Zarlon

Thanks Aaron...I do have a cheap multimeter at the house but a much better set up at the office. I'm going to take it in today and see if I can get one of the engineers to help me check out your recommendations.

OK here are some pics. I've tested the batteries and the battery connection and everything looks OK there. Any ideas on where to start my investigation would be appreciated.

Good Idea Tim! I'll do that as soon as I get home this evening. Thanks!

Well I still haven't found a solution for what happened to the electronics but I was able to make a little more progress on the gun. I took the Dremel to the scope rail and cut out some of the plastic to make it look a little more authentic. After I cut most everything I could with the Dremel I took to it with a couple different files to try and clean it up a bit. I still have a little more work to do but I think it's looking pretty good. The last thing I did for the evening was to finish sanding off the lettering on the side of the gun by the trigger guard.

OK I actually got some work done and I have some good news and some bad news. First up...the good news: I got the gun apart with little or no surface damage. The first thing I wanted to do before getting started was to peel the Star Tours stickers off. To do this I used an old trick I learned back in high school while working at the auto parts store. We would have to remove old price stickers and we'd use a lighter to heat up the glue on the bottom of the sticker. It worked here as well and I was able to salvage the stickers for re use on my tool bucket I removed the screws and then found out why It's such a pain to separate the gun in two. The first scope cap came off easily. I knew I could cut it off but I wanted to use is as a test case for the back half which would come next. I ended up leaving some scuff marks but I can fix those later if necessary. Up next was the back half. I gotta say that the other build threads were correct. This sucker did not want to come off without a fight! Next up was cutting off the orange tip at the front of the gun. I borrowed my wife's Dremel tool for this part and it was a piece of cake (She makes jewelry so I actually get to steal some of her tools ). Finally it was time to open it up. It was glued tight on the top at the scope rail but since I'm going to cut out the scope rail anyway, I started to cut into some of the plastic to see if I could get it to loosen up. It took a while but I was eventually able to pry the scope rail apart with an Exacto knife. Once I got the top apart it still wouldn't fully separate so I decided to gentle work the plastic while trying not to break it. After playing with it for a long time it finally came apart and come to find out, not only was it glued on the scope rail but it was also glued tightly around the speaker. This is where the bad news happened. I didn't crack or break any plastic but for some reason the electronics don't work any more. I've checked the electrical mounting points and everything looks to still be soldered correctly and I also checked the PC board which looks to be fine with no cracks or breaks to be seen. I'm not sure what happened so I have some research to do. As of now I'm tired and I'll let the research go on tomorrow. I'll look through the forums during my lunch break for possible solutions but in the meantime if you have any ideas as to how I can test everything, I'm all ears! Thanks

I'll definitely check out the links. Thanks! I am aware that some of the tools aren't necessary yet. I was rifling through Amazon and just couldn't help myself

Hello all, Another newbie here trying to find my way through this maze of becoming a member of the 501st I've been combing through the forums a lot lately and I think it's finally time to start my journey to becoming a TK. After reviewing the awesome information here, I've decided to go with the ANH Stunt Armor and I've placed myself on the ATA waiting list as well as the TK Boots waiting list. While I'm waiting for my armor, I'm going to try and complete some of the other items needed for my full costume. As you may have guessed by the forum that I'm posting this in, the first thing I've decided to tackle is the E11 Blaster. I have to start out by saying that I'm totally nervous about this entire project because I'm probably the least "handy" person you might meet. I'm usually the guy that calls "the guy" when things need to get fixed. That being said, I really do enjoy building models/landscapes when I set my mind to it, and I really think I can pull this off. I've noticed that build threads are a great way to get information and ask questions so that is the reason I'm starting my own thread. I'm going warn you ahead of time that I'll probably be asking a lot of stupid questions but I'll do my best to use the search feature both here and on the FISD forums before hand. Since I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing I decided to go the beginner route and purchase a Hasbro E11 Blaster off of Amazon. I also have the Doopy Doo conversion kit on order and I'm expecting that sometime in the next week. I also started putting together a binder with helpful information that I find, as I find it. I have a tendency to remember that something is important but I usually forget where I saw it so I figured this might come in handy. After I bought the blaster it was time to get some necessary tools. The lists available on these forums are great and after reviewing a few I ordered some of the things I knew I'd eventually be needing. Since I have some of the tools and a little bit of time I'm going to go work on pulling the blaster apart. Let's hope I don't break the thing!