Markedly less success with three TTS boards from AliExpress

The other week’s success with the SYN6988 TTS chip was not repeated with three other modules I ordered, alas. Two of them I couldn’t get a peep out of, the other didn’t support English text-to-speech.

SYN6658

This one looks remarkably like the SYN6988:

Yes, I added the 6658 label so I could tell the boards apart

Apart from the main chip, the only difference appears to be that the board’s silkscreen says YS-V6 V1.15 where the SYN6988’s said YS-V6E V1.02.

To be fair to YuTone (the manufacturer), they claim this only supports Chinese as an input language. If you feed it English, at best you’ll get it spelling out the letters. It does have quite a few amusing sounds, though, so at least you can make it beep and chime. My MicroPython library for the VoiceTX SYN6988 text to speech module can drive it as far as I understand it.

Here are the sounds:

NameTypeLink
msgaPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgbPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgcPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgdPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgePolyphonic Chord Beep
msgfPolyphonic Chord Beep
msggPolyphonic Chord Beep
msghPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgiPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgjPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgkPolyphonic Chord Beep
msglPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgmPolyphonic Chord Beep
msgnPolyphonic Chord Beep
sound101Prompt Tone
sound102Prompt Tone
sound103Prompt Tone
sound104Prompt Tone
sound105Prompt Tone
sound106Prompt Tone
sound107Prompt Tone
sound108Prompt Tone
sound109Prompt Tone
sound110Prompt Tone
sound111Prompt Tone
sound112Prompt Tone
sound113Prompt Tone
sound114Prompt Tone
sound115Prompt Tone
sound116Prompt Tone
sound117Prompt Tone
sound118Prompt Tone
sound119Prompt Tone
sound120Prompt Tone
sound121Prompt Tone
sound122Prompt Tone
sound123Prompt Tone
sound124Prompt Tone
sound201phone ringtone
sound202phone ringtone
sound203phone ringtone
sound204phone ringing
sound205phone ringtone
sound206door bell
sound207door bell
sound208doorbell
sound209door bell
sound210alarm
sound211alarm
sound212alarm
sound213alarm
sound214wind chimes
sound215wind chimes
sound216wind chimes
sound217wind chimes
sound218wind chimes
sound219wind chimes
sound301alarm
sound302alarm
sound303alarm
sound304alarm
sound305alarm
sound306alarm
sound307alarm
sound308alarm
sound309alarm
sound310alarm
sound311alarm
sound312alarm
sound313alarm
sound314alarm
sound315alert-emergency
sound316alert-emergency
sound317alert-emergency
sound318alert-emergency
sound319alert-emergency
sound401credit card successful
sound402credit card successful
sound403credit card successful
sound404credit card successful
sound405credit card successful
sound406credit card successful
sound407credit card successful
sound408successfully swiped the card
sound501cuckoo
sound502error
sound503applause
sound504laser
sound505laser
sound506landing
sound507gunshot
sound601alarm sound / air raid siren (long)
sound602prelude to weather forecast (long)
SYN-6658 Sound Reference

Where I bought it: Electronic Component Module Store : Chinese-to-real-life Speech Synthesis Playing Module TTS Announcer SYN6658 of Bank Bus Broadcasting.

Auto-translated manual:

Unknown “TTS Text-to-speech Broadcast Synthesis Module”

All I could get from this one was a power-on chime. The main chip has had its markings ground off, so I’ve no idea what it is.

Red and black wires seem to be standard 5 V power. Yellow seems to be serial in, white is not connected.

Where I bought it: Electronic Component Module Store / Chinese TTS Text-to-speech Broadcast Synthesis Module MCU Serial Port Robot Plays Prompt Advertising Board

HLK-V40 Speech Synthesis Module

In theory, this little board has a lot going for it: wifi, bluetooth, commands sent by AT commands. In practice, I couldn’t get it to do a thing.

Where I bought it: HI-LINK Component Store / HLK-V40 Speech Synthesis Module TTS Pure Text to Speech Playback Hailinco AI intelligent Speech Synthesis Broadcast

I’ve still got a SYN6288 to look at, plus a XFS5152CE TTS that’s in the mail that may or may not be in the mail. The SYN6988 is the best of the bunch so far.