Tron Legacy Deluxe Identity Disc mods?

torsoboy

So I just picked up my Deluxe identity disc from TRU. Right out of the package, the lights and sounds are fine for kids I imagine, but for us prop builders, it's a bit lacking. 2 lights covering the inner ring, and 6 lights for the outer ring are a little wimpy for my tastes. I'm wondering if anyone has plans to mod their Identity Discs with upgraded electronics or has already done so?

In particular, I'm wondering how feasible it would be to buy two discs and put the electronics for both into one, and also be able to have the lights on continuously. I don't really care about the sound, but I'd love to be able to double up (at least) on the lights and keep them going for longer that a second or two. The discs are cheap enough that I wouldn't mind scrapping one for the electronics.

It seems like it'd be an easy mod to do, but for anyone that has tried it, is it easy to do? I'm not quite electronics capable. I can set up a few LEDs and can solder, but as far as addressing the power issues I'm in the dark. Any tips (for this project)?

EDIT: would a mod please move this to the movie prop replica sub forum? I mistakenly put it here. Many apologies.

lonerthx

I plan on combing the two good halves of the shell from two deluxe discs to make mine, adding magnets to the raised spots and redoing the switch area to be more accurate. Someone suggested grill guides to hold the halves together which will work nicely. especially with some added magnets or velcro inside.

I'm also looking at completely replacing the glowing rubber/plastic with fluorescent blue plexi, although it would be great if someone with the tools could offer machined versions cut and patterned correctly.

As for the lighting, the inner ring is easier in one regard as it is simply on or off. So surface mounted leds (smd) running off 12v (3 leds in series repeated in parallel for the correct count should do it). Rather than soldering the leds to the wiring, I may go with silver conductive epoxy, it can be expensive, but should be easier on such small and delicate components.

nemesis

where did you guys get your disks? i ordered mine back in August from Entertainment Earth and it still has NOT shipped the site says the release date is in October.. but they did not post a date and it says subject to change.

Where can i get another one NOW?? I'm afraid Halloween will pass by and I won't be able to get one before then.

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to create one since I am still working on my Quorra costume

lonerthx

I got mine at Toys R Us last Friday, they had four on the rack at that time. The Tron section was pretty small set amongst the other figures.

johnny5676

anyone in canada get one a toysrus

Mr.Engineer

Well, I had ideas for the Disc but unfortunately, where I am, chances are the discs are not going to come and even if they do, it would be too late to modify anything. What I need to see is the disc being opened up and then see how things can be done from there.

I would like to do the LEDs are what we all saw in the trailers but due to time contraint and my dayjob interferring and all, it would have to be about maybe 20 or so. Unless I know how to use a shift register then it would be more.

Wel, just a theory now because I realise that wiring all the LEDs is nuts compared to my 2009 Tricorder here:

JJ Abrams Tricorder

Lindy

I'd like to do one in white, like Kevin Flynn's.

nemesis

is anyone else as annoyed as I am about the fact that it lights up BLUE !?!?!?!?
GRrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......

Dr Talyn

ive seen videos on youtube where people have gotten the lights to stay on, anyone have any idea how this is done?

Chucko

Just FYI Target sells the deluxe disk for $15.99 and Toys R Us for $19.99

blackfeathers

i saw two videos awhile ago where the lights just stay on -no flashing pattern. but, they aren't saying a word to anyone asking on a forum or on youtube -which led to the question whether it was real or if they just cheating somehow and didn't want to reveal how they did it for whatever reason.

so, i took mine apart, waited for parts to arrive, and did my own mod. mine uses a usb port to keep the lights on. while the idea is simple, it requires soldering points on the circuit board. since the toy is still functional, the center off switch serves as the master off. the extra switch i added is a dpdt so i can potentially add something else later on. the details of mine are here: tron deluxe disc modification - a set on Flickr

i have another idea which i might experiment with after the halloween festivities have passed.

blackfeathers

the leds inside are actually white. if you can somehow alter the colour of the outer rubber and the plastic 'c' circle, you can do it. i know that actordiver over in the tron costume planning thread has posted pics of a green version he painted a few days ago.

torsoboy

http://www.elbestbuy.com/shleofremali.html

I found this just now. It's a ready-made EL wire kit. Comes with 3 feet of wire and an inverter/battery pack. Looks like a good deal for someone like me that knows very little about setting up my own electronics. It runs on two AA batteries, so the size of the battery pack might be an issue, but it doesn't seem like anything you couldn't grind down to shape with a dremel, or even separate into smaller components if necessary (like have one battery in one section, the other in another section, etc.

Since the LEDs are white and the lenses are blue, I was thinking a white EL wire kit would be good, but now I'm thinking it might be too much white for the lenses to filter. So I'm thinking that the aqua kit would be a nice color choice - not quite as blue as the blue one, but it should definitely help with the color.

What do you guys think of this?

blackfeathers

i was thinking of aa batteries at one time but then realised they went with button batteries on the toy for a reason -they're probably too big.

the link you provided has a very small photo of the product but just based off of the idea of aa baterries...

if you can alter it to run off of aaa or size n or anything smaller than aa instead, it might work. in theory, providing a smaller power source with the same voltage output should fit inside but with the drawback of a shorter battery life.

torsoboy

Yeah I'm expecting the battery case (if not the batteries themselves) would be way too large to fit inside it. The link says it can use a 9V battery too, which I believe would fit inside the disc, but I'm not sure how it would work with the 3' length. I'm pretty sure the 9V setup would be for the longer lengths of wire for their larger kits. I'm sure you can reduce the output of it somehow, but that's where I my knowledge gets fuzzy at best.

