The gimmi ridimmi ("jim say it again") is a plastic toy voice recorder from the mid nineties coming in various color. Aimed to kids with a funny face, the Gimmi has only two buttons for recording and playing back (a side pot allows to change the pitch).
As you can imagine the sound is pretty low fi and there is no input-output. I believe this toy has been distributed in other countries with different name (like talking talk) - it has a big success mainly in Italy among young people, branded by GIG a big Toy company.
It simply does not turn on! normally you press recording (REC) then play, and that's it!
Batteries are 4 LR44 1,5V, bought new one and checked also for leakage or corroded parts, but nothing - So checking VCC: I have 6VDC so everything is fine with this section. There are only 3 screws plus one for the battery slots.
Once the board revealed, at first glance there is quite nothing, so it should not very very difficult:
-6 ceramic capacitors type 104 - 0.1uF
-7 resistances
-1 transistor
-2 electrolytic capacitors.
Let's flip the board over and see
UPPER Not much neither on the other side: a simple red LED, 2 contacts (cleaned) for buttons and a mysterious IC for the recording but it has a black glue protections; it should be possible to remove this anti-theft protection, but It's not necessary, the IC should not be the culprit at 99%.
I would remove the protection it just to know the the lofi IC used in this toy.
UPPER All has been quickly checked (transitor and ceramic) changed 1 electrolytic cap with medium ESR... nothing seems to move anyway. The 6VDC are on the board and you can find them easily. Checking the transitor S8050 out of the board, but diode test mode revealed nothing. The transistor is fine.
Ok I checked everything! just have to check on microscope if some invisible damage, but tracks are pretty big.
Of course I forgot to test ohm resistance on the pitch pot ... and Bingo! no value out of the pins. Too bad I don't have those kind of slide pot for replacement, anyway let's remove it and see what happenedd.
UPPER: interrupted tracks on bothsides. Tried a repair with graphite spray, but OHM were way to high on MegaOhm road. Anyway I will install a fixed resistance for now, waiting for a new spare part.
Working of course. It would be possible also to make an output with a 1,5mm jack. But I don't want to drill it in anyway.
If you need:
No service manual and no user manual, if you have some info about the VM1000 board or VM-001 let me know. Thanks.
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