DrMcoy
Sr Member
there is an older thread devoted to this, but a lot of the pic links are broken.
i am generally not a fan of upgrading toys as there is a certain charm in leaving them exactly as produced -- but i had an extra one of these comms and the spare parts collected from over the years, so after seeing how others had modified their comm with just a few simple tweaks, i thought i'd give it a shot.
not much to say that wasn't touched on in original thread -- switched out moire ring for one i believe i got from Dstines -- a surface mount version. switched out the upper transparent moire pattern with one i had that made the pattern a bit more bright and defined compared to what was in original toy (although i see they have fixed this on future releases of this toy with plastic grid).
replaced the three lights with thunderjet wheel hubs and rhinestones, and the two control knobs at bottom -- they rest on the original knobs i cut down and just glued the more accurate knobs on top of them, so this way i can still activate the sounds. also painted the speaker grill gold.
i did not replace the bottom control plate with aluminum -- too much trouble, me thinks, although i admire those with the tenacity to do this. I also did not remove the mid plate (which is molded onto body) and add an aluminum one -- again, i admire those that do, but as i have other great replicas (J Long, Dstines, MR and the original Star Trek Experience toy that has metal midplate) I decided the mods i made were enough to make me happy.
if you try this, take care not to put too much stress on the wires -- I broke about 4 of them from the board and had to resolder -- a pain in the butt as the wires are so small and thin.
so here it is...but again, i wouldn't advise doing this yourself unless you have a spare toy untouched, because it is nice to have one example of the toy as priduced, IMHO.
here it is -- mod on left, original toy on right:
and closeup of moded toy:
i am generally not a fan of upgrading toys as there is a certain charm in leaving them exactly as produced -- but i had an extra one of these comms and the spare parts collected from over the years, so after seeing how others had modified their comm with just a few simple tweaks, i thought i'd give it a shot.
not much to say that wasn't touched on in original thread -- switched out moire ring for one i believe i got from Dstines -- a surface mount version. switched out the upper transparent moire pattern with one i had that made the pattern a bit more bright and defined compared to what was in original toy (although i see they have fixed this on future releases of this toy with plastic grid).
replaced the three lights with thunderjet wheel hubs and rhinestones, and the two control knobs at bottom -- they rest on the original knobs i cut down and just glued the more accurate knobs on top of them, so this way i can still activate the sounds. also painted the speaker grill gold.
i did not replace the bottom control plate with aluminum -- too much trouble, me thinks, although i admire those with the tenacity to do this. I also did not remove the mid plate (which is molded onto body) and add an aluminum one -- again, i admire those that do, but as i have other great replicas (J Long, Dstines, MR and the original Star Trek Experience toy that has metal midplate) I decided the mods i made were enough to make me happy.
if you try this, take care not to put too much stress on the wires -- I broke about 4 of them from the board and had to resolder -- a pain in the butt as the wires are so small and thin.
so here it is...but again, i wouldn't advise doing this yourself unless you have a spare toy untouched, because it is nice to have one example of the toy as priduced, IMHO.
here it is -- mod on left, original toy on right:
and closeup of moded toy:
