Head is finally finished...

Finally the head is just about ready...

I amused myself looking up the original drawing....


Here's what's inside the face...

...and the arduino control circuit under the base...

All that really remains is to make the power supply...

Hacking VHS players for spare electronics parts

This is the inside of a dead VHS video recorder/player. It turns out it is still full of lots of old-school eletronics. Sure, there are lots of PCBs, but due to the mecahnical nature of video players with their big motors and stuff, there are a lot of useful connectors in there, as well as some high power resistors, transistors, loads of potentiometers and so on. A good way to pick up cheap parts.
Here is a handy 10 pin connector with the wiring all nicely connected. Try soldering anything remotely as neat as this, and you will see how useful a ready made is!

Here it is connected up to the breadboard jump leads coming off the arduino

And here it is fed into the underside of the head, from the board