Epic Battery Bag Story

[dogman]

No vibration protection on the no suspension racing bike in the pic. The racetrack is pretty smooth, and the batteries fit in the box extremely tight.

On all the other bikes, full suspension baby! My lower back needs it much more than the battery. But if using lipo, I think if you are stashing them in tight fitting boxes, vibration could only affect your connectors. The HK turnigy lipo pack I dissected when it puffed looked pretty well constructed to me. I can't imagine my body taking enough vibration to shake one apart. More delicate pack constructions like spot welded round cells might be much more vibration damage prone.

[neptronix]

Dangit .. i have already ruled out dual suspension due to the fact that i pedal intensely. Many bike shops have told me to forget pedaling with a dual suspension bike as much of the energy goes into making the rear suspension bob about.

At best i may have front suspension, which seems kinda useless for the most part.

This making a battery box business is getting irritating. It would be easy if i had a stack of lifepo4 where i didn't have to, on occasional give the cells some TLC. With LiPo, you can't really enclose everything and forget about it.

Maybe i'll do the backpack thing

[Kingfish]

Part 2: A Tale of Two Bags

Right. What are the issues we face today with putting batteries into the triangle area of a common bicycle frame, anyone, anyone?
(Opps, sorry… monolog mode=ON)

Well, Geometry of the battery is the biggest factor: Big fat batteries are a non-starter; better to use the little guys – like for example the little Lipo bricks I’m using. They are about 0.75 x 3 x 5.5 in shape. Three could fit neatly if the sides were rotated so that the total wide is less than 4 inches directly below the Top-Bar. Get any wider than that and trouble begins.

Every bag I looked at was too thick; I could find many where the height and width were suitable, but that thickness was always 4 or 5 inches, and as a saddle bag on a bike, that’s too much. Then there are the crankarms and pedals which have to clear the bag on each cycle around the axle.

I began sensing possibilities when I examined little kids daypacks; that’s really where the confidence took hold because they are very small, teardrop-shaped, and not too puffy relatively speaking. The shape nearly fits inside the triangle area of my 19-year old Specialized Rockhopper MtB; I think a common bike would swallow the bag completely. That’s one idea, but not the one I settled on, and besides: I’m not big on Barney.

Around the corner from the Barney bags were the Camelbacks! <ding ding ding ding>
If you guessed this as an option, take a bow!

Camelback bags are inherently small and low-profile over all other types of bags. They have different sizes too depending on capacity. The price is equitable – ranging from $40 up to over $120 depending on how many whiz-bang features are included. They are stylish, technical, loaded with pockets and places to hang stuff; overall it’s an interesting gear bag and a viable candidate for modification.

REI allowed me to bring my ebike in so I could test-fit sizes; these folks are captivating, helpful, and have given me a long leash to play… probably because almost everything I wear advertises REI. Anyway – I wound up with two candidates and brought them home so I could see how many batteries I could stuff into one. (The dimensions were memorized and I had access to a tape measure so all that’s left is a go/no-go test).



Fox on the Left, Lobo on the Right:
Fox bag only held 7 LiPos, though it was a good tight fit. Lobo could easily take all 9 batteries, and maybe the BMS boards too. The problem was the Lobo bag was a little too puffy; you have top flaps at both ends that bulge outward, and it would take some sort of netting to reign that puffiness in – which was approaching the dreaded 4-inch zone. But then the Fox bag didn’t hold enough batteries.

Boy… what to do. I really needed a solution: Fox was $59 and the Lobo was $75. I decided to gamble on the Fox and try to modify it for 9 batteries because 2 x $59 is a lot cheaper than the $450 quote from the upholsterer, and I sure wasn’t sniffing epoxy to think it would take 300 hours of fracking around with fiberglass. No, that won't do; a line had to be drawn and I had to commit, so this is it: Modify the Fox camelback bag.

I took the Lobo bag and exchanged it for another Fox. On we go…

Technical Details:
Fox “Low Pro Hydration Pack Black” $59.95 at REI.
See http://www.foxhead.com for manufacturer details. There are no other colors available, though there are differing sizes.

Back at it, KF
Part 3 - modifying the bag details shortly with LOTS of pics.

[lester12483]

If bags arent your thing, try a locking storage trunk.

[Kingfish]

Part 3: Machine and Materials

I got to thinking and rather than reference this stuff on the fly, let’s just identify what’s needed so we can move on to the more interesting stuff. This list of materials may be appended or edited as this project proceeds.

Disclaimer: This needs to be said right up front - I am using the Zippy FlightMax 5S1P LiPo batteries which fit tightly in this bag. If you have batteries that are larger than stated it is likely this solution probably won’t work out unless the orientation is changed in a manner otherwise described (pictured later).

Workstation:
I bought a Tacsew sewing machine.



Note: The blueprint above the sewing machine is a copy of my first electric vehicle that I designed and built in college.

It is a challenge to operate, although I am becoming better skilled at it with each hour spent. My unit came with the table and lamp; the motor (not shown) is mounted below. When engaged it makes an audible hum – especially upon spin-up, though not unpleasant. You really need three arms to use this device:

• Right foot is on the pedal, and
• Right knee lifts/releases the Walking Foot.
• Left hand guides the material
• Right hand does double-duty slowing the right belt-driven wheel, assisting in preventing runaway rotation when not guiding material, and
• Right forearm depresses Reverse-Arm (below the Tacsew label and thread-spacing knob).

I have figured out that wearing the right glove greatly helps me control the speed of the belt-drive without blistering my hand. A 1000W rheostat/speed-control would be perfect. (One of the features included in the Artisan machine).

Construction Materials:

• Thread, DB-92 heavy-weight continuously filament Bonded Polyester; all-weather UV-resistant, strongest stuff Seattle Fabrics offers.
• Needle, 110/18 (I haven’t broken one yet); Universal Schmetz Needles
• Webbing, Polypropylene (PPE), Black – 1 inch wide
• Webbing, Polyester Seatbelt, Black – 2-inches wide
• Webbing, PPE, Black – 4 inch wide
• Grosgrain Ribbon, Black – ¾ inch wide; used for wrap-around trim to cover rough edges
• Velcro, Black, 1-inch wide Hook & Loop

Sheeting materials:
These may or not be used in this construction, but I have them in quantity from previous projects.

• High-Density Closed-Cell Foam, Dark Gray – 1/8 inch thick; universal padding, waterproof.
• Vinyl-coated Polyester, 42 oz. Black; toughest sheeting material in stock
• HDPE sheeting, Flexible High Density Polyethylene, 24" x 47" x .035", various colors: Black, Yellow, White; this is semi-rigid, and when combined with the Vinyl-coated Polyester it makes for unbeatable armoring.

Tools:

• Sharp scissors
• Seam Ripper with protective ball, Heavy-Duty
• Tape Measure
• Straight-edge (could be a ruler or small T-Square)
• Marking Pen (red is best)
• Pins & cushion
• Stapler (long is better than short)
• OptiVisor for close-up detailed work, especially when ripping seams.
• Good strong lighting
• Patience! (very important)

Apologies – the notes are taking longer than expected as I’ve been distracted by other fun stuff. My helmet arrived today, so that had to be documented before wearing it.

Tooled-up, KF
Up next… Part 4: Breaking down the Bag

[Madness]

Im not using lipo's but after alot of looking for a bag that fitted my needs i ended up with a topeak.

http://www.topeak.com/products/Bags/MTXTrunkBagDXP

My 36v 20Ah ping battery only just fits, but looking at its size you would fit a load of lipo's in it.

