Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Modification - Gashapon "Shocker" Lockseed

Could not resist the temptation of opening up my gashapon Shocker Lockseed to mod it towards DX-style.... First I successfully added a LED using a method in a forum, and then tried to use the string method to make the Lockseed open with sound, but failed... But did not give up...

The light is not too bright, so I decided to use silver reflective sticky tape to tape up the concave surface, and the light did appear a little brighter... or maybe it is my imagination, hahahaha....


The below picture is how I used a small switch, connected in parallel to the original switch, to activate the sound chip when the lockseed is opened... And it works!!! Of course during the process there are always the usual disruptions, eg. wires snapping off the soldered joints, springs fly off, etc...




And the final result... Very satisfying to successfully mod it to a DX-like Lockseed... Happy...


Edit #1: Forget to mention I modify/restore the battery (back) to 3-batteries.


Edit #2: Re-do the Shocker lockseed's LED and switch. This is how I connect the LED.


Edit #3: For the KR Blade Lockseed, 1 blue LED does not light up as nicely as the other colours, so I have to join up 3 of them, hoping they could light up the casing better...but I was wrong, as the effect did not turn out to be good... but think still alright, as I felt I have already done my best for the moment...


The bunch of LEDs inside the cavity...


Light them up!!! ... Effect is not good in the sense that there are 3 visible bright spots as the whole casing is not "smoothly" lit up...


For this KR Blade lockseed and the Momotaros lockseed, I retained the 2 batteries feature, and compensated the small voltage coming from the speaker by using a small NPN transistor (2N 3904) to fire up the LED(s), which work quite well. With this success, I am thinking of re-doing the LED lights for my gashapon Gaia Memories, particularly the purple and multi-colour ones...


Gashapon Energy Lockseed is only modded to include the calling of name when opening the lock; no light... since the whole plastic piece is opaque, it will be almost impossible to have light without cutting out the part and replacing it with transparent/translucent material to shine the light out. The position of the switch is different from the other lockseeds modded... Took a long time to do this lockseed with may unseen problems popping out along the way... Had to also trimmed off a tiny part of the over to fit in the wires for the new switch... Just to clarify, the new switches are hot-glued to their places...

20 comments:

  1. Hi, the general steps are as follows:

    (1) Remove the screws found on the back. Open the body carefully not to loose any parts especially the springs.
    (2) (Ref last pic of Energy Lockseed in post) There are 2 screws on the circuit board, let's call them SC#top and SC#bottom. Unscrew SC#top to loosen up the circuit board.
    (3) Unscrew SC#bottom to remove a small switch cover (let's call it the "SW#cover") that is used to cover the small switch on the circuit board. Keep every parts safely.
    (4) (Ref 2nd last pic, that shows the additional switch connected) Solder a small push-to-make switch ( let's call it "PS#switch") with wires as shown in the picture. Be careful not to burn your hand when using soldering iron. *Ignore the transistor in the picture if you are not putting in LED light*.
    (5) Secure back the "SW#cover" to the original switch and return the circuit board to its original state.
    (6) Hot-glue the "PS#switch" at the location shown in the post's 2nd and 3rd pictures. You might have to fiddle / play around with the exact position for the "PS#switch" to work properly. I took quite some time to do so for the Energy lockseed and KR Blade lockseed even though I have done many times before...
    (7) Put back every other parts back in place. This might take some time too.

    There is another method that you can search on the internet / youtube that uses a string to connect the long black lock-part to pull the mechanism and activate the switch. Hope this helps!

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  2. Hi, I just wanted to ask whether I can skip installing the small switch part or not, because I just wanted my lock seed to light up, not make sounds at the correct moment.

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  3. Yeap, just ignore the small switch totally. Wishing you success in your LED mod! =)

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  4. If you don't mind can u help me fulfill the following requests?
    Email a simple graph to me on how to add LED into a lock seed. My email is wayjusin@gmail.com
    Give me instructions on how to add a battery holder to my lock seed.

    Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Think it is quite clear in the pictures and post above. =)

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  5. does this piece cover adding the zipper onto the locks?

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    1. Don't really quite understand what you mean. Piece cover adding the zipper as in..?

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  6. Akuna Prime what i mean is how would i mod a lockseed to add the programming that was present in Golden apple and silver apple (they both made the helheim crack opening sounds and have it programmed in their toys) arms?

    Durian and Donguri have these sounds in their lockseeds presumably, how would i do modifications to the lockseeds to give them that sound (the crack opening and closing sounds/the dimensional zipper)?

