That poor reindeer

December 17, 2023 2:04 PM

Putting 31 volts through various holiday toys. (Youtube, 10 minutes)
posted by JHarris (21 comments total)

This channel has put high voltage through toys before. This video has a Santa toy in it (warning: Wham).
posted by JHarris at 2:11 PM on December 17, 2023

electricity, it's a helluva drug
posted by chavenet at 2:11 PM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Some pretty good safety engineering that only one thing started to smoke and nothing flagrantly blew up or burst into flame.
posted by MattD at 2:39 PM on December 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

So disappointing. No flames and very little smoke. I mean, the hyperactive toys were fun, but, come on, it's christmas. I want a good old fashioned, complete disrespect for safety standards conflagration. Is that really too much to ask? And, no, since you asked, this melt down in the republican party is not enough.
posted by evilDoug at 2:47 PM on December 17, 2023 [6 favorites]

It'd be amusing if someone set him up with some custom made toy really designed to exploit the extra voltage, like by transitioning into death metal and providing a tesla coil or other visible spark gap.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:51 PM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Aw, that reindeer splitting down the middle lengthwise wasn't enough? I thought it was nice that it didn't go full-on explosion, lots of Youtube videos go for the big spectacle, intercutting with an obnoxious loud white guy shouting something like "WAT UP MAH BOIIIIIIS". The understatedness, and almost scientific focus of this video I found appealing. I was reminded a bit of the good old days of Will It Blend.

Also, I suspect that 31 volts is as high as his supply will go.
posted by JHarris at 2:52 PM on December 17, 2023 [7 favorites]

I too was surprised by the relative lack of smoke/fire in such cheap-looking toys.
But those were some cheap-ass toys.
Who makes such crap and still makes a profit?
They deserve to be experimented upon.
posted by MtDewd at 3:10 PM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Santa @ 7:33: "It does not matter. I am already dead inside."
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:06 PM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

These objects are all cursed and this is the only way to destroy them.

These are fun. I keep waiting for them to be creepy or something but instead just crack me up. They're chaotic.
posted by edencosmic at 4:24 PM on December 17, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think this YouTube creator will regret his actions when he gets to the afterlife….
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:37 PM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

When I worked at Radio Shack in college, we would hook the battery terminals of leftover toys up to the speaker outputs of our big stereos, then slowly turn up the volume. Sometimes you'd get a satisfying squawk out of the toy before it started to smell like burning wires.
posted by goatdog at 5:35 PM on December 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

Do Boston Dynamics next
posted by flabdablet at 5:43 PM on December 17, 2023 [10 favorites]

Above 7V the sound chip dies. But the electric motor doesn't care. Turn up the voltage and the motor will make Santa drum as fast as you want.
posted by eye of newt at 6:29 PM on December 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Need to find a toy relying on something mechanical for the sound...not a thing in 2023, I'm guessing.

(I've never been a parent, but I'd be looking for a sledgehammer after about minute 10 of my kids playing with these. Good thing I'm not one.)
posted by maxwelton at 8:17 PM on December 17, 2023

And how was there a toy of a reindeer specifically playing rudolph without the critter having a glowing red nose???
posted by maxwelton at 8:18 PM on December 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

That's what I'm asking! Also it seemed to jump randomly around the song, although that could have just been the editing.
posted by JHarris at 8:30 PM on December 17, 2023

I love how somewhere around 25 volts Santa drummer shrugs off the cheesy hat and glasses and becomes the mad drummer from a heavy metal cover band in a dive bar on a Wednesday night.
posted by MrVisible at 9:42 PM on December 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

You never know how cheap and shoddy a toy is until you see it operating with 10x the intended voltage.
posted by tommasz at 7:51 AM on December 18, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was hoping for 500V or 1000V and an arc flash. Thirty volts turns these little dancers into little blenders, which is cute. But overvoltage and high voltage are very different things.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 9:09 AM on December 18, 2023

The character of what happens to these toys changes greatly between 31V and 500+V. The speaker stops working as low as seven volts. At 30 most of these toys shake themselves apart in amusing ways. At 500V... it's like Storm (in the first X-Men movie) said. What happens when a cheap plastic toy gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to any other toy.
posted by JHarris at 9:35 AM on December 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

It would be a lot of work and against the spirit of the thing, but I would like to see what happens if one cut the power traces to the voltage sensitive components and added a 5v or so power supply, and then injected a clock signal that scaled with the main voltage.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:02 PM on December 19, 2023