Bot Thoughts: Furby Disassembly: Part 1

"Cookie Muffin, Too"

Faced with a malfunctioning $8 Goodwill Furby, I set about non-destructive disassembly of my daughter's new sick pet, inspired by the dramatic skinning of a Furby by Becky at Adafruit.

I was also inspired by Doc McStuffins.

And yes, I was secretly happy the Furby wasn't working; I confess having had thoughts of disassembly the moment after I saw the price tag.

Don't worry. No Furbys were harmed in the making of this blog post.

The Furby was making odd chattering noises, strange light fluctuations in the eyes, and shutting off unexpectedly. For awhile the eyes and beak weren't moving in time with speech. New batteries helped a little but this was a sick little fella.

He's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes.

Removing the Fur

First step is to remove the battery cover and remove batteries. That's easy enough. Then remove the screws around the battery tray that hold a retaining clip which keeps the bottom end of the fur in place.

Next, start peeling back the fur. Near the tail you'll find a loop attached to a hook. Remove that.

Now peel up the fur. It is clipped in two spots at the back, around the ears and around the face with locking plastic tabs.

Locking tab shown with small slot below for unlocking.

In most cases, wherever there's a clip, there's a slot below it so that you can insert a small screwdriver and push up on the locking tab and pull out the clip.

At the front, after removing two screws holding the fur to the body, insert screwdriver to unlock the tabs, unplug the red wire, and pull the fur up.

Two screws and two clips in front below face.

Remove the red tickle sensor wire.

Now pull up the fur to each ear, for which there are two more clips. You'll need to remove the ears first. They are held in by internal clips so you may have to pry, twist, etc. to get them off.

Remove ear clip with screwdriver in small slot

One ear of the furby popped right off, the other took more work and came off in two pieces, the actual ear first, which came loose from a glued-in retaining clip (still attached, below).

Ear pulled loose from retaining mechanism

Now, insert screw driver and remove the ear clips. The right top clip can sort of slide out in front of the ear if that's easier.

Remove two white plastic covers that go over the ear nubs (shown below).

Ear nubs, white ear cover things. Right ear came off in two pieces.

The fur is clipped in two spots at each side of the face. Again with the screwdriver to pry the locking tabs out of the way, slide out the clips.

Clip at side of face

There are two more clips at the top above the face.

Clips at top of face, clips/ring for ears shown.

One top clip removed

You are now left with this fascinating and in no way disturbing sight. You might as well put the batteries back in so it can talk to you in this state. Fun.

Skinned Furby

Removing the Back Cover

Four phillips screws hold the back cover on the Furby. You will probably have to cut through some tape to get to them all. There are two at the bottom on each side, and two at the top near the face clips.

Right bottom screw

Left bottom screw

Top screws between ears and sliver sensor

Before you remove the back cover, you have to peel back the silver sensors on each side. As you have no doubt guessed, the Furby uses these to detect if you're petting its head or holding him or whatever.

It's affixed with good old fashioned clear tape. Peel it up with something sharp. You can always re-affix the sensor with packing tape.

Right side sensor, peeled back.

Peel back the left sensor past the white speaker grille, further than shown below.

Left side sensor, peel back further than this.

Now you can remove the back cover.

Inside there's an optical encoder board for the eyelids using a Schmitt trigger inverter, plugs for the speaker, and other goodies that I didn't really explore further.