Digivice Electronics Help

[Pepsiman98]

I recently acquired a Digivice prop replica from Ebay that I want to add a bit of electronics to. As it currently is, it has no screen or internal electronics whatsoever. I want to add a light-up screen with a few basic functions, but I have no idea how much something like this would cost. Here's a basic idea:

I don't have any pictures of my prop, but here's a picture of it from the Ebay page:

Also, the seller has said that it will come as a kit, so getting inside the casing shouldn't be hard at all.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[exoray]

Well the actual circuit to do what you want is simple enough using a translucent screen that is backlit with LEDs... The cost to do this is very reasonable, but...

The biggest price factor will be working out the fitment and creation of the screen area, a void for the electronics and battery to fit in, as well as making the buttons functional... Without knowing more about the casting it's hard to determine what will be involved in doing that part...

 

[kursosawa]

That digvice looks pretty sweet. honestly, this looks like a completely solid prop, so if you really want to add electronics, im afraid you are going to have to cut it up and make some room inside for said electronics. You are probably going to need a pre-programmed board for this sort of thing. you could also run 3 separate circuits in parallel (solid white, flashing white, and red) and turn them on and off individually. As im a complete electronics noob, thats how i would do it.

 

[Pepsiman98]

The prop should come disassembled, so I'll be able to modify the buttons and the "screen" easily. From what I've gathered, the main casing should be hollow too.

 

[modeljag]

Looks pretty straightforward. If you just want a solid colored screen that can alternate between a couple colors I don't see it costing too much.

 

[Lucia]

That digvice looks pretty sweet. honestly, this looks like a completely solid prop, so if you really want to add electronics, im afraid you are going to have to cut it up and make some room inside for said electronics.

I'll have to agree.

The original propmaker (Outatime from Rangerboard) intended to sell these digivices as kits so buyers can paint them whichever color they like.

Here's a thread showing what the digivices look like after they've been painted:
[PICS] Outatime's Replica Digivices - RangerBoard

And here's his original selling thread:
RangerBoard

I've purchased from Outatime before, and his props are made from solid resin. They don't come disassembled.

 

[Pepsiman98]

I've purchased from Outatime before, and his props are made from solid resin. They don't come disassembled.

That's a shame; it means a bit more work, but I'm sure it can still be done somehow.

 

[scottinthebooth]

I've done the programming / electronics for something like this before. A few buttons to choose the mode of LED flashing is actually pretty easy. I'll try to find a few pictures of a board I made up to do exactly that sort of thing and post them.

Scottinthebooth

 

[theP13RC3]

That looks like a very good digivice. Digimon was my childhood, and when I saw this I just smiled!

 

[HayatoV2]

that one is really decent, most of the ones I've seen are just free hand oven clay ones

 

[kursosawa]

After seeing this thread, I decided to buy one of the digivices from outatime props. I have to say it's pretty sweet. I hope to display this with my Tags and Crests.

 

[madmanmoe64]

As others have said it is fairly easy to put in a mock screen back lit by various LEDs, but there is still going to be a custom circuit needed.

What I have done before where props need an LCD screen is bought a cheap digital photo keychain (£3-£5 on eBay) Then you can load various static screen images onto it and mount it inside the prop. Then you just run the buttons from the keychain to the buttons on the prop. No real circuit construction needed.
If you just want block colours then this may be overkill (although still easier and cheaper to implement) but you can also put in more complex screen images if you want.

By then connecting the digital photo keychain to a micro processor (that flipped through pics at timed intervals), I was able to create a basic animated screen, again this is probably over kill and is a bit more complicated, but I did the whole thing for £5.