One of the good things about it is its removable so no need to leave expensive battery's on the bike when its locked up.

[neptronix]

Just spent 2.5 hours at 3 different bike shops and 2 different department stores and ya know what.. i looked at the hydration backpacks as well and thought 'aha! this may be it!' Of course, i didn't have any lithium batteries on me to test the fitting.

Should be interesting to see what you come up with

The topeak MTX will fit about 8-10 5s packs. However, it clunks around like crazy. This is not something i want to hear every time i hit a bump or crack in the pavement. I have one on my bike right now and it is headed for CL.

[Kingfish]

Part 4: Breaking down the Bag

In this next segment the goal is to remove the parts of the bag that do not have a future and prep it for modification.

Step 1: Remove unused parts
The first thing we need to do is remove the bladder. Laying it on the table with the top pointing upward, open the front flap, open the horizontal zipper, and undo the little black plastic clip from the small polyethylene rope; this will untangle the bladder from the bag. Now reach in and pull the bladder out. Depress the gray plastic fitting to detach the tubing: The bladder is now free. Snake the fitting-end of the tubing out of the bag and remove it by detaching from the strap: The tubing is now free.



Note: The bladder and tubing are perfectly fine pieces of equipment and very well could be reused within another gear bag, therefore I suggest hanging on to them.

ADDENDUM: Forgot a small easy task…
In the figure above directly behind the bladder is a stretchy rope that is laced across the lower front face, and can be adjusted by depressing the little plastic bit. The problem is that the ends of this stretchy rope are terminated with a plastic pull-tab that can’t be undone. Just cut the ends off, remove the plastic adjuster-dealy and drag the rope free. I saved mine because there could be a valid use for it down the road.

- - - - -

Step 2: Now we are ready to cut the bag.
The first time I did this it took a bit of time and study to figure out exactly what needed to come off. The second time though went a lot faster because I now knew how the bag was constructed and therefore could execute cutting without a worry.

In the image below there are two bags: The top row is the unmodified Fox bag, Front View on the Left and Back View on the Right. The bottom row shows the first bag already modified in the same corresponding views: It’s longer, reinforced, and has a strong side-flap added along the length where we’ll join the bags together.

EDIT: was "top-flap"; is now "strong side-flap..."



Let’s remove the straps. Flip the bag over so we see the backside with the bottom edge pointing up. Cut the bottom left and right straps off as indicated along the green line right up next to the seam; it’s ok to leave a little bit of material – no need to be perfect. The bag on the left has been completely modified and is shown for reference.



Flip the bag over so we see the front side with the top pointing up. The Fox bag has this handle-feature; a cutout that looks like it’s designed to be a handle when it’s not on your back. We need to cut this part off along the lower edge of the handle on the left side as indicated by the green line, and again on the right; just cut right through so it is nearly level all the way across. This action removes straps entirely. The bag on the left is completely modified and shown for reference.



Let’s get our trusty Seam Ripper now and prepare to remove the Grosgrain Ribbon securing the front flap to the front face. In the image below, Figure A shows the bag after the cuts have been made in the previous step.



I find it useful to pin or staple loose pieces of material down so they don’t wander and become misaligned. The top flap is a critical piece of the bag, so where we’ve made the cuts – let’s staple the top flap back to the top face (take care to not staple all the way through the entire bag). Figure B shows where I have stapled the left side, and about to staple the right. Part of the Grosgrain Ribbon has been removed.

Note: If you’ve never used a Seam Ripper before you might want to play with it on some old shirts or rags that have a hem to get the hang of it. The red ball goes into the pocket of the seam, and gently pressing forward with a slight wiggle causes the knife edge to cut the stiches. Be careful though for it’s easy to impale yourself or shred the material!

Figure C shows the Grosgrain Ribbon completely removed, and the red lines point to both staples which are securing the front flap to the front face.

- - - - -

Step 3: We need to finish opening up the pocket...
so take the top of the bag and spread it open along the same line where we just removed the Grosgrain Ribbon; in Figure A, by using my middle and index fingers to create the effort and the other fingers holding the bag (yeah – it’s a bit precarious; kind of a challenge to do solo), with the other hand use the Seam Ripper to separate the two halves.



Figure B shows how this action opens the pocket. Next we remove the small polyethylene rope at the two points indicated by the green arrows.

Lastly, we need to make room to add an extension to the top of bag, and we do this by ripping open the seams on the left and right sides as indicated in Figure C; about an inch or so is all that is required. Note: Don’t go past the horizontal zipper least we introduce new alignment problems!

OK – we are done with ripping and cutting. In the next phase we’ll reconstruct the bag into a new more useful arrangement.

Stay tuned. KF

[dogman]

For those without an industrial sewing machine, you might also look at various other items. I panniered two 24v nicad packs very nicely for awhile, using one bell handlebar bag for each 24v 8 ah nicad pack. A pretty good fit for 4, 5 ah turnigy bricks too. So two attached like panniers to a rear rack would easily carry 72v 10 ah.

Other off the shelf options, soft lunchboxes. Some are cheap crap, others look pretty stout, and may be shaped good for carrying lipo. Another option are water bottle sleeves. Quart size ones also look about right for 4 lipo bricks. Womens purses, the list goes on and on if you are seeing instead of merely looking at stuff.

Want some really big, but narrow panniers? Have you even looked at laptop bags? 12x 16 x 3" Perfect for carrying a shitload of lipos.

[Kingfish]

Comments & Replies to Responses:

Just so we have a clear field of vision, I was turned away by a machinist and body-shop for constructing a hard-surfaced container designed to fit in the triangle area. I don’t have access to a garage or shop, although my saucer is full of technology & experience, and I aim to use it within the confines of a typical urban dweller.

Are hard containers better at protection? Yes – they are ideal, and greatly preferred. One day I hope to craft or contract them. For now though, a reinforced toughened soft-bag is the next best solution.

Vibration is inherently attenuated by softer containers if the entire assemblage is well-constrained, and movement of the unit as a whole is restricted: This is the goal of the present construction.

Locking & Security issues are noted; all soft-body assemblies – including plastic enclosures have the potential for tampering and theft. This is a good subject worthy of deep exploration.

Novara Trunk Bag: I have one (not presently used though saved) and I ended up padding the batteries to keep them from being jostled about within the container. The second feat was overcoming the insufficient frame-fastening mechanisms; mine wobbled about on the rear rack until I had an epiphany at the bike shop: Use an inner-tube to secure the bag:



This is picture is taken after the 2010 Flying Wheels Century event; the Novara bag is held down by a crisscross overlay of a typical 26” tube stretched over and knotted off. Let me see if I can enhance this photo…



The top red arrow points to the knot, the two lower arrows point to the crossovers – and it you look closely you’ll see that I also have a layer of ½ inch white closed-cell packing foam between the bag and the rear rack for additional padding. The tubing, acting like a giant rubber band, proved superior in securing the bag in place; no wobbling inside or out, and no worries. (Apologies for not having a better picture of this unique configuration; it worked really well)

Sewing machines: I believe that the Tacsew is probably overkill for this particular project; however I also attempted fabrication of armored soft-bags and for those sorts of tasks this is the class of machine required. I am considering a fetching a lighter-class industrial-grade sewing machine that is easier to work with, supported by a range of stich-patterns implicitly. The question though arises: Am I a design & prototype-oriented business or a production manufacturer?

