Star Trek tricorder

[427 Cobra]

I'm sorry, Robert. These say GM props on the backside of them. These are all pre-wired together. The LEDs inside the door are not wired, but free standing - alone from any type of PC board. These will need to be at a controlled rate to allow the battery to last longer. The way it works is simple, but the reed switch has been a real pain in my ass! After all this is wired together, I'll check for continuity with my volt/Ohm meter. This will tell me if all is working properly without the battery installed.

On a sour note: I rubbed out the scratches on the face where the LEDs on the PC board show, but some of the LEDs on these boards DO NOT LINE UP WITH THE STICKERS. What this means is, there are places where the stickers will light up where it shouldn't, and not light up where it should. This PC board is not for this particular tricorder!

Let me show you with the following pictures.



This was taken two days ago to show you that I have made progress despite my being sick. I don't want you to think I'm dragging my feet with this.



This is to show you that I had to put spacers in this to move the top of the door closer to the face of the main body for magnet spacing. The nonfunctioning ones have the hinges recessed the way I originally had this, as I was only copying what I saw on the roddenberry website. This is 0.40" of an inch difference. This looks better without the 1/8" inch gap between the top of the door, and the body it had before this modification. Now it looks more like the real thing. They recess these more deeply to help hide the hinges.





I know that the top was hard to see through, so I wet-sanded this, and rubbed it out on the pedestal buffer (polishing machine) that we use for musical instruments in my friends' garage. This is after I removed the hot glue from this to reposition the reed switch. This is only laying on top temporarily, there wasn't enough room for this to be placed inside the cover between the PC mother board, and the acrylic body. I had to reglue this so that it could be removed easily in case something blows up, or needs replacing at a later time. I don't think it's in mine, or Roys' best interest to glue this so hard that it can't be serviced later if need be.

I glued the hell out of this the first time thinking this is the way it had to be, but it isn't neccessary. This only made it harder for me to go over this again after the glue had to be removed very carefully with a screwdriver, and a pair of needlenose pliers. I had to reposition the board as it was slightly askew. I didn't think this was very professional of me to leave it this way, even if it wasn't noticable. It took five minutes for me to remove the glue without damaging the board - this proved to be my own undoing! I carefully reglued all of this so that all the boards can be removed without sacrificing structural integrity.






This is a close up of the magnet that I broke in half to help strengthen this. This is a ceramic magnet that I got from a broken guitar pickup. I laid the smaller one that I got from Roy on top to see if there's a change in pull on the reed. I won't know for sure until I can put this on the Ohm meter.





This is a photocopy of the original stickers that were supposed to come with this. I use these so the originals don't get destroyed when making adjustments, or when something needs tweaked. This way, I can get an idea of how it should look when finished without a rehashment of what happened to the original sticker sheet.



In this picture you can see the black arrow shows where the LED is. This is where the PWR lettering is, and it won't show the little light through the coloured area where it should. The conferderate gray arrow that is barely visible to the right is where the other LEDs on the same board also don't line up where they should. The little E sys lettering is where the second one is located. The only way to fix this is to paint over them. The upper right block on the peak of the tricorder body has absolutely no LEDs whatsoever, and the one to the left of it only has one.

The ones in a line from left to right on the main body are where the numbers are. The ones to the left of these will only light up the bar in one spot. These stickers are identical to what was sent with the tricorder except for the background colour. This means, whoever you got this PC board from should've checked to be sure that this was 100% correct for your particular model. The rest of the LEDs will line up, but the ones at the bottom that you can just barely see might be a little off.
Otherwise, this should look just like a real tricorder. The crazing you see is only from the superglue, I'll have to clean that up so that it'll be perfectly clear.