revlimiter

I got busy and managed to not update things here yet. This is the tiny circuit board inside the Disney blaster. It's about 20mm wide which juuuuust fits inside my QD blaster's small inner recess. Not sure if this diagram would be helpful to anyone else in the future, but I referred to it a lot while rewiring the board. And just like that, the old handle is off. It was almost that easy. I used a dremel cut off wheel and sliced through about half of one side, waiting to hit some sparks. No sparks ever appeared, making me think that only glue held the handle in place. Sure enough, there weren't any pins. I snapped the handle off easily by hand after slicing what I sliced. I think this may have broken at some point in the future anyway. I'm amazed it was only glued on. Also, pretty happy with the low amount of gouges I managed to make. They'll be easy to fill. Bolt cut. This gives me access to allow the handle to be bolted in place. The inner plastic on the QD is SOOOO thick. It just insane. Not letting any grass grow under my feet. The handle bolted on easily for a test fit. About 20 minutes of careful measuring followed by two holes and a slot for wires. My blaster was only without a handle for a half hour. Front bolt attachment. SUPER easy access with this nice big hole. I'll also fit the pew-pew brain in this hollow. The rear bolt is a lot more challenging to get to, but a rounded end hex key makes easy work of it. The angle is just right to let things spin and tighten up. This grip is so pretty! So very very pretty. Even without pew-pew noises, this is a solid upgrade already.

That's a BEAUTIFUL set of armor. Congratulations CENTURION!!!!

Congratulations trooper! Looks like a fun troop.

The problem with the Quest Design is the very very small inner area. It has a thick wall PVC pipe in the center which reduces the inner bolt diameter to only 20mm. The Disney sepaker is a bit over 28mm. I could definitely clear out some space for the speaker in the end cap.. and I might. But I was considering the counter since half of mine is still hollow and has a really nice vent area in the front. And also, I've been drooling over that Lucky 11 build, Tino. SO GORGEOUS! And a huge help for me with these same electronics.

This is fantastic! You're really breathing new life into this old armor.

And here we are again. Just when I thought I was done, they pull me back in. @Hideya's excellent Disney blaster thread inspired me to take my Quest Design a little further. I found an unboxed Disney Parks blaster for $26 shipped on ebay and harvested the guts. It makes the most fantastic pew-pew noises and has blast and stun settings. SOOOO awesome. I need my pretty blaster to make noises. Every time I've trooped someone has commented on how pretty it was and asked if the blaster made noise. I had to dejectedly say "no" each time. No longer. I'm making my blaster go pew-pew if it kills me. And it. HOW to make the trigger work on this pre-built Quest Design? That's been my struggle for the past few weeks. I could hack things out of the handle and somehow make it work... but I'd probably need to remove the handle/grip to do it. I'd certainly be weakening things. And what if the trigger action wasn't very satisfying or very reliable? What if a switch broke and I had to dig back inside the hacked apart blaster? It seemed like the best way to do this in my own particular build was with a whole new grip. And Blaster Factory sells the grip by itself for about $90. This hunk of metal and plastic is gorgeous. I thought my resin stuff was decent. This is quite another level. The desire to go ahead and build a whole metal blaster is very much there, but I want to see how far I can Frankenstein my QD before I do another. I had to strip it down of course. How could I not? It comes apart and goes back together in a very satisfying manner. If a switch dies sometime in the future I'll be able to fix it without affecting the integrity of the blaster more than I'm gonna in the next few days. The grip comes with switches pre-installed. I just have to wire them up. I also have to take a dremel, saw, and other tools to my very pretty E-11. I'm a little worried. To do: - Remove stock handle/grip/trigger. Carefully. - Create a passage for wiring. - Create access for the BF grip screw attachment. Probably cutting out the bolt. - Install BF grip. - Find a place for the speaker. Probably in the counter. - Find space for the uber-tiny control board. Probably in the bolt hollow. - Create a new bolt. - Question my sanity. - Find space for the batteries. It's very very narrow inside the QD. - Wire everything up. - Put blaster back together. - Re-pretty the blaster.

That running photo is absolutely fantastic!

Fantastic thread. Wish I'd seen it when I was painting mine.

Congratulations on EIB Luca!!! Looking forward to seeing you in Centurion ranks as well.

3/30/22 - Erna Ferguson Library Reads Across America 6th troop for TK-89400, 3rd troop for CDZ-5435. I made it to two of the four scheduled Reads Across America troops for March. This time I got to bring my daughter along as it was after school. Jawas understand the concept of borrowing very very well. It's just the returning at the end that's a problem. Excellent reading material this troop. I give it 5/5. My daughter reading to the kids!!! She did great, even in full bucket. I also read with my bucket on. Wish I had a photo. Not many of us trooped, but it was a good time and lots of happy kids. Also my decal-holding Thermal Detonator was a complete success! Easy to slip a few stickers out and give to the kiddies.