I think as a hobbyist that a sturdy well-built consumer-model sewing machine can handle the type of work we’re describing here so long as we identify the importance of being able to use:

• heavy-gauge thread,
• frequent replacement of strong sharp needles,
• keeping it well-maintained and oiled, and
• able to handle material thickness up to ¼ inch.

If your machine can do seat cushions, bean bags, curtains, and bedspreads – there’s good reason it can handle this job!

Let’s move forward with sewing up the tough stuff.
Onward, through the fog…
~KF
EDIT: 12/22/2010 - Trunk bag incorrectly identified as Topeak; is now Novara.

[Kingfish]

Part 5: Extending the Bag

In this segment we’ll add about 3 more inches of usable length to the bag so that it can handle up to 9 batteries. The extension is very heavy duty, and serves as both expansion and structural addendum that is required to survive the dynamic rigorous loading.



In the image above we have two bags: Fully modified on the left, and our ripped-up work-in-progress on the right. BTW - the bag on the left has 9 LiPos packed inside; the balancing plugs are just slight peeking out of the unzipped flap.

Step 1: Add the front half of the extension
Let’s grab our unit and flip it over. Pin the bottom-side of the newly exposed material back out of the way; it’s kind of tricky and moderately inflexible – take your time.

With the sewing machine, run a single stich across the top of the front material face close to the edge. In the image below the bag is rotated so the top points right which is the natural direction for stitching on the machine, with the green line indicating the path. This action will secure the front flap to the front face, and when completed we can remove the staples.



Next, we cut a length of 4-inch PPE webbing about ½ inch longer than the width of the bag at its’ top ~ roughly 11 inches.

Denote the center of this length at the edge with a pen or chalk by making a small tick-mark. Flip the bag over. Center the webbing about the center of the bag very close to the plastic emblem and pin it in place as indicated in the image below. Now secure both the left and right ends so they are aligned horizontally across the top. Take care to get this piece temporarily secured and ensure the mating material is flat, stretched out uniformly, and not pinched. (The first time I did this I had some buckling on one side and had to rip the seam and re-do it; the second time I flattened it fine but the alignment was slightly crooked. Take your time.)



Flip the bag over and check the backside. Take a pen or chalk and with a straight-edge mark the edge of the webbing from one side to the other as indicated in the image below; this will be our visual guide when sewing the next path.



We’ll make two passes with the machine; one near the left edge of the webbing, and another near the right edge of the front face. With the Tacsew this was a challenge as the machine is very powerful and some skill was required to slow the beast down to prevent runaway stitching.



Notes: I tried to stay within an 1/8-inch of the edge for the left side; the right stitch alignment is not as critical. One could stitch this from the front side for a cleaner more accurate line, however the stronger material should be placed on the bottom with the weaker material in view so as to prevent puckering. With that in regard, perhaps the right inside stitch should come first… hmm, I’ll need to try that for the next set of saddle bags.

Step 2: Add the back half of the extension
This next step is essentially a rinse and repeat of the previous, being applied this time to the back side.

With the front extension completed, unpin the back side material. Then pin back the new front extension as indicated in the image below.

• Cut a length of 4-inch wide PPE webbing about 11 inches long; the key factor is that it overhangs the width of the bag slightly.
• Center, align, and secure the webbing to the back material.
• Mark the hidden edge of the webbing for use as a visual guide.
• Make two passes with the sewing machine, and inspect for completeness.

Step 3: Secure the left and right edges of the Extension.
With the back extension completed we are now ready to begin closing up the bag.

The front and back extensions should be nearly aligned if all went swimmingly well with our sewing. Misalignments up to 1/8 inch are not a big deal, however any more than that becomes increasingly cumbersome to resolve. Apologies; there are no pictures to describe the next series.

• Unpin the front flap and lay it flat against the newly-minted back.
• Check the alignment; if both pieces of the webbing are the same length this task will be made easier.

Small Note: When the two sides of the bag were ripped open there should be a dangle of Grosgrain Ribbon flapping about. There are two paths to take with this:

Check the path where this ribbon would go if it were put back in place and remove any over-stitching that would interfere. Admittedly this is a bit cumbersome nit-picky work, and as a “completionist” it is what I did. However hindsight is 20/20 and I suggest an alternative: Just cut the material away at the point where the stitching ends; we’re going to be covering up the exposed seams anyways with new materials and it’s just one of those pesky time-sync details that don’t add a lot of value at the end of the day.

Secure the extensions together with pins or staples; whatever works for you; ensure the materials are well-mated and not buckling.

Run at least one stitch along each side from the point just below where the Grosgrain Ribbon ends to the top of the bag. The stitching should roughly align with the inside seam and not increase or decrease the available inside width of the bag. We are creating the pocket and that is all.

Step 4: Inspection
I recommend stopping here and examining the bag, at least for the first bag here, and testing the workmanship by loading the batteries into the bag with the open end to ensure the fit is good and proper. This will be the last opportunity to make adjustments before closing it off. Below are a couple of views of what this should resemble.



Step 5: Wrap it up.
If all looks swell, remove the batteries, lay the bag flat, and make two passes with the machine to close up the end. The excess material can then be trimmed back, and the corners rounded. Try to keep the edge of the new extension in alignment with the rest of the bag; it just makes application of the future trim pieces much easier. When completed it should look similar to the image below.



We’re done with this part; the bag has been extended.

Tips:
I struggled at first with the machine running away and wandering off the path, and if it did I was forced to stop, rip the threads, and try again. Take your time, go in short segments, check and re-check, breathe. The glove really worked out to slow the beast down.

Also I had a small covet of bobbins loaded and ready to swap out: There are few more irritating moments than crafting what you think is a perfect pass over a long area only to discover the top-thread pulling out all the way back to near the beginning. Perhaps one day a clever inventor will figure out how to provide a warning or display the length of bobbin thread remaining.

In the next part we will focus on reinforcing the bag and its’ seams in preparation for mounting.

Question: Has this information been useful? Are you bored to tears? Should I be shot at dawn?
Industrious, KF

[docnjoj]

Extremely literate and quite interesting but way beyond my sewing skill level.
otherDoc

[Kingfish]

Thanks otherDoc; that’s a good point. Let’s put a bit of reality and encouragement to it…

Anyone with a couple of hours of training on a sewing machine can to this mod. For that matter I haven’t used a sewing machine in 25 years. I wouldn’t say that I am an expert at it either; call me butterfingers. Although I admit my exposure to sewing is a bit unusual:

<Storytime mode=ON>
Once upon a time when I was but a smaller and younger lad my Mother bought a new Singer sewing machine from Sears; I’m fairly certain it was between my 7 & 8th grades. When the new machine arrived, it came with 2-weeks free of sewing lessons. My Mom didn’t need it, but I was really intrigued, especially with her skills; the woman could impressively sew all sorts of stuff! So I asked if I could go in her stead and this was agreeable to both parties.

It proved to be an advantageous arraignment for several reasons – the first chiefly being that the instructor was a drop-dead beautiful blonde bombshell; who cares if she had 5 or 8 years on me! OK, ok – OT… apologies. As for the rest of the reasons, well I’d learn how to stitch up my own machinations – which were vast. Surprisingly I was the only guy in class, or perhaps better stated as the only <ahem> rooster in the hen house: I got over it.

