Cheap PKD (Water Gun)

Wicked impressive wayouteast. Liked what you did with the handle butt screw attachment (stealing that idea). Great work on that concave front receiver part with the pawn finial. That concave and finial part i'm still trying to figure out.
I'll post some images later of ideas I have, some i'm using, some i'm passing on. Maybe someone will find useful.
 
Solo said:
Could someone do a tutorial on how to properly finish this prop with electronics and supply source links to paints, parts, electronics components? I don't know where to begin on this. I was just going to paint it up, but I think I would like to refine it, like wayouteast is doing. The electronics just bring this prop to life, for me.
Click to expand...

OK. I'll try! :)


BIG caveat: I'm NOT an electronics wiz by any stretch of the imagination, and the electronics in my blaster are very simple and were cobbled together by trial and error as I went along (a bit like all my projects!) although I did spend some time working out what I'd need and where everything would go and how it needed to be connected. The wiring is probably not optimal and could almost certainly be done more neatly by someone who really knows what they're doing! The big thing was a) fitting the various components and their connections in around the lead weights that I added to the gun, and b) ensuring that I had enough length of wire to make soldering the components in the two halves together easy and that the battery clip would be accessible outside the bottom of the handle for changing the battery.

For that reason, where components were close together IN EACH HALF (the 2 red LEDs and the switch on the right side of the magazine, for instance, or the 2 red LEDs on the left side) I tended to connect the positive (red) and negative (black) wires from the components together as closely as possible along with a single wire which would connect these components to the wider circuit.

Sorry, that's not explained very well (I've drawn a very crude diagram - below - to try to illustrate what I mean) ... but the intention was to have as few wires as possible (positive or negative) leading 'back' towards the battery from each of the areas where the components are clustered.

Blaster electrics.jpg

Note that the diagram and the photo below may not match exactly. The diagram is what I ended up with, the photo was taken about halfway through the process before I'd changed a couple of things. Either will work. The main difference is the addition of a second trimming potentiometer to control the brightness of the red and green LEDs.

I hope what follows is right - I'm working from memory. So please do check as you go along rather than following these instructions blindly... :)

All the LEDs I used were pre-wired - in other words they come with a resistor and leads already soldered to them. These are more expensive than standard unwired LEDs but save a lot of fiddly soldering and working out of resistances and also prevent any confusion about positive and negative leads. For small projects with only a few LEDs like this I don't mind spending a few pennies more to save some work! I'm in the UK so sourced my LEDs (and all the other components) on eBay.co.uk.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pre-Wired...hash=item43c8de334e:m:mS71vAC27rEyYVdhGdm9Gsw

A packet of 10 LEDs is £2.69 (about $3.5). Make sure you buy the coloured diffusion LEDs, not clear ones! You'll need four 3mm red LEDs and one 5mm red LED (for the magazine) and two 3mm green LEDs for the sight rod.

The LEDs in the magazine are ALL recessed, including the bigger one in the bottom which is often shown extending out from its housing; if you look at the photos of the original gun, though, it's clearly set back in a round 'socket' (I used a small washer). So, don't be tempted to push the LEDs through the holes you drill out until they project past the little circular housings in which they fit. Keep them recessed.

The switch that activates the magazine LEDs is tiny. The ones that match the one on the original as closely as possible (even down to the white switch) are micro sub-miniature slide switches used in model railways, and I got them on eBay here. Again, 5 switches cost me £2.60.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5-Pcs-Mic...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

They're the same size as the original switch on the gun and you can simply drill out a rectangular opening where the molded switch is and mount the working switch there from behind.

I wanted the red LEDs and the green LEDs to be independently operated, so I added another micro switch at the rear of the handle of the gun in the hole where the 'bung' originally was; there's a recessed feature (bolt?) there on the original. I mounted the switch on a washer and superglued the washer in place from the inside on one half of the handle.

For the green LEDs, I drilled holes in the ends of the molded sight rod and extended them diagonally so that they went through into the inside of the gun body (there's inevitably some filling and making good to do later but it can't be helped). You'll need to bend the legs of the green LEDs almost at right angles to get them to sit correctly at the ends of the rod with their legs extending sideways into the interior. I superglued them to keep them in place until they were soldered.