That's an incredible transformation and a beautiful final product. And that weight!!! My 3 lb (1300 g!) E11 is a bit jealous of that lightness. Outstanding build.

This is some fantastic work! I may have found a cheap one on ebay to salvage the electronics from for my resin blaster. Thanks for the inspiration!

In my own bucket, I just have fuzzy velcro at the very top and no other padding. I have no comfort issues with it, even after several hours. A little lower, I've got those stick on "tactical" foam inserts to keep it comfy on the forehead and back area. And having the bucket sit lower gives SO much better field of vision. I actually see very well out of my bucket, better than when I had the foam at the top. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PGF4CTH This set is pretty thin. Paintball padding. None has made it into my bucket, but it's great for arms and shins. And it's a nice option. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P1G6XTA The thicker tactical padding. I've got this in two buckets. Hope that helps. And you're looking great! Should be no issues with basic approval.

My condolences for your loss as well. I can't imagine that sort of pain. Troopy hugs your way. On the topic of armor... have you considered retrimming your partner's set to fit your frame? It might not be possible if panels needed to be extended and you don't have spare ABS around, but it might be a more meaningful kit at the end of it. Maybe about equal work to building a fresh kit too. I'm another happy AP customer. Mark does great armor. Welcome to the board Danny.

This awesome thread needed a 7 year bump! I was trying to find something good to get my blasters off of tables with and google provided me with this thread. Thanks @Astyanax !!! The amazon product link still works. Prices have gone up a bit, but mine came out to about $3 each. A bargain IMO. Rock solid. No tipping, rolling, or wobbling. That Jawa blaster is just shy of 7 lbs. These hooks have no problems supporting that kind of weight. My stairway landing nook is cozy AND well armed.

Good lord, that 2nd link. ALL THOSE PHOTOS! I had no idea I wanted a 68mm TD until now. Will pour over those tomorrow in my downtime. Thanks!!!

I recently figured out that I can sit in my AP armor. It's not great... it's more like perching than sitting, but I've got a pic of me doing it in my build thread. I've sat maybe a dozen times now with no damage to the butt plate or mounting tab area. And that's great and all, right. Doesn't help you with this thread. *and yet it might.* @MaskedVengeance replied in there that he was surprised no one has ever done a silicone butt plate for us. And I keep thinking about that post. A silicone butt plate would remove all the damage danger. Sitting would still be basically perching without more articulation in the cod area (which you're addressing in this thread), but... a silicone butt. That plus a bit of flex in the cod plate would give us troops a lot more posing options. It would require a pretty large mold and probably building up the back side of the master piece with some clay to make it thicker, but I bet a flexible posterior plate would be possible. Maybe worth reaching out to an armor maker to see if it's possible?

Every time I get to update something in here I keep thinking it'll be the final build thread update. And then I get to do another small something to my armor. One of the four TD screws came free by itself... amazingly in my storage bin! So I didn't need to find a new screw, but I did have a very rattly Thermal Detonator due to the loose nut inside. No matter what I did, I could not get one of the end caps off to fix the screw. I boiled. I pried. I twisted. I spent two days not getting anywhere... so I sliced off the white plate and cut an access hole. And I made the hole big and pretty, because why not? I got the screw re-installed and applied some E6000 to all four of the inner nuts and threads. Should have used loctite in the beginning... I sent the above pic to @Scimitar and he was replied "close that up with some magnets and turn it into storage." BRILLIANT. Two days later, amazon brought me magnets. These are 60x10x3 mm bar magnets from FINDMAG. 12 came in the pack. Really nice quality! Pleasantly strong and they came with some foam double sided tape. They are almost precisely the size of my AP TD cover plate. A little too precisely. A little less wide seemed best to keep all modifications hidden. Fortunately, they are easy to trim with some wire snips. I hollowed out the magnet recess with a dremel sanding drum. Inner magnets are held on with the foam tape. There's about 1 mm or less wall thickness left in this hollowed area to separate the magnets. I just sanded till the magnet was flush with the top surface. E6000 applied. Cover plate carefully aligned. Rubber bands added. And a day later I got to take this photo! The magnets were indeed flush enough with the surface to glue to the cover plate. I added an elastic retainer and E6000'd that in place for the next day. This provides a sort of hinge for the cover plate and also keeps it from being able to get knocked off while trooping. And it doesn't keep the lid from closing. WIN! I also brushed on a little grey paint in the recess. Because why not? FINISHED! The cover plate actually fits more snugly than before with the magnets. No gap anywhere. There's no way to tell this got modified at all. The magnets are STRONG. It's probably possible to knock the cover off by backing into something hard, but the elastic will keep it from going anywhere. You basically can't pull the cover straight off, but it hinges nicely. And inside? STUFF!!! I'm calling this the Thermal Detonator of Happiness. A 2" wide sticker fits perfect. I drew up and printed about 100 of these little chibi troopers. I guess it was originally a silver coin from New Zealand? I drew up something close to the original with a little nicer helmet and blaster proportions. I thought it would make a fun sticker to hand out at events with little ones. There's also room for a couple tiny toys to give to upset younglings. And a challenge coin, complete with protector wedges nicely into the end. Honestly, I could fit twice this amount in there, but I can easily retrieve any of these with gloves on. With the TD packed more tightly it gets hard to fish out what I want. Maybe that's the final update on my TK build?

