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]

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

 

[Kylash]

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]

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

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]

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

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]

3-7 Feet

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.

...

What do you guys think of this?

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]

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.

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]

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.

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:

We usually send the AA pack with the 3 footer – if space is limited it would be a better option. The 9 Volt system is made for 10-30 feet units. Please let us know how we can further assist you.

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!