First item I made was a stretchy shirt, cut from a pattern sold at, and with material bought from Sears. I wore that shirt once to school, and then promptly gifted it to charity. Next I crafted a bedspread which had all the old ladies clucking away at the magnitude of the challenge. That gorgeous blonde teacher gulped at my ambition but agreed to let me have a go at it; bulky and perhaps a bit large for the machine though it was. However it came out well enough and I made use of it for many years. There was time enough left for a third and final project – and I decided upon a large bean-bag chair: very heavy gauge vinyl, beyond the capability of the machine, - and I am certain the instigator for change in the way the 2-week tutorials would be governed from that day forward. The hens of the class cackled nervously instead of clucked, and well… I broke several needles driving the material through. But I got’er done, filled it with beads, and it worked! Didn’t fit in the car though. A few weeks later the stitching started coming apart; thread wasn’t suited for the strain and I should have made an inner liner. Beads began to flow… Soon it was an outdoor piece of furniture… and then it was tossed.

Most of the sewing experience after that came from patching my levis (in a time when patched levies were cool), and some backpack repair; rugged stuff, nothing fancy.

Years later at the toy company I became involved with the softer aspects of product design. One toy in particular that was all mine from cradle-to-grave was “Little Boppers”. Here’s a vid of the commercial:



The prototype was presented to us and my job was to take it into production and craft various models. A pattern-maker, nice lady who obviously loved her job, came up with the skinning and outfits for all the units, and she’d hand over her traces to me for formalization: material callouts, grain direction, hem-width, stitching types, pleating, synthetic hair and fur, Velcro, buttons, zippers, on and on… I think my previous experiences as a dorky kid in that sewing class really paid off.

Since we’re drifting OT, let me conclude with a bit more entertaining drift. At the end of the video there is a reference to the Monster Boppers; that was my idea which came very late in production, and here’s the story:

Imagine, I am surrounded for a year by cutesy smiling little dollies ♥ in various stages of completion. I mean I had other roles and responsibilities other than LazerTag, such as Cost-Reduction on Teddy Ruxpin, lead-supporting designer on Julie… the first doll with artificial intelligence (voice recognition and other environmental sensors), Baby Muppets (product cancelled due to excessive bandwidth radiation), the GI Joe LazerTag pistol, and a host of other R&D endeavors. My cubical is in an open-bay; I inhabit a whole corner, and there is lots of interactivity and go-between with co-workers much like an extended family with both stress & fun, and inter-office games & politics. As we approach “Toy-Fair” (THE BIG EVENT of the year for any toy company held in NYC naturally) the stress levels and hours on the job climb stratospherically. Something has to give to release that pent-up angst…

Shudder: I’m staring at these @#$% dolls staring back at me during some momentary frustration about who knows gawd-what, …and I decide I’ve had enough of the Pamela-doll! Grabbing the scissors, I punk her hair into a Mohawk, paint the hair florescent green, change her make-up to Goth with a heavy black marker, rip her purple doily daisy-shirt off so it’s just the plain turtleneck undershirt dangling just above the knees, paint her hands with dabs of red marker, and hung paperclip-chains around her. There – that’s better hehe, hehehe. A buddy of mine see’s my creation and laughingly loses it; he goes and punks out his dolls too; viral - it becomes a fad.

Inspired I take the Little Bopper skeleton, rip the punked-Pamala head and hands off and mush it onto the skeleton along with her undershirt. Grabbed some modeling putty, made a knarly forked tongue, and stuck it in her mouth, paperclip chains dangling from the arms, hard-wired the toy to ALWAYS BE ON and set it loose in the open bay: “It is alive! It’s ALIVE!!” – and the first ugly monstor-bopper was born! (Perspective: The movie Gremlins had been out maybe a year so it is fresh in everyone’s minds).

With a couple of pals in tow, I show it to my boss - the Drafting Manager; the cigarette nearly falls out of his mouth “THAT is soooo cool! Let’s show it to my boss” and we did on up to the Engineering Manager; the four of us race up to his office (open-door policy on creativity and all) and we put it on his desk and fire it up: I make the sound “MHRAAAA!!!” as the creature with its’ stilted gait advances towards his smoldering cigar; his dark eyes become large as saucers, “THAT is AWESOME! Let’s show the Boss”. And on we went the five of us marching directly across the quad over to the corporate building and straight into the VP of Engineering, 3rd-potato of The Company. Big dark mahogany desk, lots of space and we set the toy down in the middle. The intelligent taciturn VP stares back at us: Again I animate the sinister sound effects, the toy marches forward with paperclips rattling away, bloodied doll hands reaching forward to clasp the next victim, and I describe how we could use lots of latex dangling off the arms, create mutated versions, …zombies …vampires …gremlins …werewolves; five of us all enthusiastic staring across at the silent VP, waiting for a reaction.

A dry moment passes. Then he says “That’s nice. Now get back to work” with complete aplomb. Confuzzled the five of us walk out with the seed of inspiration, saying to each other “well, I thought it was a great idea”, “Yeah, me too”, “Yeah, and me…” as we ambled back to our hovels …deflated. Guess what we end up making two months later: cute and cuddly fuzzy Wonderbread Monster Boppers ♥! I so want to chum.

- - - - - -

Look, don’t get hung up on what you think you can’t do. Anything is possible! You’re already driving a customized electric whatever; you are geniuses -> a damn-sight fricken smarter than the average bear! I’m just a goof documenting how it can be done; I make mistakes, frequently. Take from me the knowledge and make it better. Timid about sewing? Find a gal (you don’t have to marry her) and make an arrangement to bang out a bag.

For me, the more I sleep with the concept the better the stream of ideas on how to simplify the process. I know this pair of saddle bags can be improved; I’d like to make them from scratch if I could, and I probably will.

Be brave; give it a shot. That’s all I’m saying.

This assembly should be completed today, and hope to have the notes posted tonight.
Cheers, KF

[spinningmagnets]

#1. Keep posting. "how to's" are the best threads and the most likely to stickied, in order to help future experimenters.
#2. There isn't enough selection in triangle bags, early adopters will pay a premium for a quality product that fills a neglected niche.
#3. An affordable heavy duty sewing machine (you really only need a straight stitch) can sometimes be found quite cheap at a second-hand thrift/charity store.
#4. The "big-desk guy" needs to be Pimp-Slapped upside the head. Even if HE doesnt want to buy a "Zombie Barbie" to play with...roughly one million 13-year-olds will ask their parents to buy the $9.95 one. (remind me again, whats the parts manufacturing cost of a mass-produced injection molded plastic doll? expensive?...cheap?...I can't remember).

Every company that produces and sells trendy items NEEDS to set aside a part of their budget for a sample run of whatever pops into their designers minds. They should be given free rein to get prototypes fast-tracked by an in-house R&D shop, and everyone in the design shop should be allowed to take the first couple dozen proto's home to try out on their own kids each weekend (with a yes/no vote on Monday to produce a bigger and more polished sample for a trade show).

One of my favorite stories of a trendy-product success was when the Iraqi minister of information was on Iraqi TV saying that there are no American soldiers in Baghdad (there were), and any Americans soldiers who dared to enter Baghdad would be killed and their stomachs would be roasted. (I guess lamb stomach is a delicacy).