All the LED's and the switches were tacked in place with superglue, ready for wiring up. The LEDs were fixed firmly (and insulated) by blobbing hot glue over them from the back (this will be done to the other components too, once they're wired in).

So... wiring. :)

Blaster-electrics-notes.jpg

Note that wherever wires are soldered together heat-shrink tubing has been used to insulate the join (especially as I was using aluminium tape to hold everything in place and light-block to an extent).

I soldered together the two positive (red) wires from the two red LEDs on the switch side, a length of red wire from one end terminal of the switch, and a length of 'spare' red wire (A in the photo)

I wired the positive leads of the 2 red LEDs on the other side of the magazine and the big central LED together, along with a length of spare red wire (B).

These two lengths of spare wire can be twisted together to connect the red LEDs in the two 'halves' of the gun for testing while still allowing you to work on each half individually (C). Eventually, of course, they'll be soldered together, just before the gun is glued together again.

Another long length of red wire was soldered to the middle terminal of the switch (D). This will travel back towards the battery eventually.

The negative black) wires from the switch-side red LEDs were soldered together along with a spare black wire. On the other side, the negative leads from the two 3mm LEDs and the 5mm LED were soldered together along with a spare black wire (E).

This is where I made a mistake. In retrospect, I should have preserved the 'separateness' of the red and green LEDs by simply running a black wire from red LED array back to the battery. But for some reason (trying to minimise number of wires) I linked the red and green LEDs negative wires... The circuit works, but it gave me slight problems later when I wanted to adjust the brightness of the LEDs... I'll come to that shortly.

So... I lengthened the negative (black) wire from the switch-side red LEDs (F). This long, joined wire now runs all the way back towards the battery.

The negative (black) leads from the 3mm red LEDS on the non-switch side, the 5mm red LED AND the two green LEDs were all connected along with a long spare black wire (G).

The long spare black wires from both sides are joined together (so ALL the LEDs now have a common negative connection) and are twisted together with the negative lead of the battery clip (H). Again, all these temporary connections will be soldered before the gun is reassembled.

The positive (red) leads from the green LEDs are soldered together, along with a spare red wire which runs back towards the battery (difficult to see in the picture, I'm afraid, as it's covered with the aluminium tape that holds all the wires in place) (I).

This long red wire (remember this is from the green LEDs) is connected to one end terminal of the other micro switch (J).

Another red wire is soldered to the middle terminal of the micro switch (K).

I wanted to be able to control the brightness of the LEDs in my experience LEDs are often run 'too bright' and I wanted to be able to dial up or down the brightness manually whenever I wanted. So, I added a small 1K ohm trimming potentiometer to the positive side of the circuit (I was guessing at the value to be honest, and it perhaps should have been one with a higher value - maybe 100K ohm?). In fact, I ended up splitting the positive leads from the battery and adding another trimming potentiometer to try to control the brightness of the green and red LEDs separately... it wasn't wholly successful (retro-fitting rarely is!) and if I was doing this again I would have kept the red and green LEDs on completely separate circuits but it works well enough to make starting over not worthwhile!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1K-ohm-Ve...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

So... the 'spare' red wires from the red and green LEDs are soldered to one of the outside pins of the trim pot (L).

The positive lead from the battery is soldered to the middle pin of the trim pot (M). Note that the photo shows a short lead... this was just an old battery clip I was using for testing purposes. The one I used finally was much longer to ensure I had the length needed to change batteries easily 'outside' the handle. In fact, in my final version the battery clip AND the trim pot(s) are on long enough wires to be accessible outside the blaster handle.

Time for a final test! You should have the red LEDs illuminate when the magazine switch is operated. Independently, the green LEDs should light up when the other switch in the handle is operated. And you should be able to increase / decrease brightness using the trim pot.

One thing I can't stress strongly enough. At every stage, whenever you have a subset of components that are fully connected, TEST whether that bit of the circuit works. There's nothing worse than finishing a whole bunch of connections, connecting the battery and discovering that nothing lights up and not knowing where the problem might be... let alone discovering an issue once the blaster id glued back together again!

