How to replace Light-Up Zoid parts with LED circuits
Nov 4, 2016 4:40:47 GMT -5
Maethius, Gojulas Omega, and 3 more like this
Post by aceoftherebellion on Nov 4, 2016 4:40:47 GMT -5
I recently received a vintage Zoid that unfortunately had lost it's light up function. It's an OJR Deathsaurer, and I've heard they're notorious for finicky lights, so oh well. That's fine though, because there's a fairly easy way to restore that function without having to replace or re-solder any wires by adding an LED circuit, and I figured I could maybe put together a short tutorial on how to do it!
Before I start, here's the materials I used-
That's a flashing LED chip, a power source (lithium disk battery) and a simple switch, all obtained for less than $10 total from modeltrainsoftware, and I'm sure there's other websites where you could get essentially the same things. It's super simple to put the circuit together- wrap the exposed wire from the red line on the LED to the red line on the power source, ditto for the black lines, wrap them up with some electrical tape, and you're done.
Take your Zoid apart- this should be pretty obvious, you gotta take it apart to add in the wiring, right? You don't need to disassemble the motor or anything.
The only thing we need to worry about is the light unit itself- you'll need to take that apart. For the Deathsaurer, it's just clipped together plastic.
We're going to take the LED chip itself and loop it in there exactly the same was the lightbulb was. We can even put the lightbulb itself back in- it's not hurting anything, and it'll look exactly the same as it normally would. (It might be a little hard to see the LED in this shot, it's really quite tiny)
When it's all assembled, it'll flash just like the original light would have- here's a youtube upload of the LED in action
Now we just reassemble the Zoid! For the deathsaurer, I'm running the new wire down parallel to the motor. The new battery will be stored in the Zoid's butt (lol), and the switch will be accessible through the battery compartment. Keep track of the wires as you're putting the Zoid back together, but it shouldn't be any more difficult than assembling the zoid normally. Do be a little careful with the wire, it's going to be a lot thinner and a little more fragile than the wires you usually have in Zoids.
That's pretty much it! The Lithium battery is good for 6 continuous hours running time, and you can now have the eyes flash even when the zoid isn't walking, so it kind of has an extra feature. And since we haven't modded the zoid or the engine in any way, it's 100% reversible.
One more Video of the Zoid now in action, showing the location of the switch, and my complete inability to hold a camera correctly
Before I start, here's the materials I used-
That's a flashing LED chip, a power source (lithium disk battery) and a simple switch, all obtained for less than $10 total from modeltrainsoftware, and I'm sure there's other websites where you could get essentially the same things. It's super simple to put the circuit together- wrap the exposed wire from the red line on the LED to the red line on the power source, ditto for the black lines, wrap them up with some electrical tape, and you're done.
Take your Zoid apart- this should be pretty obvious, you gotta take it apart to add in the wiring, right? You don't need to disassemble the motor or anything.
The only thing we need to worry about is the light unit itself- you'll need to take that apart. For the Deathsaurer, it's just clipped together plastic.
We're going to take the LED chip itself and loop it in there exactly the same was the lightbulb was. We can even put the lightbulb itself back in- it's not hurting anything, and it'll look exactly the same as it normally would. (It might be a little hard to see the LED in this shot, it's really quite tiny)
When it's all assembled, it'll flash just like the original light would have- here's a youtube upload of the LED in action
Now we just reassemble the Zoid! For the deathsaurer, I'm running the new wire down parallel to the motor. The new battery will be stored in the Zoid's butt (lol), and the switch will be accessible through the battery compartment. Keep track of the wires as you're putting the Zoid back together, but it shouldn't be any more difficult than assembling the zoid normally. Do be a little careful with the wire, it's going to be a lot thinner and a little more fragile than the wires you usually have in Zoids.
That's pretty much it! The Lithium battery is good for 6 continuous hours running time, and you can now have the eyes flash even when the zoid isn't walking, so it kind of has an extra feature. And since we haven't modded the zoid or the engine in any way, it's 100% reversible.
One more Video of the Zoid now in action, showing the location of the switch, and my complete inability to hold a camera correctly