This one guy went to a website that put whatever you wanted onto a coffee cup (pic of the grandkids?) and he sent them a pic of the Iraqi minister with the caption "This is an Iraqi coffee cup, and no infidel will EVER drink coffee from it!". The cup was a big hit, many more were ordered, and then a friend set up a website to sell them "while they were hot". I think he sold a few thousand.

He didn't make the cups, he didn't do the image printing, and he didn't send them to customers (the image company handled everything for a fee, getting order invoices from his web-site). He did, however, get paid up front with a credit card, and allowed 3 weeks for delivery. Zombies are big this year, next year it may be something else..."The only thing thats constant, is change"

[Kingfish]

Thanks Spin
From what I recall the LazerTag Rifle molds were $1.5 mil each (1986 dollars), would last for 150,000 shots before needing refurbishing, and we had three sets: one in Korea, and two in Hong Kong.

With plastic injection you can craft aluminum molds far cheaper than steel for limited prototyping just as you have suggested, and at WoW we did a lot of that type of work. BTW – the big-desk guy stepped in and saved my ass later when the company began to implode – but that’s another story for another day.

Speaking of days, this one is blowing by and I need to bust-a-move and finish the bags: It’s close - we’re in labor and I want to birth this soon and get on with the next project.

Expecting, KF

[amberwolf]

For those without sewing skills and/or the desire to learn them, another place to go to have stuff made is costumers. At least in the USA and probably Canada, there are a number of medieval re-enactment groups that have people that do their own costumes, and usually at least one person in the area that makes and sells costumes at faires and the like. Often there are regional costuming guilds. It's likely that at least one person wouldnt' mind doing up a bag or two for the right price or trade. Barter is a common thing in such groups.

There are also other re-enactment or costuming groups in many places for science-fiction; they are less likely to accept barter but they are more likely to be interested in a battery bag project.


BTW, Kingfish: I love your toy-company stories; please insert more OTs like this in your threads.

PS: Someday I would love to pick your brain about the LT system just for curiosity's sake--back in the early 90s I made all sorts of things to go with the system for use with friends, including land mines, grenades, and shotguns. Drew up circuits and made a prototype for a shot-limiting battery pack, but by the time I had it ready, most of my friends had moved on to paintball instead (whcih hurts, and so is not my kind of fun, but apparently that makes it better for most people, for reasons I don't understand).

The idea of the battery pack was that it had a counter on it, settable only by the master referee of the game, using an electronic key and some shift registers in the pack. That counter would detect the shots fired by the drain on the pack (there was almost always just enough of a voltage dip to detect, even with new Duracells) or by a separate wire added from the trigger to some new contacts at the battery pack front end area. So you'd get say, 20 shots for each person on a team, and after that they'd be out of ammo and helpless, except for whatever grenades they were carrying (3 per person was the plan), and the knowledge of where the land mines were (1 per person, set up as a team so you all knew where theyd' be), so you could lure enemy team members into contact with the mines or your other team members.

ALso, you could take the battery pack from someone else's gun and put it in yours, to use their remaining shots, if they were "disabled" by being shot too many times. This worked with enemies or allies. It also prevented someone from becoming a two-fisted shooter just blasting away at everyone, as they'd only have so many shots even if they had a captured gun from someone else. It's no fun having someone do that from a covered positon where you can't hit them, and ending the game for everyone "unfairly". I just wish I'd actually been able to test them in the field and see how they worked for everyone--I think that it might have kept some of them from deserting the game for "not fun anymore" reasons.

The pack itself was just a vacuformed flat pack that inserted into the AA battery holder area, with an LED two-digit counter sticking out the back end, and the batteries on one side of the gun (since they woudln't fit inside anymore), with the electronics inside the battery area. Could set for up to 64 shots on each pack, after which it would drop out the relay that allowed power to pass to the gun. A modified version would've worked for the rifles. I also woudl've made one for the GiJOe version, but those I think ran on 9V batteries and only had a plain IR LED in there, not nearly as good as the Starlytes, so I never bothered. (although if you took the end cap off the GIJoe version you could havea pretty effective very-short-range shotgun kind of thing).


I also added a web-vest, with extra IR sensors on shoulders and back, plugged into a connector on teh regular sensor unit. These didn't ever work as well as I wanted them to, but I R not an engineer, so my hack of the IR sensor was probably at fault--sometimes they'd just trigger randomly, apparently from local RF noise, in the city. Not much of a problem in the foresty areas we preferred to play in (like Oak Creek Canyon, etc.). Again, I only got a couple of prototypes made, and never really got to field test them in play with a bunch of people.


The shotguns were just regular guns with a tap off of the normal IR output to a whole MESS of salvaged remote-control IR LEDs in a short piece of PVC clamped to the side of the gun, probably 50 or more, driven by a darlington-pair transistor right off the battery pack. Had quite a devastating effect on anything even vaguely in front of you within a dozen yards or so, but killed the batteries so fast that even without the shot-limiting packs you only had about 10-15 shots with them before the gun wouldn't work properly anymore. One gotcha with them is that if you were in close quarters, you could shoot yourself with it too, from the IR backscatter off objects around you.


The grenades were just 556 timers wired up as a 10-second one-shot and a (IIRC) 13khz or so multivibrator, powered by a 9V battery, and a bunch of remot-control IR LEDs poking out in all directions, stuffed into a PVC sprinkler head (so they would survive any impacts--I figured if the sprinklers survived being chopped off the pipes by commercial ride-around mowers, they should work for this). A single momentary pushbutton recessed into the former sprinkler end started the timer. Usually by the time whoever you tossed it at could locate the source of what was setting off their sensor, it would have already gone red and they'd be inactive now. Range was only a couple of feet, maybe three, and it only lasted about a minute before the battery died, but that was good enough for a one-use grenade in the game,


Land mines were similar, but they were made out of the plastic ends of paper rolls from a printshop, about 6" in diameter with a square base. Slots in the sides could have plastic tabs inserted into them to hold the contacts of spring switches apart, and you'd tie strings to the tabs and then to other objects nearby as tripwires. These used D batteries and had about 6 feet of range, and went off for 30 seconds and then latched in a shut-off mode, requiring taking the cover off to reset it (so you couldn't reuse it during the game and cheat).


I had some other ideas I never implemented, and forgot most of the details of; probalby still have them in a sketchbook someplace.

[Kingfish]

WoW AW! I'd love to comment, and I will shortly - but I am so pooped out right now. Bags are finished enough for me to use them tomorrow on my commute. Not ideally 100% completed though done enough to be useful. I need to mod the hardness to put in a charging tap; ran out of time tonight - and with the bike all torn down, I had to finish putting enough back together to get me on down the road.

I’ve took a bunch of pictures and I’ll be back tomorrow night putting together the Steps.

Thanks for the encouragement!
BTW - I was a bit afraid to tell you about my illustrious past. The Toy Company was one of the best and most exciting times of my tiny little life. Lots and lots of stories there we could mine.

Teasers… After the LT rifle I had my choice to lead either one of these two endeavors:

• “Fetch” – A robotic dog that would seek and find a bone and bring it back. The bone would emit an IR signal.
• “Flying Machine” – pretty much like it sounds, guided by IR signals.
• One of the R&D projects I was loosely involved with was a remote-controlled flying “Water-wiggle”. Imagine three jets of water, with an inertial gyroscope that self-righted the machine. Directional control was done at the hose. Problem: The California Drought hit right before production was to start, and due to rationing the product was cancelled. In fact – a whole line Worlds of Wonder water toys went bye-bye.
• Every day at lunch, about ½ of the engineers and designers would head to the back lot with their highly modified RC cars and race them. I still have mine on top of my headboard. There were all kinds of experimental RC projects going on; it was toyland for toy developers! We had a huge model department just for prototyping.