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  7. oh, ok, understood what u mean... I think for adding such sounds is unlikely,as the sound IC chip will already be pre-programmed with the intended sounds (unlike some of the gashapon Gaia Memories where it could be possible to select sounds depending on which broken paths' points are join). Probably might have to add in additional sound circuit but I doubt the space in the lock seed will allow.. Furthermore, the are new sounds which I believe all previous lock seeds don't have...

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  8. There are sounds previous lockseeds don't have which require an additional sound circuit to add like the helheim crack opening/closing sounds?

    How so?

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  9. where would i begin with adding an additional sound circuit to insert the helheim crack opening and closing sounds since the space probably doesn't allow it?

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  10. Which is why I say in my previous reply that I doubt the space in the lock seed allows it (additional sound circuit).

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  11. since i am very obviously a first timer to modding, where should i start for my first project?

    what i also wander is how much space is in the average lockseed, and should i use lockseeds with the sounds desired already as opposed to modding for them?

    lastly i wander how big the needed sound circuit is for those desired sounds vs the lockseed

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  12. Perhaps you could start by getting a couple of the cheaper gashapon lockseeds to try out first, ebay or local. With the physically fiddling with the item, you can know a lot more eg. the spaces you have inside the lockseed, etc. Also the sound-recording circuit chip sizes do vary, mine (the ones I bought in china's Taobao.com website) has one size that is 1/2 the size of a typical name-card, and another about 1/6 of the name-card. As mentioned previously, if the lock seed's sound chip has no zipper open-close sounds, probably we can't re-program it to have such sounds, so may be best to purchase those lock seeds with zipper open-close sounds instead of trying to mod. It will also be good if you have prepared the various tools eg. cross-head screwdriver (medium sized), soldering iron, solder, etc etc or components eg. LEDs, salvaged insulated wires etc etc, depending on what modifications u are doing. Hope this helps!

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  13. thank you so much, i think this really would help me out a lot. how big is the circuit controlling the zipper open-close sounds on the lockseeds that already have that?

    i will try this out on the gashapons, can they be fitted for the circuit since they all don't have the additional part as opposed to the certain DX ones which already have the sounds?

    i will purchase those lockseeds which have the desired sound, which lockseeds have the desired sound in DX form?

    i think its interesting knowledge, thank you again Akuna Prime

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    1. I presume you want to have zipper open / close sounds for Durian / Donguri? Their DX version should have these sounds (not very sure, you can check out youtube reviews), so probably you can just purchase them (but high price) and no need to modify the gashapon versions. For dx /gashapon / candy toy lockseeds, each lock seed has only 1 circuit , and the circuit boards are similar in size, so likely may not have space to put in additional circuits even for gashapon. Do try out 1 and you will know what I mean. Have fun modding!

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  14. Could you do an LED tutorial video from start to finish? This is helpful, but it seems like there are some things that are assumed and not shown. For example, in the pictures above, you haven't labelled which wires you put in and which were already there (or what they are). What will happen if we don't upgrade the battery compartment? How did you do it (it looks like you just globbed hot glue in the middle)? What forums were you on to get you started for those who don't know where to look?

    To your credit, this is probably the most comprehensive tutorial out there, but it's not very newb friendly.

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    1. Tut. video - don't think so, not for my busy schedule, lack of video editing tools and character. I will see if I can try to remember to take more and detailed of such mod pics the next time as I still have 1 more lock seed to "light up"... Thks for the compliments, but the posts and pics are not really meant to be a comprehensive guide to eps. beginners, just sharing some of the experiences gotten from the modding process.. As I mentioned to some others on their queries, you have to try out yourself to understand or know what to do, even when I check out youtube or websites for such mods, most of the time I had to experiment physically before things can be done, and often things still goes wrong (just that I seldom post these failures). =) Fortunately for me I had some of these electronics background so slightly easier for me to play around with the mods. Youtube has quite a lot of such clips for modding and also the baidu forum (which is china-based).

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  15. Do you know the name of the original switch that came with the Lockseed, mine have broken off and I need to replace some. Also... do the green wires have copper in them and instead I could use any wires?

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    1. It's a push switch type, but there are 'thousands' of different types in the market, do have patience when searching though. I don't quite understand ur 2nd question, but again, don't mind me being frank, I will recommend that you do TRY OUT experimenting or google the internet (they use to say that Google is our best friend =)... ) rather than keep thinking and asking questions,this is my personal view. Perhaps you can also read up a bit of electronics to better prepare yourself in doing any electronics modification in future. Have fun modding!! =)

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