Customize songs on a Big Mouth Billy Bass Fish

Hey all,

I am wondering if someone could assist me in a project I'm trying to do. I feel out of place because electronics are not my forte, I haven't really worked on them so this would be my first project. In other words I need help and in the words of Michael Scott from the office you'll have to "Explain it to me as though I was a 5-year-old.

My project is to customize one of the singing bass fish toys to sing a different song then what it's preloaded with. I've found a couple of things on the internet like customizing it with Amazon's Alexa, but i only want it to play one song. I don't need it to be THAT diverse. Another youtube video I found and looked promising, but didn't have any instructions, was called fun with MBED and it looked as though he was able to get the fish to say anything and the mouth and body moved perfectly with it. I don't know if you guys would be able to or willing to assist me with this but if you could I would be so grateful!

cassidizzle91 said:

I am wondering if someone could assist me in a project I'm trying to do. I feel out of place because electronics are not my forte, I haven't really worked on them so this would be my first project. ...

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I'm pretty sure you won't be able to modify the existing controller unit.

That said, you might find help here. It won't be easy...

you would need access to the microcontroller's flash or ROM. sometimes this can be done by connecting to the uC's JTAG port or UART if the pins are available to connect to

unclejed613 said:

you would need access to the microcontroller's flash or ROM. sometimes this can be done by connecting to the uC's JTAG port or UART if the pins are available to connect to

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Looking at the picture there's a crude Chinese PCB, with a module at the end with a COB, that's certainly going to the music player, so no chance of altering that.

it looks like that little board has 4 or 5 contacts on the end of it. that could be a UART port or a JTAG port. if it's a UART port, connecting to it and running a serial terminal will provide a bash prompt (a lot of embedded devices like this have a very basic version of linux on them). if it's a JTAG port, the device under the blob can be reprogrammed. there are people who make a living playing with embedded devices like this.

unclejed613 said:

it looks like that little board has 4 or 5 contacts on the end of it. that could be a UART port or a JTAG port. if it's a UART port, connecting to it and running a serial terminal will provide a bash prompt (a lot of embedded devices like this have a very basic version of linux on them). if it's a JTAG port, the device under the blob can be reprogrammed. there are people who make a living playing with embedded devices like this.

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I think that's VERY wishful thinking

These are made for peanuts, and the COB's are usually hardware manufactured on the silicon, not programmed afterwards.

I think the solution is to completely bypass the current playback module and hack in a new one with your custom song. There are lots of audio playback modules out there. Download a song to it through USB. The modules all have inputs that start the playback. Now you just need to find out what makes the fish start to play: is it sound activated? Motion? Hopefully you can find a signal (using a voltmeter) that changes state when the fish begins playing. Use that signal to trigger your new playback module. I was able to do this with a 1980's mechanical robot toy and it worked out pretty easy.

JimW