Lets tear a strip off Furby.
Which new movie is it that features a 30 foot tall Furby in a shopping mall? I think its the Mitchells and the Machines… cartoon movie.
Anyhow onto the topic of taking apart your Furby.
Now make sure you know why you are taking it apart. If its not making a sound but it is moving then it might just be a broken speaker wire or a broken speaker so you may not need to take everything apart (but i do believe you need to if its the speaker since the two parts of the furby meet and keep the speaker in place).
But before you start you must put in new batteries and then turn the Furby upside down….maybe press the reset button and shake it and move its eyes with your hand to see if it moves at all or makes a sound.
There is a good chance that the old batteries have leaked all over the inside and you should scrape it out in case it has eroded enough to cause a break in the circuit.
You don’t want to get battery acid on you although it hasn’t ever hurt me…so use a toothbrush or a screwdriver to scrape it while over top of a towel or a piece of paper.
You don’t have to get all of the corroded acid out but the more the better.
So then you may want to start taking it apart.
There is a tilt sensor at the bottom which can get stuck and you will get to it when you take it all apart that sometimes prevents your furby from working.
There are 3 main generations of Furbys (1998 and 2005 and 2012 with variations like baby furby and specialty Furbies) so the dissassembly will vary a bit.
But the first step is to take of the fur or skin of the furby and they all seem so have a plastic zip tie at the base of the Furby which holds the skin to the body of the bottom of the Furby.
You can start by cutting the fabric at the back where the zip cord is with a pair of scissors or a utility knife and then cut the cord.
You can then remove the entire cord and replace it with a new one when its time to reassemble the Furby or don’t.
So you will now start to unravel the fur up and take not of the front where you will see the speaker and the front sensor.
Once you get to the beak and the eyes….it will be more complicated and time consuming to get the fur off the furby without breaking something.
Now the older 1998 and 2005 Furbies had the mechanical moving eyes which is a joy to see and a marvel of mechanical engineering to any beginning roboticist. The digital eyes that came later in 2012 are not nearly as awe inspiring and must have been a way to bring the cost of the toy down and make it easier to build cheaply.
Just go slow and you should be able to get the fur completely off…if that is what you really want to do.
