Lightsaber calc bubbles

Sumatra

It's not cool to be posting live auctions.

sskunky

I second that. I was thinking of bidding on this but I think I might give it a miss now every man and his dog knows about it! I'll wait tlll the next one or so comes up.

My real bubbles incidently are frosted on the flat and clear on the bubbles. The originals are also crystal clear in comparison to the plastic copies.

Sym-Cha

Hi Jeff and SSKUNKY,

Thanks for your replies, since this is my first post I was not aware that an unspoken RPF rule NOT to post LIVE AUCTIONS was in order.
My sincere apologies. I thought I was doing everyone looking for authentic calculator bubbles a favor.
(I edited my post and removed the link, guys!)

How about the question I posted?

Chaim

clutch

You can't go by pictures because of barrel distortion caused by the camera lens and the effects of the reflections on the clear plastic.

Sym-Cha

Thanks for your reply Clutch.
Yes I know.
That's why I opened all my Exactra's yesterday and took the calculators out of their case and ALL 4 of them were as I explained by use of posted pictures.
Where I drew the thin red line the bubbles are flattened just a bit on both sides. I shall take pictures of my TI Exactra's with their bubbles tomorrow at work using a high res camera (Cambo TC with Leaf Digital Back)

Chaim

James Kenobi 1138

Welcome to the RPF ! Nice to have you here.

The no-live-auction is not an unspoken rule, it's in the CoC.

clutch

I'm curious as to why this exactra 20 has a blue background


and this one doesn't:



what does yours look like, Chaim?

sskunky

Mine is a pale washed out bluey green color.

clutch

Was your bubble strip frosted around the edges?

sskunky

I would say slightly frosted compared to the crystal clarity of the bubbles.

nowhere near as frosted as the pic above

sycor

Does board color have anything to do with accuracy? I know very little about the bubble strips.

James Kenobi 1138

One of mine has a red circuit board. I don't remember about the other one.

clutch

There's some pics of vader's saber that look like the blue circuit board is underneath the strip. Lonepigeon may be able to shed some light on this.

dcarty

Interesting, I wonder if the color issue could just be attributed to color correction, or a lack thereof. Here's a pic of my Exactra 20 that I made with our scanner:


Here's the exact same Exactra taken with my digital camera:


The one from the scanner looks very blue the other a much truer green.

clutch

It camera also adds bubblestrips.

dcarty

That, or the scanner takes them away

Sym-Cha

Hi everyone,

I spend several hours in the studio today and I hope I can upload my shots of my Exactra 19 and TI-2000 (Made in Italy). Okay that works!
Don't know yet how to upload them here Full Size?
However I could not resist withholding my hard work from you any longer.

Enjoy ...

See what I mean with not exactly round, guys

Chaim

Have a good weekend

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James Kenobi 1138

The bubbles are not perfect circles, they overlap eachother except the ones on the ends.

Parks old version was clear circle bubble 'stickers' that attach to a metal plate. His newer ones are inaccutate in bubble size, shape, and it's a continuous stream of bubbles cut-off at seven.

Even MR got is wrong. The Luke and Obi sabers are great, but on the Vader they should be cut between bubble 6 and 7 to fit the clamp, not equally spaced with only 6 bubbles.

Blast-tech has the closest in size/shape/accuracy, but even his are lacking compared to a real bubble strip.

Here's one of my real bubble strips in action.

clutch

Nice pics. I want a TI-2000!

Sym-Cha

Thanks James and Clutch,

Sofar all of you who posted pictures here with real calculator bubbles have confirmed what I suspected. Since this is about the activator switch of the lightsaber I wanted to demonstrate by means of light that probably in the casting process of the bubbles it was not necessary to make them completely half-spherical for their purpose in the Exactra.
If you look closely at these close-ups you can see this clearly. See where I added the red arrows. This is on both sides of the bubbles.

All I want to know : Is there any of you who has a bubbles strip which doesn't have the edges shaved of a bit.
If not ... then I would like to conclude that this is the way those bubbles were manufactured.

Last question just out of curiosity : If I could get someone to remake/cast those exact calculator bubbles as used in the TI Exactra 19 and TI 2000 by using one of my originals ... how many of you, who can't afford or get their hands on a real vintage calculator from the bay, would be interested?

Of course you would have to modify them yourselves as shown at the beginning of this thread by Clutch!

Chaim

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Sith_Lord_Hritz

if they come out good i would like 1 or 2

KaanE

If they are perfect, and I can't say which one is real, then I'm in

Sumatra

I would be in for at least a couple. It would be best if they were unmodified.

James Kenobi 1138

There is something in the works right now, I don't want to say too much but hopefully something soon for those wanting better, more accurate bubble strips. I'll say more as things progress.

lonepigeon

The Vader ESB/ROTJ Hero saber still has the circuit board intact under the bubble strip. Not sure about the others.

Pics from the archived thread...
http://www.therpf.com/f9/rotj-vader-light-saber-40270/