Zombie Dinosaur

[ffutures]

 Today's car boot fair bargain was a Ugobe Pleo animatronic dinosaur - unfortunately in poor condition with a lot of damage to its skin that makes it look like a zombie. Also unfortunately no charger and i suspect the batteries are dead. I do have the instructions and the leaf the dinosaur tries to eat.

It looks like the cheap fix for the battery is to replace the battery pack with a holder for six NiMH AA batteries and wire it in, and charge them externally. I suspect that you can also replace the cells in the existing battery with AA NiHM batteries, but I would then be back to needing a charger.

I'll add photos later, laptop I'm using right now seems to have gone on strike so far as reading memory cards is concerned.

Anyone got any experience of repairing them? Or know a source for spares? Can't see any on ebay.

Comments

[watervole]

I had a friend who had one of those, but a long time ago now. I seem to recall they had a learning element of sorts.

[ffutures]

That seems to be right - they are supposed to gradually "grow up" as they get more used to interaction. You can apparently fit an SD card but there's nothing in the instructions I have to say why.

[watervole]

I think the SD card may be for software updates - https://www.pleoworld.com/pleo_rb/eng/download.php

[ffutures]

Thanks!

[kedamono]

Fixing your dino would probably require a full tear down and the use of a vinyl repair kit and vinyl restorer. There's a page on reprogramming your Pleo:

https://www.instructables.com/Resurrect-Your-Dead-Pleo-RB-With-a-Tethered-PSU/

and a iFixit on doing the tear down:

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Pleo+Teardown/597

[ffutures]

I don't want to take it apart if I can avoid it - I'd like to fix it but my skills probably aren't up to much beyond simple soldering etc. The zombie look is actually kind of weird and fun, I may leave the skin as it is...