Is this perfect? No. Definitely not. Are there things that I would do differently if and when I do it again? Yes, definitely! Particularly the separate circuit for the red and green LEDs that would allow them to be dimmed independently without affecting each other. But it works and that's all that matters really. :)

Any proper electronics experts on the board who happen to read the above... please be kind; as I say, I'm a rank amateur when it come to electronics and I make LOADS of mistakes and I'm sure there are some horrible errors and issues with the above. Also, I have NO idea whether any of that explanation made sense, or is helpful in any way. I hope so!

Good luck!
 
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Impulse101 just announced a restock on Monday. Not sure what they mean about " It will be the blue grip version with a set of orange grips".
So it's the silver version but with orange grips or just comes with an extra set of orange grips on top of the blue ones already on?
https://www.facebook.com/impulse101.jp/photos/a.1450638318552325.1073741827.1447624162187074/1933348416947977/?type=3&theater
 
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wayouteast , terrific work adding working leds mate , and thanks for the detailed description on the ' how to ' posts .
I've just managed to order one successfully this time ( with 3rd party help ) , after a long time trying . With this being a ' first attempt ' at modding a water pistol / plastic toy , I'm not familiar with what type of primer / paint / filler-putty to use . Can the brands / types used for commercial plastic kits be applied , or are there other specific ones recommended ?

Any help / advice greatly appreciated , and thanks for sharing .

Cheers Ged
 
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gedmac66 said:
@wayouteast , terrific work adding working leds mate , and thanks for the detailed description on the ' how to ' posts .
I've just managed to order one successfully this time ( with 3rd party help ) , after a long time trying . With this being a ' first attempt ' at modding a water pistol / plastic toy , I'm not familiar with what type of primer / paint / filler-putty to use . Can the brands / types used for commercial plastic kits be applied , or are there other specific ones recommended ?

Any help / advice greatly appreciated , and thanks for sharing .

Cheers Ged
Click to expand...

Glad you finally got one! And thanks for the kind words.

As far as filler, paint and primer go... for filling I used my long-time stand-by, Milliput, for some of the bigger gaps and minor repairs, but I also used a product I've not used before called Perfect Plastic Putty. It's pretty good, easy to work with, fills very small gaps nicely and can be smoothed and worked with water (like Milliput). It also sands very well. I think I'll use this again. Milliput - https://www.milliput.com/. And PPP - https://www.deluxematerials.co.uk/en/scale-plastics/87-perfect-plastic-putty-5060243901095.html.

For primer so far I've used thin coats of grey Simoniz acrylic auto primer - http://simonizspraypaint.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=32&search=primer - in between the sanding and filling stages, but any primer suitable for plastic will work.

I haven't decided yet whether to give it a quick coat of matt black rattle can before I start the final painting.

The paints I'm going to try for the final finish are AK Interactive Xtreme Metal, which are made specifically to be airbrushed - https://ak-interactive.com/product-category/paints/paints-xtreme-metal/

I haven't tried these particular paints before, but they get very good reviews and there are quite a few positive impressive demonstrations of them on YouTube. I'm going to experiment with their 'Gunmetal', 'Steel' and maybe a touch of 'Aluminium' over the 'Black Base' for the receiver, barrel and trigger guard / frame. The black areas of the blaster I'll do with AK Interactive satin black and see how that looks. If it's useful, I use an Iwata Neo airbrush - http://www.iwata-medea.com/products/iwata-airbrushes/neo-for-iwata/neo-cn-2/ with an AS186 Airbrush Compressor.

For weathering I'll probably stick to my usual black acrylic wash and some drybrushing with the steel for wear and tear and scratches. Maybe a VERY small bit of subtle rusting using AK Interactive 'Rust Deposits' paint - https://ak-interactive.com/product/medium-rust-deposits/. I don't want mine to be quite as weather-beaten as the original is nowadays, but I don't want it to look too factory-fresh either so I'm going to go slowly and carefully with the weathering.

Anyway, all that's a week or so away, sadly. A busy work week means no time to carry on with this project until the weekend!

Here's the stage I'm at currently. Filling, sanding and priming is pretty much done but for a few small touch-ups. And I'm REALLY happy at how the 'real' fixings set off the top of the receiver - a small mod that's made a big difference I think.

Blaster-primed.JPG

Hope that's helped. Good luck!
 
Anyone know of a way to get a blue handled one ?
Amazon JP has them but wont let my go through checkout ( says seller doesn't ship to UK )
 
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