Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Apr Purchase (4) - KO DX Gokai Gun, KO DX Gokai Saber

These two KOs finally arrived! Gotten these 2 from Taobao.com, but before this, my brother had already seen them in Taiwan during his recent trip there... Anyway, these are almost bootleg versions of the real deal, except for the sounds and lights... Not sure about the light, as I have not tested the KO Gokai Saber, but the sounds for the KO Gokai Gun is terrible... "~F~i~r~e! ~F~i~r~e!... Tatata (*machine guns firing*)... Pew pew.... (*laser guns firing*)..." Hilarious and ridiculous, hahahaha.... anyway, will be implanting the sounds and lights using my sound recording PCBs and the multi-light running LED.... Hope they turn out fine... Each of the KO comes with a Gokai-Grey Ranger Key!!!! Amazing... And do not trust the instructions or features, for the lights and sounds, seen on the back of the box, they are so unreal, hahahaha....

KO DX Gokai Gun
Plastic quality is good for a KO! Not like the original one, but definitely good enough. A (medium hard) tap on the red-skull button below will spring out the key-holder, and the Ranger Key can be inserted, just like the original version... just that the sound is ... Cost approx. $17.70...




KO DX Gokai Saber
The blade is made of the rubbery material similar to the original one!!! Not bad!!! Same as the gun counterpart, this KO can also spring out the key-holder, insert and turn the Ranger Key like the original version... The speaker is on the side where the LED light is originally located, weird... Cost approx. $23.75...



Edit: The KO Gokai Saber has only 3 types of sound (cycling over again) when button is pressed: (1) blade slashing sound (2) blades hitting each other sound (3) weird metal hitting each other 3 times "tang-tang-tang" sound... For light, the other side of the transparent skull has a red LED inside it that shines extremely bright when sounds are made...

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Apr Purchase (3) - LRS Kamen Rider Ryuki/Knight V-Buckle

It finally arrives from eBay!!!! Hahaha.... Ok, fake excitement, but nevertheless was relieved when I received this package, as the tracking number provided is totally un-trackable... anyway, this is my 2nd time buying this belt, as I had bought it before for my little nephew... Decided to buy this belt as I had thought of getting the super cheap China-dealer version of the DX Dark Visor (which later turned out that all sellers have no actual stock but still list the item on Taobao.com... sigh... in the end had to get the more expensive DX Dark Visor Zwei, which is also the China-dealer version...) to complete the basic KR Knight set... Cost approx. $63.55...




Also have ordered a China-dealer DX Drag Visor for my little nephew, a 2nd one for me to transplant the reader into the just-ordered China-dealer DX Dark Visor Zwei... Hope they arrive soon...

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Gashapon Gaia Memory Mod...

The Gashapon Gaia Memories I bought from CSC and a couple from the John Little Expo Sales have overly-tight buttons, and they don't work in my DX Lost Driver or my little nephew's DX Double Driver... After a LONG LONG time of fiddling, testing, and sighing, I finally settle on a laziest (to me, that is) method of "repairing" the memories...


A small white piece of plastic (on the right-side piece) is super-glued to the button-piece as extension to push the contact for activating the sounds... Some minor spaces are "pulled" out using a pair of long-nose pliers, which is so much easier than to cut with a pen-knife...

Some achievements include the Gashapon Eternal Memory which I have given to my little nephew... I also added a yellow 3mm LED (connected to the speaker's terminal at the PCB), which worked well, since yellow LEDs don't need a high voltage to shine optimally as compared to colours like blue, purple... sigh, purple...




Gashapon T2 Joker Memory... This little bugger was the biggest headache... and still is, as I have not been to get a way to get a good light to shine out... Purple, blue LED needs a higher voltage to shine out correctly... sigh... wasted money buying the purple LEDs... tried out MANY MANY methods, including using marker pens to colour on red LEDs, hoping to get a purple, but... sigh... even tried connecting the purple LED to the end of button switch contacts to the -ve of the battery, but still, the total battery voltage of this Gashapon Memory has only 2V which is not enough to support the purple LED... sigh...



Oh, and here is how the LED is to be connected...  Need to hollow the tip areas on both sides to put in the LED, and again, a pair of long-nose pliers is recommended, with a small penknife to do any fine trimming... The wires can run in the track space behind the contact switch PCB... 3mm LEDs are recommended, but I am going to try to put in a 5mm LED which lights up with many running colours into my Gashapon Xtreme Memory (single unit version)...

Friday, April 12, 2013

Apr Purchase (2) - Gashapon Astroswitches and Gashapon Memories

Bought a bag of Gashapon toys today again... this time at the John Little Expo Sales... A little disappointed as I could not find the No. 10 Elek AstroSwitch, which my little nephew has lost earlier, but luckily manage to find some Gaia Memories (and 1 Battle Fever White Ranger Key which I forget to take pictures of), so sort of make up for it... Altogether 17 capsules for $10, think quite worth... (not in pic: (another) Xtreme Memory, (another) KR OOO Memory, Battle Fever White Ranger Key, No. 20 Fire Switch as a standby-in-case-lost)

The AstroSwitches...



The Gaia Memories (that comes with a mini KR Decade Card each)... Some are quite stiff, need to mod to be used by the DX Double Driver / Lost Driver...

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Apr Purchase (1) - KO DX Ultraman Zero Ultra Eye

Collected my KO DX Ultraman Zero Ultra Eye from Taobao agent just now, together with some other electronics components for modding my Kamen Rider and etc... This is really a good KO, colours are almost close to the original one... Plastic quality is of course the lousier version, but still good enough for "my" collection of Ultraman Henshin devices... There are a few versions in China: Japanese Bandai one, the local China Bandai one (which has the colour of top LED wrong), the bootleg of the local China Bandai that comes in a box (reduce to 1 sound only with ridiculous words and effects), this KO carded version of the previous bootlegged, and also some weird-coloured KOs... Cost about SGD 5.60...


The back of the instructions... never believe their words totally... Hahahahahaha


So now waiting for my Bootleg Gokai Saber and Bootleg Gokai Gun to reach S'pore shore...Yesss....