Oh shoot - I need to close right now; got to go eat and get ready for tomorrow.

AW, did you ever pick up a LT Starbase?
Until tomorrow, KF

[amberwolf]

WoW AW!

Har har....

BTW - I was a bit afraid to tell you about my illustrious past. The Toy Company was one of the best and most exciting times of my tiny little life. Lots and lots of stories there we could mine.

Oh, you can bet that there's more than a few people here that'd like to read them. I can't imagine I'm the only one that hacked WoW (and similar) toys.

Teasers… After the LT rifle I had my choice to lead either one of these two endeavors:
[list][*]“Fetch” – A robotic dog that would seek and find a bone and bring it back. The bone would emit an IR signal.
[*]“Flying Machine” – pretty much like it sounds, guided by IR signals.

Depending on how it flew, the latter might be interesting, but I'd've been probably more intrigued by the former. I once had one of those programmable six-wheel "tanks", whatever they were called, where you entered a program for directions via the keypad on the back. Was fun for a while, but had too limited memory to do anything really complex with it, and I had zero electronics knowledge at the time. Something-Trak, I forget after 20+ years.

Shame about the water toys. Might've been some very interesting stuff coming out of all that.

AW, did you ever pick up a LT Starbase?

I found one at a yard sale cheap enough to get, but unfortunately it was long after my friends had gone to paintball, so I did not get it. They were still way too expensive even when I got the other LT stuff; most of that I got at KayBee and whatever their clone store was, when they had the closeout sales on all the LT stuff (Starlytes were less than $10 each eventually).

I don't even have most (maybe any) of the LT stuff nowadays, except a couple of the sensors in pieces here and there. Kinda wish I still did, just for posterity and sentimentality, but I gave it to others that hopefully had fun with it (and maybe still do, or passed it on again, as that was about 10 years ago).

[Kingfish]

G’Morn’n AW <rub eyes, yawn, slurp coffee>
I have a little time so here’s some replies as promised:

Medieval: Probably easier to tell this tale over a pint, but that’s a good point. I also found people that specialized in leatherwork online but didn’t follow-up. In honesty – now that the bags are done (sans finishing features) and I can appreciate the actual fitting onto the frame, it would have been very difficult to shop-out and control the revisions. Also, I did try to enlist an upholsterer but he was outrageously priced and wanted to use his shop-materials which were not what I wanted (and there might have been some personal chemistry-conflict too; it was a visceral feeling that I have learned to trust).

Something my Mother had said sticks with me (advice I didn’t follow but should have): Make a mockup using cheap materials first. I bought the cheap materials but went ahead with the full construction after the second redesign – it didn’t play out as well as planned, and the construction was abandoned. That’s when I shifted to modifying an existing bag. There are issues with that direction as well which I shall identify at the end of the Steps.

However if you can find a seamstress – that would certainly be useful for prototyping.

LT Cracking: I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the hacking; it’s just a remote control on another protocol. Interesting side story for you:
A year before I came to the company WoW introduces the Starlyte LazerTag pistol in NYC at Toy Fair. Before we could get product onto the shelves a Chinese company knocks off a shoddy product “star blaster” or “phasor”; I don’t recall exactly, other than it was bubblegum-red and ugly. They claimed they could shoot 75 feet on the product box. Marketing comes rushing into Engineering all worried about losing market share (rightfully so and we did by being cheated, copied, and beaten to market); they ask “Can the Starlyte shoot 75 feet too?” My old mentor, a PEME & Senior Partner rubs his chin and says “Sure, if we tune it down.”

The Starlyte LazerTag Rifle could shoot 300 feet. The IR emitter put out an equivalent of 7 Amps, albeit momentarily in a 16-bit pulse train, repeated 3 times over 90 μs (at least that’s how I remember it). It had two lensing options: Wide and Narrow beam. The wide beam was designed for short range – 75 feet, whilst the narrow could project (a better term than “shoot”) over 300 feet. The scope on the rifle was the most powerful for any toy at that time, something like 3X I think, but the clever part was the illuminated reticle:

A standard Galilean telescope, with a piece of Lexan having a scored crosshair in the center, highly polished, and a two-color LED embedded perpendicular to sight (hidden), and placed between two plastic achromatic lens so that the crosshairs would appear in focus along with the distant objects. We were the first company to contract out the construction of plastic achromats and it was used on my toy. Now about the sight: At 300 feet, you can’t see the target; the crosshairs blot it out – but if you could aim towards it the rifle could hit it. The IR emitter optics were adjustable relative to the fixed scope (ass-backards but with good reason). Let’s take a break here because I don’t want to drift too far; we can always come back as there is so much unique engineering that we put into this toy.

Shot-limiting: The LT Rifle had slow continuous mode, or rapid fire which lasted for a short burst and then need a cool-down period; the illuminated reticle would flash when the time expired (glowed red when you couldn’t shoot, and green when you could). The battery-pack limit sounds like a great idea: Was it programmable? Oh, wait - I see; that is a cool implementation!

GI-Joe models were dumbed-down Starlyte Pistols; 9V. Dead-simple electronics; mine still works. Shotgun idea has me snickering. I am glad you still have sight though; there are government rules about IR radiation. Just slightly worried for you friend in a good way.

AW, you have a massive imagination and display great ingenuity: With that bit of inspiration you would have done well in the Company Gunga Din!

LT stuff: I have at least one of every unit from the product line, some still in original boxes; heirlooms for my children should I have them. The kids used in the pictures on the boxes are the CEO & President’s kids. Kinda gives you an idea where some of these peculiar-looking models come from, huh?

Tidbit - What killed LazerTag and ultimately WoW:
The original units for the whole product line were black and sexy. About three weeks before the production run was slated to begin for the LT Pro Rifle - a kid playing LT at night at his school down in Rancho Cucamonga - California is shot and killed by a police offer who thought he was being shot at for real; two rounds from the officer’s shotgun cut the kid in two. In a mad dash, we had to convert the entire product line over to WHITE & Orange; the two most butt-ugly colors other than bubblegum red for a toy gun. I worked the longest day of my career 28 hours straight non-stop during this time to switch the plastic alloys over to white. It ruined my eyes: WoW was the last board-design job for me; after this I converted 100% to CAD.

I need to go so I’ll finish the demise of WoW later. And… perhaps more.

<do-doo! do-doo!>
Got ya KF

[bigmoose]

KF, I am enjoying this thread. Three of my uncles were tailors, and I also sewed as a youth. My uncle's old 1920's industrial sewing machine is still in my basement, waiting for a refresh for me to upholster my high back mower seat... I still use my sleeping bag and tent that I sewed in 1976.

That said, it would be great for you to do a missive sometime on small scale or prototype injection molding. What is required, who to go to, and some ROM costs. That would be invaluable!

[grindz145]

I am always frustrated when the first suggestion everyone has is to build a metal box for the batteries on my ebikes. Why? Because I want the heaviest bike around? Not sure but the bags on the xtracycle have held up incredible well. I am going to rigidly mount them with a small amount of angle aluminum and some plastic stock, but Battery Bags can make a lot of sense as you have done an incredible job documenting.