EDIT: I just emailed them a few questions about the kit, specifically with regard to the battery setup. Re-reading the blurb on their website about the kit, it now seems like the battery setup is up to the user. it says it's ready to use with 2 AA, a 9V or two coin batteries, but it doesn't state recommendations or specifications for certain setups. It could be that the shorter lengths are set up to work with one specific battery setup, or it could end up just being the wire and the driver without a battery. If it's up to the user, I think it could end up being a very good option for this mod.

blackfeathers

if it all fits, keep in mind that the added weight might make it off-balance when placing it on the flimsy stand, that a counter-weight might be necessary.

one possibility you might also consider is to counterbalance it with magnets so that you can attach it to a costume -if you plan to do that. since i haven't placed magnets myself, i am not sure if this might affect the toy electronics -but if you keep it away from the logic chip on the circuit board, it might just work fine.

torsoboy

Yeah, I've been thinking about that. If anything, all my weight would probably be toward where I would want to grip it. I wouldn't place this on a costume because the mounted version shouldn't have the outer ring on it if I remember my references correctly. I would probably end up building a costume-mounted version that would be lightweight and wouldn't put any strain on the back.

I got a response back from that company linked above, and they said that they typically ship the 2 AA pack with the 3' kit:

So it sounds like they can swap out the battery kits if you need to, so perhaps the coin battery system may be good since they offer it. I dunno. I have a few friends locally that tear apart electronics and rebuild it all the time, so I can buy the basic kit and see what they can do for me.

blackfeathers

i just found this site from google, with mini inverters and all sorts of el wire:
https://www.coolight.com/category-s/27.htm


...but i've never ordered from them before, you have to create an account, and not sure if they accept paypal.

unlike the other site, they give the dimensions and specs of the inverters they sell. the one listed as 3 to 5v inverter looks like it might work.

--if you don't care for the toy & draining the batteries fast(er), you might be able to re-route power from the existing button batteries to power the inverter. the six button batteries already there are running in two rows of three batteries, which i assume are 4.5 v per row. putting them in parallel and wiring it to a 3 to 5v inverter would (in theory) work.

blackfeathers

i made a version 2 mod. basically i added an additional 'feature'.

additions:
-soldered thicker gauge wires to the usb pins so i can route the data & power to an internal usb socket. why? so i can add & swap usb flash drives inside, of course! only limitation is the usb drive has to be tiny enough to fit inside the case, so i opted for a verbatim 8 gb store n go/tuff n tiny.

-internal usb socket to plug in small devices like a flash drive. instead of directly soldering a drive, i opted for a port so there'd be more potential for whatever & just in case.

-added a 10 ohm resistor to the first mod that powers the lights just to limit the amount of current. you don't really see a difference but just as an added precaution on varying usb port currents.

if you get a warning that the device is draining too much power from the usb, there might be a small short somewhere. make sure all the wires are arranged well and that there's no crossed wires anywhere.

tron deluxe disc modification - a set on Flickr

SapGoblin

very cool!

blackfeathers

d'oh. i just realized something fairly obvious. when i did the version 1 mod, i deliberately used a dpdt switch so that the other throw could be used for an added functionality. i totally forgot about that when i did the version 2 mod...

but basically, here's the theory of how it works:

toy switch has the 2 modes + the master off center position. this is the main off switch.

the dpdt switch on my mod has one mode for usb and the other as an 'off' for usb -but this is temporary... because if you solder the button battery compartment terminals to these respectively, you should be able to keep the toy lit until the batteries are too weak.

i have yet to test this out, but thought i'd throw it out there.

so, to recap:
version 1: usb power keeps the disc lit
version 2: adds an internal usb socket for storage
version 3: plans to keep the disc lit solidly with the existing batteries. goal: portability

blackfeathers

mod version 3 just completed.

pics & details:
tron deluxe disc modification - a set on Flickr

video demo
YouTube - tron legacy deluxe identity disc modification. version 3

torsoboy

2010 Tron Legacy Deluxe Identity Disc Mod - a set on Flickr

Here is what I've gotten so far on my mod. I've taken apart the stock disc and taken out all of the electonics. I'm going to have to do some dremeling away at the insides of each shell, but it should really end up being only minor work. I'll have to remove the inner fins from the clear blue ring, but it will end up staying in place because of the ridges it has that sit in the grooves around each shell.

I also got my EL wire kit in. The wire has a little connector bit allowing it to be separated from the electronics package, which is a nice feature. The battery pack itself is too large to fit within the disc, obviously, but once taken apart (a single screw disassembles the whole thing), the electronics should fit quite nicely inside the disc - perhaps even with some room to spare.

The electronics for the EL wire kit has three modes: fast pulse, slow pulse, and static on, and they are activated with a single push button. My plans are to work the electronics into the disc in such a way that I can mount a thin rod to the button and have the newly elongated button stick out into the inner edge of the disc. That way I can activate it by holding it in a more natural way.

The aqua lighting might end up being too green of a color choice, but because it separates from the electronics, i can simply swap out light strips at another time once I have the new electronics mounted into place.

Tonight I start dremeling!

blackfeathers

good luck with it! glad to see other types of modding.

if there is such a thing as white el wire it might be better so that you can change the colour with a filter or gel without commiting only to one.


some have requested instructions on how to mod the existing battery to keep the toys light lit. while my descriptions and photos are detailed, i thought an illustrated diagram would clear things up a bit:



i've added it to my flickr disc mod photo set (link in my previous post).

torsoboy

There is such a thing, but this particular vendor didn't offer it in the 3' length. At least not on their webpage. I might see if they carry it in the 5' length, which would definitely generate some brighter output having it all coiled up inside the disc. I'll have to wait and see, though. I still haven't seen this aqua stuff through the colored lenses in a dark setting, so it may end up being a decent enough choice.