That Ultraman Gun

I am going to put this entry here in my blog instead of in my Website. This was because, in my opinion, this mod failed and is very embarrassing. Sometimes, maybe its experience that gives you the confidence or maybe, its the ego which spurs you on into the unknown, hoping experience will help cover it up if it hits the oh-$h!t mode..

Anyway, it failed because I overlooked two things which to me, was very basic steps to take before doing anything else. The first one is to gauge how well the 'new' LED would light up before going further and the second one is to fully familiarise the whole mechanism, even though mechanics are not my forte. This is because you need to reverse the steps so that you can put the toy back together again.

This is the toy gun in question which I bought it for
a very cheap price from the Litt Tak warehouse
sale years ago.

My 'itchy' hands wanted to change the red LED in
the toy to better more reflect the colours in the
gun's barrel, which has white, yellow & red tubes.
It irks me because when it comes to the White or
Yellow barrel, the red LED in there would destroy
the whole illusion.

See what I mean? This is the White barrel. But
if I were to see the actual show where it comes
from, I could be wrong about all this...

This must be a very complicated toy because it took
me quite some time to remove a lot of screws just
for the sliding cover.

Ah, this is part of the mechanism where when
you slide the cover, the barrels change.

More screws...
I do not like this part because its supposed to
integrate with another toy (which you must buy).
Any slight press to this area will result in a sound
being played. This is very annoying when your
hand-eye coordination goes out of the window
when sliding the toy.

Ok. Now we are at the tri-barrel part.

Notice how the barrel is connected to a long rod?

This is part of the rod. As when the barrel turns, the
gears inside it will affect the two micro switches
which tells the gun what barrel has been chosen,
and what mode/sound it must play.

You know, just by itself it looks more like some
Sci-Fi object. One day, when this gun is *ahem*
not being useful anymore, I am eyeing the tri-
barrel which I want to light it up as some kind
of generator or power cell.

See the three holes? See the middle dimple which
has a screw in it?

See this red LED?

Yep. it came from this area. The 'O' is where
the LED sits and the 'X' is where the tri-barrel's
dimple uses for rotation.

This is another view of the LED. So, my plan is to
convert this red LED to a White one. Alas, it is not
that simple because the 3mm red LED has a very
bright light radiation compared to the white one,
which I discovered later.

This is the front part of the gun which can be
folded towards the grip but it has no lights. It
also makes you swear when you want to fold
it because there is a sliding mechanism you
must engage before you can fold it or else the
gun will snap into two.

See the white dot on the left? That was the 5mm White
LED I replaced. Its too big and the tri-barrel keeps
on scratching it or getting stuck while revolving.
Because of this, I slide too hard and the plastic part is
now almost broken. Still, I am halfway there, might as
well continue.... (Bad mistake)

And the worst part is that the light from the
White LED is still not that bright when it is
at the middle of the barrel. You can see how
bad it is on the yellow mode.

On the white mode, it is not so bad but under
normal light it is very weak.

I then tried with SMD version as this is very bright
and was used for my Iron Man Arc Reactor. But
alas, its too square and also, jams the tri-barrel.

This is how I plan to use the SMD LED but as I
said earlier, its useless for this purpose.

Something about the mechanics in the barrel which
kept it from being able to spin properly. I then
used some spacers made out of stripboard and it
sort of worked...

...but I have to alter the LED's wiring to go around
the part instead of a straight through like the original
red LED

I really wanted to use this SMD LED as this was the
smallest package I could find, where there are
THREE white LEDs in there. You can see the
difference in the brightness now.

The modification is now complete but the bad news
is, the slider mechanism is starting to fail. It either
jams or the barrels won't rotate properly.

But at least the white colour is white

And the red is well, red but is not so bright now...

All his Base are belong to me

I had a friend who came to me with some problems on his 'toys'. These are the very-hard-to-find-figures-die-die-also-cannot-get Star Trek Enterprise action figures from Art Asylum. Their spacesuit version is even rarer, something which I wanted some time ago. But, well, wallet said no.

So, what is so special about these figures? First, their facial sculpt is amazing as it looks very real. Some of these figures comes with a Base which, not can it interlock with other bases to form the bridge of the Enterprise, it also plays phrases as spoken by the actors at the push of a button.

I tried to shoo him away by throwing some spare
batteries but he offered me a Malcolm Reed
figure which I could not refuse.

The symptoms were that these boards have a very
scratchy sound and on one of them, the volume is
also very soft. I know what the problems are but
just for the figure, I will have to open up the base
to confirm my suspicions. I just hope its not the
voice module chips which would be a lot of problem.

Soft sound, eh? Lets take at look at the power
department.

Aha. Two bases have corroded battery contacts
and not only that, the batteries are weak. This is
not so serious compared to the normal AA or AAA
types which, when they leak, they really leak. So,
the only thing I can do here is to clean the contacts
as much as possible since I do not have an electro-
plating facility in the toilet.

As for the scratchy sound, once I opened up the
base it was not a problem anymore. In fact, after
I closed it back, the sound, after a few presses of
the button, came back to normal and in fact, was
even louder than before. Which stumped me until
I remembered I put a set of fresh batteries...

And so, everything is now OK and I have to remind that friend to ALWAYS remove the batteries when not in use. I could have set up a DC power system for him but I don't think he wants it since it would be a bit 'bulky'. The lighting up of the base and remote control did interest him but this would mean 'overriding' the original circuits and also, the bases would need to have some holes cut as well. Oh, well. At least I now have an action figure which has a rubbery waist (to create that jointless jumpsuit uniform look. Its a great idea and the figure would stand out form the rest of the normal jointed ones. But as you know with PVC, PU, plastics and rubber, they will deteriorate over time, more so in the ever friendly weathers of Malaysia.

Kaelynn moved her cheese

Yeah, she gone and went darn moved her cheese
to a spot no one knew until someone else gone do
a chair moving exercise..

Dim Sum at OKR

Mommy said we really need to go to
some cheep cheep place to get stuff
for Kristine and Kaelynn.

After that, it was Dim Sum for the girls

And after that, it was more Dim Sum for the girls...

Once full, they began to harass other customers
until they start giving them money...

And after that, it was even more
Dim.. oh, you know she eats like
there's no tomorrow. Must be the
MSG in there...

Odometer. On da vintage motorsikal.
I just like the run down look.

Mommy stuck a 'Smilie' on the radio dial to remind
me to smile as she says I seldom smile...