DX Kamen Rider Apple Lock Seeds Set
The movie set... Cost about $39.85... Intend to share this with little nephew but am considering should I give him as a complete set... Not de-tombed yet...
Gashapon KR Skull Lock Seed
As I am a big fan of KR Skull, I could not resist the temptation to break my personal promise of not buying non-fruit lock seed... hahaha... Cost about $6.50...
And the best thing is that it lights up! OK, just kidding, I just finish added a white LED for the light and also added the switch for the "DX"-like lock-open-sound gimmick... Anyway, did not like the orange-ish colour of the LED version...
DX Gosei Moprher (French Edition)
Should have resist the temptation.... Not long ago, Sheng Tai toys warehouse sales is just having a sale of $20 for this morpher, and can confirm that is speaking English, whereas this seems to be speaking in ... some other non-English language, probably French, I guess... Could not make out the pronunciation of the words, so difficult to check... And it only comes with 1 card... Anyway, will be more for display purpose, so still ok... Cost approximately $21.05...
And also realised the belt clip connector is not black colour, but grey... strange...
Thought this operation will be simple, but it turned out to be not.... The bootleg DX lock seed is not really compatible with the candy toy version (which I also happen to be modding a candy toy lock seed for the first time)...
First, the inner face plates are swapped, so that the candy toy lock seed now has a transparent faceplate for LED light to shine through...
The external face plate of the bootleg DX is cut off to later attach the candy toy's (the part with KR Ichigou face) so that the whole lower part (flipping mechanism piece) can fit into the candy toy lock seed...
Here is the candy toy's external face plate cut off...
Take extra care to attach the 2 pieces together with super glue. I added some pieces of tissue papers after I pour in some super glue to act as reinforcement filler to any gaps... The bootleg DX piece is slightly bigger and the sides of the hollow "pipe" part have to be filed off slightly to fit into the candy toy lock seed... Also, the inner ridges of the bootleg DX piece has to be cut off for at least half the circumference, and the bottom 2 screw holes parts to trim to fit the candy toy's external face plate screw pegs... Details you have to try out and will know what I mean and trim off any parts that are too tight...
Here is how it will look from the front... when assembled... Stickers are removed and double-sided taped to the new face plates... Stickers looked "bubbled" and quite ugly after peeled off and re-stickered... sigh...
Silver reflective tape is stickered to the cavity where the LED will be housed, hopefully can have better lighting...
To dismantle the circuit board in the candy toy lock seed, the top screw needs to be un-screwed...
The other screw found on the circuit board is actually used to secure a switch cover. You might need to remove this if you are soldering a small push switch to do the "DX" lock-open sound gimmick...
I added a small push switch to do the above-mentioned lock-open sound (and name calling) gimmick. See last picture on the approximate location where this switch will be located... It is soldered to the same switch on the circuit board that is activating the sounds...
As this is a 2-battery lock seed, I decided to use a simple transistor circuit to let the LED light up better. I am using a '2N 3904' NPN transistor, and a button-type red LED. You can google this transistor model for more details, or if other models of transistors can be used. Basically the connection for soldering is :
(1)Collector (C) of transistor => -ve of LED
(2)Base (B) of transistor => -ve of "Speaker" (on board)
(3)Emitter (E) of transistor => -ve of "Battery" (on board)
(4)+ve of LED => +ve of "Battery" (on board)
Once done, can use hot glue to cover (as insulation) and secure the wires soldered to prevent breakage due to accidental pulling...
The LED cover is also sanded to a frosted surface in hope of a better glow effect (better light distribution)...
This is the approximate position to place the additional switch soldered earlier... The actual placing has to be tried out to get your desired "feel". In fact, I spent a few hours trying to rectify this position part that day while modding... Of course some other nasty accidents occur so I have to do repairs repeatedly... Important to note is that the switch MUST NOT be able to be activated (pressed) when the locking piece is pushed down (i.e. when locking the lock seed), else the sound sequence will be affected when used in the Sengoku Driver...
And the result of the mod... Accidentally scratched the sticker surface, sigh... Anyway, basically works ok...
The above post, as well as past and previous on modifications, are just some of my sharing of the small experiences I learn while modding, and they are not meant to be a guided step by step "tutorial" for modding. Also, they serve as my memory of the fun and frustrating modding process when I look back in the future... I believe that it is more beneficial and most importantly, more fun if one starts to really get hands-on when doing modifications, as there are always situations that can only be felt and understood upon actual hands-on doing. Of course, it helps if you have some basic background in either electronics or mechanism etc. Of course, nothing beats the actual handling and playing to achieve the satisfaction of a mod. I do have my shares of frustrations and anger from the umpteen failures and such, just that I do not post up. Maybe you might disagree with my perspective of learning style, but this is just my personal take (and probably I will not respond to further such disagreement.) Enjoy your modding!!! =)
A long overdue modification... Bought the DX Diendriver after watching a youtube clip that does this modification, hoping to do one myself. At that time, the DX Decadriver was selling very cheaply (about $20 or so)... But did not have the momentum to do so, and until 3 or 4 days ago... Not a very difficult mod to do, but still requires a lot of fiddling especially since I remove the black plastic piece with slit from the sensors' board... (you will know what I mean if you are doing it...)
The 'gas-tanks' need to be opened before opening the main gun body..
Initially I wanted to use this position to place the sensor, but decided not to in the end, as I am afraid the transparent but 'blurrish' card-holder's window may obstruct the bar-code reading...
The sensor board...Why did I put this picture here??? hmmm...
The actual sensors will be placed over the hole that I cut off from the card-holder base piece. There is a small piece of black plastic with a transparent slit in the middle, and this piece is to be covered over the actual sensors so that the sensors can sense through the slit more accurately. A lot of time is pent fiddling on the positioning of the slit properly...
Need to trim off to create some spaces to fit in the sensor board...
Sensor placed over the gap... and hot glued to secure...
As I was lazy, I used a switch that was in the DX Diendriver for activating the sensor to start the scanning function (circled in dotted red on the right of the picture)... and also have to fill in the space in the ridge (left of picture) as the switch needs to be still pressed when the card holder is slided away later.
Stupidly cut off too much and have to remake the slope for removing the card out...
Placed the main sensing circuit board here... hot-glue to secure too... The other half of the gun body has to trim off some ribs in the inside of the body as they will obstruct the circuit boards. That piece also has a weird part where it houses a small rectangular piece...for no apparent purpose...
Added a small switch (with 1 end to the N.C. connection) to activate the sounds output when the card-holder part is pulled away...
Also added a gashapon Diend Gaia/Sound Memory's circuit chip to have the henshin sounds... Sadly I try to fiddle to allow to select the use of DX Diendriver's original henshin sound, so that the henshin sounds will be more show accurate, but failed... so have to stick to the sounds the card-scanner make, plus the gaia memory's sounds...
Added a switch here to activate the gaia memory circuit sounds... A better place to put the switch could have been the place where the thumb is when holding the handle of the gun... but too late, already cut the hole...
Went over to the Branded Toys Warehouse Sales by Sheng Tai today... Thought there might be good stuff to get (I was actually hoping for the KR Beast Ring Holder) but in the end did not get many things for Kamen Rider / Super Sentai / Power Rangers... Only gotten the Legacy Power Morpher ($50) in the end... Damn, should have control the temptation to get the Megaforce Morpher from Taobao.com (and it comes with only 1 card) and get this at the sales since it is selling at only $15... Sigh... Anyway...
Probably will go again this Monday morning to see if there is any new stuff worth getting... hopefully...
