder.

My kid is now older but i loved the video .. and that seiko!! Impecable taste in watches .

The part about not having a natural understanding of electronics resonates strongly with me. I've held off on messing with LEDs beyond pre-assembled packages because of that. Tested, one of you should definitely make a similar guide for how to setup LED circuits!

You never gave the toy gun to your kids! I'm not sure if you are a monster... OR the smartest person in THIS WORLD! My son has had some very loud toys too... after a few hours, they usually met with a timing "unauthorised wiring modification" with a pair of side cutter dikes! OR stage tape over the speakers! Parenting FOR THE WIN! :) If you really want to quiet the toy or device (I have a few noisy UPS units, that like to beep during the night time!) down for real, a well-calculated resistor voltage divider circuit will always fit the bill perfectly! Yes, Adam those semiconductors are magic! and it took several years of school to learn which way the electrons and the holes go through them, without letting out the magic smoke! :) Great content as always sir!

I did this with a portable induction cook top. Every press of the button was just an obnoxiously loud beep, and if you took the pan off while it was running it beeped continuously. I Tore it apart and tested resistors till the sound was quiet enough but not so quiet that I wouldn't notice it beeping. So even if you don't have kids, this is a good trick.

9:38 - Well that escalated quickly!! 😂😂😂

Phil gives the best gifts ! that note is hilarious.

'this story was going to be better in my head' had me chuckling 😂

I don't know if this works with the IC chip and the speaker, but maybe solder 1 plus pole and 1 minus pole on the batteries together, so you only need 2 or 3 of them. This should lower the voltage and therefore the noise and light flickering if it doesn't underpower the IC, you'll also need fewer batteries when you do this. If the IC would be underpowered, a possible fix would be to replace the voltage reducing resistor in front of the IC power input line with one with a lower resistance. In this particular case it seems like the IC is powered with 4 1,5V batteries in series, and I assume a resistor is placed in the line to reduce the 6V to 5V. I would definetely still put a resistor in this line to prevent high currents.

Super job adam🎉 enjoy your work👍 keep up the great videos 👍

Never even knew how to spot a resistor. Very informative!

I remember as a kid for Christmas I received a toy breadboard learning kit that included resistors and that the color bands on the resistors determine the values of the resistance.

I never realized that I know more about electronics and electricity than Adam Savage. This man was one of the reasons I went into that field. I guess Grant was my actual inspiration and I never realized it. Man.

We use clear packing tape over the speaker, can usually lower the sound by 1/3rd or 1/2

Hey Adam! Speaking about spludgers - have you ever considered buying an assortment of guitar picks for your cave? they're inexpensive, and I find that they have countless uses. They come in many different materials and precise thicknesses, from something like 0.3mm - to +2mm. I think you'd find them versatile and cheap/disposable.

I did this to a toy that had a speaker and a motor(fan) and putting in the resistor also reduced the fan speed so had to balance quite well. It also made the batteries last longer which was a bonus!!

I absolutely loved Radio Shack there is and was not another store like it man brings back memories

This is so very necessary for some of the toys weve collected from the grandparents. Some of the toys have volume settings thats fine. But the VOLUME of one of these toys... You can hear it down the street I swear

I’m as old as yours kids lol you helped raise me in a way and helped me fall in love with science and mechanics

Instead of individually testing various single resistors, there is a resistor box kit out there that has the various resistors contained and a rotary switch plus resistor leads. All you do is hook the box to the leads start out at the highest resistor start tuning the dial down until you get the tone that you are comfortable with. It also works great with LEDS for intensity.

Great video, that would be real useful a couple years ago. But at the time I managed to fix the noise by taping some pillow foam in front of the speakers of my kids toys, that works too.

I remember an old toy machine gun I had as a kid in the 70s pre sound chips. It had some kind of ratchet mechanism that made it sound and feel like you were firing the gun! I’m not a gun lover, but it felt soooo much more realistic than a sound chip

Thanks Adam been doing this for years to my kids toys lol although i would use a preset so i could adjust the level a keep our sanity along with surgery on teddy to replace the stitched in coin cell keep up the awesome work.