[Kingfish]

Part 6: Adding Reinforcement

I’d like to return to the topic at hand for a bit to bring us up to speed on the latest progress. And then we can return to the diversions ad infinitum.

In the previous step we completed the bag extension mod necessary to add capacity from 7 to 9 batteries. The goal of this step is to add reinforcement and then join the bags together.

Step 1: Add vertical support straps
The new extension already has very strong vertical support applied by virtue of layout and construction. However there is need for concern for both the front and middle sections of the bag, being fabricated with weaker materials. The solution is quick and easy.

Cut a length of 2-inch seatbelt material approximately 8 inches long; enough so that it overhangs about ½ inch on each side of the top portion of the bag. Align and secure it so that is it centered at the very bottom of the bag as indicated in the image below. I like staples over pins for securing, but use what you feel comfortable with.



Note: We are about to reorient the bags from being a camelback into a saddle bag, and the terms we’ve been using are going to get confusing to follow in the next steps. Therefore I’ve put together a little cross-reference table to help us out. Should I append a diagram, or can you figure it out without a Tagamet?

Code: Select all

Camelback    Saddlebag
----------------------
Top          Front
Bottom       Rear
Front        Outside
Back         Inside
Side         Top or Bottom *
* Depending on whether we are working on the Left or Right bag

Clear as mud?

Next, measure the midpoint of the bag, and again cut a length of the 2-inch seatbelt material with about ½ to 1 inch overhang. My gut feeling is that we will need a little more because the front of the bag is already supported by the stitching across three sides. The extra length will eventually become stitched in with other assemblies.

Tack the two straps in place with a single stitch as shown in the image below. It’s doesn’t have to be perfect or pretty; just be careful and avoid mistakes. Inspect your work and ensure that the stitching is along the existing seams and does not impinge upon the precious storage capacity.



Now comes a difficult part; there’s no other way to describe it. The jury is out whether this task is necessary since in later steps these seams are covered up except for one side. However let me just explain what I did, and if you discover a better way then please comment. May I direct you to the image below.



Note the start of the edge-seam for the 4-inch webbing. We need to seal this off to prevent it from debraiding, and we’re going to use some Grosgrain Ribbon. I found it to be one of the more challenging and colorfully-vocal moments of construction: Depending on whether the original Grosgrain Ribbon was snipped off, or integrated, what you need to do is add new Grosgrain Ribbon to the edge, enough so it overlaps about ½ inch, curling it over so it wraps evenly on both sides. I won’t kid you: This was a bitch. I found that if I could tack the end down that I could control the folding and alignment with a bit of tension as I slowly sewed along the Grosgrain Ribbons’ edges. The first ones were messy but I quickly became adept by the time I got to the second bag as close examination will reveal.

The second bag came out way better than the first! Outside and inside faces shown below.



The final strap to add is the horizontal flap (for lack of a better term) which ultimately becomes the top of the bag, and is used to join the two halves together. The image below shows it secured in place. A little note: I have mine butted to the front of the bag (on the left) and short by about 2 inches on the rear (right side). The design bag is kind of long for my frame so I am cheating a bit because I need to leave room at the front of the bike for the handlebars to clear and to mount the controller. The seat tube will rise on up through that 2-inch clearance; I know this from copious measurements. Thus is the explanation for my madness… if that makes any sense.



Below is the outside view; I wouldn’t want to deny you a visual! And a close-up after stitching in place. Say, that’s looking kind of tacky don’t you think? Hmmm, whadda ya think we are gonna do about that?



Step 2: Beatification & Trim
By now I bet there’s a lot of dangling little threads and debraiding edges. A clever bag maker would have a torch or electric knife handy. I had an old Zippo. Gets hot real quick too! Trim all the loose threads and frilly crap off. Then flame the edges and threads with a torch to burn them back and seal them from becoming a future mess. In truth, I’ve been flaming mine as I go along. Now is a good time to stop and clean up your act! Build the habit; clean as you go, ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Snap to it lad!

Let’s take some 1-inch wide webbing, and starting with the front of the bag and leaving a bit of overhang, we are going to apply trim over the seams. This process adds several beneficial & structural enhancements: We are reinforcing the existing seams, we are integrating the straps in the inside with additional support, we are covering up our sloppy sewing (very important that bit), and we are also adding more material for fastening - more fastening! Ha, slipped a pun in there I did, yes... well <ahem>



Note: When I applied the trim, I placed a single stitch directly over the existing seam for maximum effect. The rest of the edge can flap in the wind, until the next step. Just a friendly reminder: Single stitch directly over the original seams at this time.



Step 3: Fitting
There are no pictures for this step; it is really a sanity-check for our assemblies. After you finished getting one bag to this point, go and make another bag in the same manner – except put the horizontal flap on the opposite side so that you have matching mirror pairs, alright?

Then I would take the two halves and make like you are going to join them, though instead staple them in place best that you can. Drape the assembly over the top tube and ensure that the lengths will work out.

Cautionary note: The flaps will be stout strong and resist bending. Do not be discouraged. All will be right in the end. We’re just doing a quick check and looking to be sure there are no glaring mistakes because once we join the bags – that’s it: Done.

Step 4: Joining
Remove the bags from the bike and lay them flat on the table. Remember that extra bit of trim flapping? If we’ve done it right, we can tuck one edge of the seatbelt material under the flap and between the opposing seatbelt, snug up against seam. The extra flap will work to nicely and neatly join and reinforce the mating. The end result should look like the image below where I am about to make a pass straight down the middle.



ADDENDUM: Although not visually indicated, place one single stitch-pass along the inside edges of the left and right trim, and three passes straight down the middle. This effectively binds the webbing and the seatbelts together securely.

I went ahead and added more trimming as is displayed in the next image. At the rear of assembly, where the top bar pops through, I put a 2-inch strip of trim and wrapped it around; beefed it up. Also there’s a horizontal piece of trim across the length of the front. All overhanging ends were wrapped around and stitched into place. You may notice below a slight difference between the two bags: Blame it on low blood sugar. I never made one of these before and it’s not like I had a roadmap… Yours will turn out better, I’m certain of it!



Backsides. Can you see room for improvement? What if we did the middle strap later in the construction so it was one piece? Notice on one bag I put the horizontal flab above the original seam (left), and on the other I put it below (right). Which looks better? Yeah, lots of ways to improve.



In the next part we will mount the bags to the bike.
Duly so. KF

[Kingfish]

Replies to my pals!

BigMoose: It’s been many years since I have designed plastics parts. However I will dig about and see if some information is available for public consumption. I received my plastics certification back in 1984 when I was designing consumer telephones out of Santa Clara. Short off-beat story: We built a digital speed dialer that was faster than the Government specification; just one phone for the engineering bay. It was the “contest phone”, and we used it to beat other callers for requesting music and not for prizes; that would have been completely unethical.

The actual design guidelines though are thick as a tome. Maybe if you scoped out what you’d like to see. There’s lots of different types of plastic out there, and different methods of manufacturing. I once took a job working in Production at a plastic-injection house in San Jose – midnight shift cos I was going to school in the daytime. It was useful experience because I saw exactly how parts were made first-hand, and how the alloys were blended in the field. However I also discovered a very odd flaw with my physiology, that I could be hypnotized by repetitive movements, such as the opening and closing of the massive hydraulic presses. Not exactly a good thing to suffer from. I had to quit after a month; it was turning me into a Z O M B I E…

Grindz: Thanks friend for the kind compliments; much appreciated!

