I'm working on replacing the circuit boards in a Furby Boom. So far I've 3d printed the board to hold some LCD screens, a motor driver, audio driver and an esp32 s3 that slots into the old space.
Once that's working I'm going to try have my own PCB board made. The goal is to have a programmable Bluetooth connected Furby that you can upload your own gifs and audio to.
As I’m sure a lot of people have noticed, the motors in the 2012, Boom, and Crystal Furbys are slowly burning out. A lot of second-hand Furbys are now extremely cheap because of it.
I’ve read plenty of posts about replacing the motors and tried lots of different types myself, looking for one that performs as well as the original. I found plenty that physically fit, but most caused problems like strange noises, getting stuck, running too slowly, or not functioning properly at all. The worm gear also never seems to go back on correctly with many replacements.
I’ve finally come across a solution that seems to work really well. From what I can tell, the original motor windings, shaft, and gearbox are usually fine. The main thing that fails over time appears to be the brushes.
All you really need is a donor motor with compatible internals. If you’re going to replace the brushes, you may as well upgrade them at the same time. It will only cost you about 3 euro and some soldering skill. If you search for:
“RK-30023-12370 RF-300C Micro 24mm Carbon Brush Electric Motor”
or something similar on the usual Chinese marketplaces, you’ll find a small black motor that matches the original size but uses much better brushes.
Here’s how to swap them over and survive the Furby Motor Apocalypse for a many more years.
Step 1: Remove the Motor. I won't go over that here there is already many many guides on how to do that.
Step 2: De-solder the motor board and cables. Using a soldering iron remove the board and cables by de-soldering at the three points circled in red
Step 3: Remove the motor bottom plate clips. Place the motor board somewhere safe and using a pliers or a snips, push the four tabs circled in red away from the bottom plate.
Step 4: Remove the bottom plate. There is a small hole circled in red which makes it easy to pry the bottom plate off. If you remove the clips properly this should be easy.
Small hole for a small screwdriver to pry the bottom off
Here you can see the burnt brush bend to one side
Step 5: Do the same to your black motor. The black motor is the same construction as the original one. Pry back the clips and pop off the bottom. Don't remove those red and black wires. We will need them because the black motor doesn't have pins like the original.
But better fancier carbon brushes
Step 6: Replace the brushes & bottom plate. This part can be tricky. The brushes are delicate and you need to come in at an angle so you don't break off the carbon on the new brushes, but in the end you need to take the black motors bottom place and brushes all as one piece and place it on the original motor.
Artists impression of how the brushes fit. See the brushes in the last photo
Step 7: Reattach the cables and motor board. Superglue the motor board back in place on the bottom of the motor then solder the three points like it originally was. The red wire then goes to the side with two capacitors and the black wire to the side with one. See the next photo
Solder the red wire & red cable, black wire & brown cable as above
If you followed all those steps you now have a working motor with new brushes ready to last many more years. Just to note that the brushes from any of those cheaper RF-300 motors you can find online will also work, but I find these ones work very well.
Also you might think the red and black wire might get in the way when you put the motor back in place but they don't.