I got @Scimitar's blaster in the mail, did the build, and shipped it back to Eric... and I managed to not post the photos. I'll just share the finished ones instead of the build. It's another Quest Design using identical parts, so they'd be slightly different angles of the same build photos. Parts added/changed: - Real folding stock from @justjoseph63 - Replica Hengstler counter from BlasterFactory.com - Greeblie kit from @justjoseph63 - Some spare upgrade kit parts from @T-Jay - Scratch build sight box - weathering and clear coat This would look a lot like the before photo. I added some brass weathering to the scope and gave everything a ton of clearcoat. The whole blaster got 6 coats of matte clear. The T-tracks and grip got an additional coat of semi-gloss clear. Then the grip got 2 more coats of gloss clear. Sounds like a lot, but the finish is really lovely. I built a sight box using the same stuff I did on mine. Even got to use another of T-jay's threaded rods! I built new capacitors from left over T-Jay stock. There was exactly enough for the two guns. Top scope greeblie from Joseph is looking mighty fine. The counter is a reproduction piece from blasterfactory and is really fantastic. Eric wanted the same Miata odometer guts that I used in mine, as he's also deep in the Roadster cult. The back side of the counter is open showing the labeling. Rather cool feature. Awwww yeah! The folding stock from Joseph and sight box build were the reasons I was doing this build. Since everything was fresh in my mind and all the tools were handy, this took about 25% of the time that my first one required. Both blasters fresh from factory rebuild. Eric's up top, mine on the bottom. From the same assembly line. Ready for action.

Sorry for your loss. No words are sufficient for that. However, that's a brilliant way of doing the elastic! Mine are just tied together...

3/9/22 - South Valley Library Reads Across America The troop description said something like "read stories to kids in costume for the Reads Across America event." I'd never read a story in my bucket, so it sounded like a good time. A challenge. And I loooove reading to kids. My daughter is now a bit too old for it and my wife no longer works in a school library, so I've been missing reading to the littles. I made sure my bucket was fully charged and signed up. I was the only 501st member in attendance. Fortunately three Jedi from Rebel Legion joined in. Yes. Yes! I heartily approve of this poster. I found a book my speed. Easy Picture Books for the TK. The library had a bunch of Star Wars books out for us to choose from for story hour. I read last. I'd actually brought a few books from my daughter's early years and had practiced them the week before so I wasn't trying to actually READ in my bucket and could tell the story better. Good to be familiar with the stories when you've got a bucket on, ya know? The Jedi went to the back, leaving me alone in the front with the kids. And though I'd been talking and clowning with the kids, some were visibly afraid and nervous. So I asked them if they thought I should take off my bucket to read. That got a huuuuuge positive reaction (a whole room of yyeaaahhhhhhhh!!!!) So, since I was the only TK in attendance and no one was there to snitch me out to Command, I pulled off the bucket. All traces of fear left the crowd and smiles filled the room seeing my red face and helmet hair. I sat down to get on their level (YES! I did not break my butt!!) and read Mother Bruce. I did the voices. They cheered and giggled. A good time was had by all and then the bucket went back on for photos and knee hugs. So I still haven't read a story in my bucket. Don't snitch me out, kay?

Congratulations Centurion!!!

Thank you!!!

I signed up for a Star Wars Reads troop at a local library next week. They want us to read to the kids, which sounds like a ton of fun! I loved reading to my daughter when she was itsy. Since I have a week to repair things, I decided to be brave, kit up, and try to SIT DOWN. And I did! No breakage, snappage, or crackage. My butt is still 1 piece and shiny. Or maybe I just got lucky. But I did it! I had to post a proof pic. Now to practice reading and turning pages in my bucket and gloves.

Congratulations Centurion!!!!