Went to the Sheng Tai Branded Toys Warehouse Sale and bought some stuff for myself and little ones... Frankly there are a lot of toys there selling way way cheaper than they are/were (eg. DX OOO Driver (English version) $50, DX Beast Driver $45, DX Gokai Saber $35 or something, etc...) but I either have the stuff already (real or KOs), no interest, or I felt they can be even cheaper for a warehouse sale... It ends this Sunday...
S.H.Figuarts Masked Rider 1
Its the old KR Ichigou!!!!!!!!!! For only $20...
DX Ring Holder
2nd buy, to hand on my DX White Wizard Driver display... Cost $10...
DX Gokai Galleon Buster
Bought this for my nephew... It is so huge... $40...
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...
Long long time not gone to Chinatown liao, so today decided to go and get some groceries and jalan at CSC... And bought quite a lot of stuff... except my groceries... sigh...
Gotten some Gashapon (Capsule Toys) Lockseeds, for a total of $50 for all 6 Lockseeds after discount... Thanks!!! These Lockseeds are sold in specific pairs (Shocker and Peach Energy; KR Blade and KR Kiva; Momotaros and KR Kabuto) , and the shop-owner is not willing for a mix-and-match due to the possibility of stock-stuck... In the end, I bought all 3 pairs, hahahahaha.... Oh, I think each pair is also 1 volume of the Gashapon series... I originally wanted to give all to my little nephew, but in the end, I decided to keep the Shocker Lockseed for myself, hahahaha... Successfully modified to 3 batteries and added LED light to the Shocker Lockseed, but failed to do the string-trick to make the unlocking action to activate the sound... Might do that next time using small microswitch...
Each Lockseed comes with a cute little KR Gaim figurine, each pair has a different colour that matches to a main colour of one of the Lockseed character...
A closer look at the little cute figurine...
Also bought some other stuff from OG and Daiso...
For my little nephew (as a substitute for his Geki-Nunchaku)...
Tried to bash a longer blade from a toy ninja sword for my KO (Shurikenger) Samurai Saber... Still considering whether to implant any sound recording chip inside it... also some touch up left...
Work in progress... Not as easy as I have expected in cutting the rubber plastic blade... and since the oily-rubbery characteristic of the material does not allow filing, which will leave rough marks and roughen look...
Testing... blade is a little too wide... Needs further trimming... Also need to drill 2 holes to fit securely into the the 2 pegs for holding the blade...
Done...Well, almost... Blade is still a bit too wide... but ok... the new blade length did not seem to extend a lot from that of the old blade's, but when I compared the size to a picture in wikia, it seemed to be of correct length... weird... anyway, it is already lengthen, so considered to be good...
When I first try to implant the DX Drag Visor's card-reading circuit into the DX Dark Visor Zwei, I only wanted to have a straightforward way of stuffing in the whole circuit and mechanism into the DX Dark Visor Zwei... Hence I was very disappointed when I realized the space was too small to fit the circuit board and such, unless some mass cutting and destruction is done... Some time later, I decided to give it a try and thankfully my efforts paid off...
Below is the card-reading circuit I will be using... Virtually ripped off all wires before I start on the project...
After a long long long long long long time of working, I finally got the card-placer to be done and working, as well as the circuit placed in... Happy.... A lot of cutting, trimming, destroying has to be done... Yes, now I believe in KR Decade is right - there has to be destruction in order to be re-born... Hahahahahahahaha....
Once the main parts are done, the remaining work will be to cut the other side / decorative parts to be able to fit into the DX Dark Visor Zwei...
Done!!!!!! Although not very satisfactory, at least it can now read the non-"Survive" mode cards... Happy... My apologies for not taking many pictures as along the way of doing, there are far too many problems popping out and I was too tired/busy/frustrated...
I am now so tempted to add in a sound chip to announce "Survive!" when the Survive Shippu Card (or any other card) is inserted into the allocated slot... and also, to extend the blade of the sword part. I checked the tv shows and realized the one used in the show allows the end of the blade part to protrude out from the sword holder...
Collected my haul from 65Daigou.com tonight... A lot happy, a little sad...
BoC DX Growl Phone
Approximately $10.75... This is the Bandai of China (BoC) version, and it is basically the Bandai America version, with the softer volume still featured... This will be the Good Friday present for my little nephew...
Closer view of the actual toy... No interchangeable heads, unlike the Japanese version...
Tested out the sound... Very soft... So like what I did to the DX Shodo Phones which I bought earlier that also originally has soft volumes... I opened up the Growl phone and upon checking the circuit, I realized there are 2 solder-points for the speaker's positive (+ve) terminal. Left of picture below shows the soldering it came in originally. I de-soldered and re-soldered the terminal to the other port (see right side of picture below)... And it worked!!!!!! Now the sound is much louder and audible!!!
KO Plex Magi Phone and Hayatemaru Set
Wanted to get the 2 pieces of Sentai stuff only... and hence the other toys that came in this pack are discarded almost immediately... Cost approximately $13.55...
Close up view of the KO Hayatemaru (Hurricaneger's weapon)... only the sword part.... this is a more accurate mold than my previous purchase of another KO (remolded) Hayatemaru... Sadly, the locking piece is also part of the mold now... nevermind, can always make.... Think I named the pictures wrongly...
Next is the KO (Plex version) of the Magi Phone... I saw the real one (as part of a Legend Sentai Morphing Set, or some name like that)that day in Takashimaya, but did not buy as I had already ordered this one... But this KO version has no sound nor spring-out effect like the real Plex version... Hilarious face above the buttons... Hahahaha.... Anyway, can always improve...
Upcoming Project: After many many many many attempts and work, this might finally be able to be realized!!!! Still work in progress: Battery case issue, trimming of blocked parts, spring-effect for the card holder... but should be ok, since the main problem of fitting the reader circuit has already been settled... and yes, it can read cards.... Happy...
