so i decided to make it better.  basically in Feb, a buddy and myself were daytime hunting some coons.  the decoy worked for about twenty-ish minutes then it started slowing down.  so after that stand, we grabbed it to change batteries and it was HOT!  like i couldn't hold it even with Mechanix gloves on.  i was able to get it apart and the four AA battery holder had melted and it wouldn't work.  so with my knowledge of low voltage, i began to make a design.  i found a couple of ideas on the internet and i began to play.

i chose to use a single 9V battery instead of the 4 AA (6 volt) original layout and used a 555 timer as a astable timer circuit.  i love that circuit layout.  the circuit that i made allows it it ON for 6 seconds and OFF for 3 seconds.  the LED is there to light up when the motor is not running.  its a simple circuit and i use it for my IR/VIS beacons i make myself.

i also was able to reuse much of the original.  i reused the motor, switch, wiring, cap that the motor screws to, the spike and topper.  i have the faux fur that wrapped around the original decoy and i'll use that for other decoys that i hope to make sometime soon.  the rest came from Menards... just some 1.5" PVC and my spare components bin.

anyways, hopefully you like it.

this won't buff out.  the chip has some stress, there is a disc cap that is gone and that zener looks pretty stressed.
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this is what i used for the circuit:
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she's all painted up and ready to the next hunting trip.
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Cool.  I did something similar, and I walked away from the experience really proud of myself for figuring out something I had no prior knowledge in. I started by looking at the factory board, which really screwed up my learning process.  It took me forever to figure out that the critter decoy DOES NOT work on a 555 chip. Not knowing anything about circuitry kind of slowed things down.  Once I taught myself how it worked, here is what I ended up with using what you have detailed above:



It was $10 for all of these. . . to my door:



It is amazing how cheap it is to get something built and shipped across the Pacific.

I then taught myself how to use Autodesk to design a body because the battery door on my Critter body kept warping.  Here is what it looked like once printed:




I ended up breaking this one at the base, so I need to reprint it with a little more density.  Notice how the new design keeps out water.


Here is an idea for improving your base so that you can set up easily on frozen surfaces:

Any ideas where to find a RS-555 sized 6V DC motor that is slower than 2500 RPM and cheaper than $10? Or, does your motor still happen to have legible numbers on the identification sticker? That may help me as well.  For the $20 and shipping Mojo wants for them, it takes the point out of what I did above.

Damn, that's awesome. I don't? think my motor has any markings except the date sticker. I was hoping to find one so I could possibly build more.