I wasn't certain where to post this one, but here goes.
One of my colleagues found a cheap toy at one of our UK cheap pound shops. Basically it's a rubber/soft plastic gadget that when dropped it flashes. When we opened the basic toy, inside was a round hard plastic ball about an inch in diameter. We carefully hacksawed our way into the ball and found 3x 1.4 cell buttons connected to a very simple circuit board, which also contained two LEDs. There was a small spring connected to one end of the battery. The other end of the spring was loose and obviously worked as a sort of trembler switch, completing the circuit when shaken or moved. The two LED's - a blue and a red one - flashed very very brightly for 8 seconds before resetting.

The only other thing on the PCB is a small ceramic disc. I'm wondering if this is some sort of PIC controller. There is absolutely no identification on the board at all other than the numbers HX09B.

Just thought it was worth a shot to see if anybody had come across this and knew what it was.

Simon

 

The small ceramic disk covers over a proprietary circuit; it could be a microcontroller IC without the IC packaging; just the substrate bonded to the circuit board. That kind of thing is pretty common in inexpensive electronics.

 

Piezoelectric generator? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuw9frP1GNo

Chip-on-board (COB)? http://www.siliconfareast.com/cob.htm

 

The ceramic disc is a piezo. It produces a signal when hit.

 

Probably chip on board, as there has to be a brain for the 8 second flash time. There's not need for delicate piezo when there is a spring sensor?

I saw an almost identical circuit in a childs yoyo but it used a couple of tilt sensors, multicoloured LEDs and a tiny round chip on board. When the yoyo was spun it flashes for a few seconds.