This afternoon Emi and I decided to take her Fisher Price record player (modern version of the classic) apart to see how it works. Emi is always very curious how things work (proud dad) so this was pretty fun for us to do together.
No real surprise that it’s completely digital now (with a gooped chip that probably wouldn’t survive being cleaned so I could bend it) but I was surprised to see the main body of an actual music box mechanism inside. Guess it’s cheaper to buy them this way than design their own crank mechanism? The rainbow wires run up into the arm and the raised parts of the record press buttons underneath to tell it what song to play. Here’s a clip of that poor mechanism being cranked and then limping along until it runs out of steam: