Furby Surgery and Speaker Replacement (unfinished)

Welcome! This Instructable is a sibling to my other one, Longifying your Furby. Since getting into the Furby community, we've started experimenting with working Furbies as well.

The first section (steps 1 to 3) is on how to safely remove the fur and shell from a working Furby, for simply painting and customizing purposes or to perform further surgery.

The second section (steps 4 to 6) is specifically on how to replace the shell and fur, and string a hair tie into the zip tie slot to allow for ease of future removal. (Work in progress)

The third section (step 7) is all about removing and replacing a Furby speaker. Furby speakers simply plug into the motherboard and have few screws or bits of glue, so it's a simple operation if your Furby has gone mute and you have a speaker donor.

The Instructable we use to revive our broken ones, we've had a lot of success!

https://www.instructables.com/id/Push-Start-a-Coma...

Another tutorial by a friend of ours on how to skin a Furby Boom:

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Skin-a-Mod...

Small flat head screwdriver

Scissors

Wire cutters (they usually have smaller ends and stronger jaws, making it easier to cut the zip tie with)

X-acto knife

Seam ripper (recommended)

Needle and thread of a matching color to the inside of the Furby's ears

Hair tie

Medium safety pin

!!!IMPORTANT!!! A small box or dish to keep your screws in. A mint tin works great

First, of course, remove your Furby's batteries. It's best to do this while it's asleep to reduce damage to the motors and programming.

Take an X-acto knife or seam ripper and carefully cut the small stitches inside the ears. These stitches hold the fabric onto the ear bones inside. Once the thread is cut and pulled out, the ears should easily slip off of the bones. You do not need to cut the bottom of the ear.

Find the zip tie around the base of the Furby, there should be a seam in the back where the zip tie sleeve has a break and you can see it. Cut any threads holding this sleeve together until you have a good view of the zip tie. If it's super tight, use the flathead to pry it upward so you can fit the scissors or wire cutters underneath (wire cutters show in picture). Once the zip tie is cut, grab the "block" end of it and pull it out of the sleeve.

Begin pulling the fur up and over the Furby like a shirt, turning it inside out as you go. There are small clips under the ears that hold the fur on, grasp the fur right beneath the ears and pull down and slightly away from the Furby, hard. The fur will come out from underneath these little clasps, but there is also typically a lot of glue involved as well. Start by pulling the fur off of the glue, but if it becomes too stuck then use your X-acto knife. Slide the knife between the fur and the plastic, as close to the plastic as possible to avoid cutting the actual fabric.

Once the fur around the ears has been freed, carefully continue to pull the fur upwards and inside out until the faceplate cover is the only thing still keeping it attached to the body. There are a handful of different ways the faceplate cover can be attached. Some simply aren't, some have screws, hot glue, or little tabs that lock into the body.

Screws should be easy to find, just unscrew them and save them!

Hot glue is annoying, but you have two choices. For larger blobs heat up a hot glue gun of your own, then gently press the nozzle against the glue without squeezing the trigger. Use a wiping motion with the nozzle, or have a popsicle stick on hand, to remove the melted glue. If the glue is thin or you're removed mots of it, it should pull off of the plastic (it wasn't made to stick to smooth surfaces) or you can use your X-acto knife to slide underneath it and help it along. Some might be stuck to the fur as well, this will definitly take a knife to cut.

The little plastic tabs that some models have are the most annoying. They have little triangles that stick inward and lock under "bridges" built into the body. With needle-nose pliers, go from the bottom and grab these tabs, pulling them outward and out from underneath the bridges. If you get one, the other should slip out easily since the tension from both is what keeps them in.

With nothing holding it on anymore, you will be able to pull the faceplate cover off of the body. Congratulations! You have skinned your Furby!

Remove the screws holding the two halves of the case together, saving them in your safe spot! Some of
them are embedded pretty far into the plastic and will take some work. You’ll know you got all of them when it comes off easily.

Skip to step 7 to perform the speaker surgery, or just use this chance to customize the Furby with less in your way. You can also use the seam ripper method to remove the Furby's eye chips through the back of the head, but this is rather sketchy and not recommended unless you know what you're doing.

Now you're ready to move on to putting it back together!

To replace the shell, first put on the side with the microphone. Push it into it's slot, then guide the ear bone through the hole. After you've screwed on one side, be sure to replace the back sensor bar before sliding the other side into place. If you're finished here you can screw everything back in, but for a Furby in-progress I prefer to wrap a hair tie around the zip tie channel.

There will also be two screws on either side of the speaker, undo these.
You do not need to undo the screw in the center of the speaker, if there is one. Trace the speaker wires to a plug along the side and carefully pry it out. Peel away any hot glue or un-twist any ties holding the wires together, and you're done!

There are two kinds of plugs for Furby speakers, and it's important
you get the right one. The look of the front of the speaker doesn't matter, latter models are slightly more high-tech but they all work the same. Both of the plugs have two little ridges that fit into the channels in the socket. Some models have the ridges right on the edge, others have them closer to the middle. You need to have the correct plug style in order for the replacement surgery to work.

Once you have that settled, simply screw the new speaker on and plug it in! I'd recommend giving it a test before screwing the Furby back up.