Give Laserbeak Glowing Red Eyes

by royalestel in Circuits > Lasers

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Give Laserbeak Glowing Red Eyes

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I love the Transformers toys, I mean, take the Booster x10 toy (AKA Laserbeak). Very posable, has 14 points of articulation and just looks cool! It would be even cooler if he had glowing red eyes and no sissy "feathers".

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Mashup an LED throwie and "Booster x10" and you get a great, menacing, Laserbeak, just in time for Halloween.

What you'll need:
"Booster x10" transformer toy (now being sold in a two-pack at Wal-mart). $5-$9
LED --Blood Red (scavenged mine from a free Target gift card.) $0.00
Microswitch (I scavenged mine from an old fax machine. You can probably find one in an inkjet old printer) $0.00
CR 2016 Lithium Battery $3
Multimeter (Optional)
Jumper Wires (Also scavenged from a free Wii Target gift card). $0.00

Tools:
Small Phillips screwdriver
Scotch Tape
Soldering Iron
Exacto Knife
Superglue

Old-Schoolify

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Remove the wings and cut off the extra feathers. The original Laserbeak didn't have them, so we'll remove them to help give this a more old-school feel. Replace the wings.

Blind Him

Very carefully cut out Laserbeak's eyes with the exacto knife. This might take some patient, repeated scoring with the blade.

Insert LED

Test the LED with the battery. Solder the jumper wires to the LED. Then put a drop of glue inside Laserbeak's head and stuff the LED inside.

Downloads

Cut Him

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Very carefully cut out the square "button" on Laserbeak's back until the microswitch fits in snugly. Test the microswitch with a multimeter.

Trim the Fat Off

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Insert the battery and fold Laserbeak's legs in. See how we're going to need to trim some plastic away? Carefully sand or cut away the areas on the legs and tail that interfere with the transformation sequence.

Solder the Switch

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Solder one jumper wire to the microswitch and put the microswitch in it's place. Make sure the microswitch is in sideways, with the leads pointing towards the wings.

Tape the Wire

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Tape the other jumper wire (the one not soldered to the microswitch) to the battery and insert the battery. Test the circuit by pushing the microswitch button. If your LED does not light up, swap battery polarity (i.e. flip the battery over and tape the jumper wire to the other side of the battery).

Show It Off!

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Finished Laserbeak - Take pics!