More to come: We have one last segment to complete, and I will post that tomorrow.
Cheerios, KF

[amberwolf]

LT Cracking: I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the hacking; it’s just a remote control on another protocol.

I never really looked into the pulse train or anything, just did a frequency check on a scope while I had access to the DeVry lab thru a friend still going there (I'd known him when I was attending), and found it around 13Khz IIRC. I just stuck a 4049UB oscillator together there in the lab with an IRLED off a remote control someone had left in the lost and found junkbox, and verified it worked with the regular chest/belt sensor to set it off. Also that if I just kept feeding it the signal, it would keep going off one LED after another, until it reached "yer ded".

I'm kinda surprised that it worked at all, if it was an actual data pulsetrain!

That's what led me to the grenades and landmines idea. Mostly what I wanted was to know how to make more guns, becuase I couldn't afford the Starlytes at that time (not yet on clearance) but the sensors could be had cheaply enough. Once I was armed with the frequency then I could set them off with any IRLED device at the right range. Had no idea how to make it work at greater ranges, as I knew nothing of lenses/etc at the time, beyond basic homemade refractor telescope stuff. (using existing lenses from other things).

Then the rest of the LT stuff started going on clearance at KB/etc, and I began collecting all I could afford, to equip teams of friends so I could play. (no one else wanted to buy it and maintain it, just play, so....). Then the grenades, mines, shotguns, etc started idea germination in my head, and the rest I've babbled about already.


I vaguely recall some similar system but never tried it that I can recall. Only one I did try out was Photon, in their setup/buildings, and I guess it was ok, but it was heavy and unwieldy, and there were too many "sharks" that knew all the little tricks that would play just to win, instead of playing to have fun, and they'd drive away all of us that just wanted to run around illuminating each other. Some of them were mean, and actually pushed people around; most of those were kids but some were grown men and ought to know better. The establishments didn't seem to care, either, since they were regulars they paid more than we did as one-timers...guess the establishments didn't realize that the REASON they had so many one-timers is BECAUSE of these regulars and their attitudes of "owning" the place by dint of being regulars. Woulda been a lot more repeat customers if it werent' for that.


I had one rifle, and that was a white one. I liked the sight a lot compared to the starlyte, although i ended up having to dim down the LED in it (used an external pot for manual, and a switch to go to auto-dimming in darker environments with a CdS sensor) because the glare kept me from seeing ANYTHING at night thru it, when we played in the dark.

Speaking of which, another guy had been playing with NearIR photography, and found that all CCDs are sensitive to it...so he made some little "nightvision" sights that could clamp to the top of any starlyte or the rifle. I think there were about 8 of them, I still have one somewhere around here. The first was made from salvaged B/W 3/4" CRTs from those big old "handycam" type of VHS cameras, and a video feed from a CCD salvaged out of a digital still camera that had a video out cable port (but was otherwise pretty badly damaged). He made some circuit that periodically put the digicam into display mode so that it wouldnt' auto-power off, and he took the IR filter off the CCD. So you could see any starlyte activity anywhere in the area when it was dark. Great for moonlight playing.

Later he made the other 7 or so of them out of those old Mattel (or whoever--playskool? Cant' remember) kid's video cameras--the ones that recordded to cassette tape. Bashed them down to absolute minimum electronics, down into the little long box to clamp to the starlytes. They worked even better than the first version, more sensitive by far. SO much so that they culdn't be used in twilight, or they'd wash out.

Shot-limiting: The LT Rifle had slow continuous mode, or rapid fire which lasted for a short burst and then need a cool-down period; the illuminated reticle would flash when the time expired (glowed red when you couldn’t shoot, and green when you could). The battery-pack limit sounds like a great idea: Was it programmable? Oh, wait - I see; that is a cool implementation!

Odd; the scope of the rifle I had (white plastic) only ever lit up kind of orange-red, but it did seem to have that cool-down period. I got it secondhand so I never had a manual for it, and assumed it was something wierd with it, like just overheating due to age or abuse or something.

The pack I was prototyping basically just used shift registers to program it; I forget exactly what I did (schematics are buried around here someplace, I'm sure). I do recall it just put those shift register outputs into a numeric LED driver chip to drive some dual-digit displays (chip and display salvaged off of old cable converters from what was then Dimension Cable, when they put a hammer thru the top and tossed them out by the truckload; that's where I also got my remote control IR LEDs and bajillions of brand-new Duracell 9V and AA batteries*).


Anyway, the LEDs just showed how many shots you had left. A separate counter programmed by the shift register told the LED drivers what to show, and decremented by every pull of the trigger.

There is some bizarre reason I used the shift register since I can think of several ways to do it right now taht would be simpler, but I cannot remember what it was. MIght simply have been that i already had those parts around, for all I know.

The relays I used came out of discarded office telephone equipment (Executone, another buisness in teh same complex as Dimension, that also smashed and tossed out lots of electronics) and those cable boxes. So did most of the parts used for these things. No PCBs, just deadbug wiring to chips glued to metal support strips mostly cut from the cable box housings.

GI-Joe models were dumbed-down Starlyte Pistols; 9V. Dead-simple electronics; mine still works. Shotgun idea has me snickering. I am glad you still have sight though; there are government rules about IR radiation. Just slightly worried for you friend in a good way.

Who said that? **squints and looks around** Government emmission-limit rules are for sissies.

I dunno...I never had any problems because of it that I am aware of; though I suppose it could cause longterm effects I wouldn't notice. Not like we used them much, or for long. Heck, the IR spotlights I built (again out of buckets of salvaged remote-control LEDs) for NearIR CCD recording and security camera stuff would've been much more dangerous, as they were on all the time, and I'm sure I stared into them for minutes or more at a time while setting them up.

FWIW, a long long time later, I found that CDRW and DVDRW lasers could be used for VERY long range IR transmission, even without anything extra in the way of optics, and would probably have been my next way of improving the LT stuff if I had still had any reason to be doing it. I think that would ahve been pretty dangerous, as people have used some of the lasers out of faster-burning DVDRW drives to set stuff on fire, when it's within inches or less of it. I probably would've actually hurt myself with that stuff.

AW, you have a massive imagination and display great ingenuity: With that bit of inspiration you would have done well in the Company Gunga Din!

Unfortunately most places dont' want that kind of imagination, and the places that do want it don't want someone like me (at least, nowhere I have ever tried to get into over the years--I don't interview well at all; I'm much better in text).

About three weeks before the production run was slated to begin for the LT Pro Rifle - a kid playing LT at night at his school down in Rancho Cucamonga - California is shot and killed by a police offer who thought he was being shot at for real; two rounds from the officer’s shotgun cut the kid in two.

We almost had an incident like that ourselves. Me and my friends were playing after sunset in the orange groves over at Glendale Public Library's park area, and apparently some old lady had called the police saying that there were strange men running around shooting each other with Uzi's (so the cops said to us when taking our info afterward). Fortunately the first one of us they ran across was so frightened of them with their guns drawn and flashlights in his face that he just put up both hands by instinct and froze.

THey could clearly see that there was no gun, just the starlyte, so they just got on their bullhorns and called the rest of us out, to tell us it was time to stop and go home before anyone got hurt for real.

What might've been a few weeks later, Glendale passed their no-gun-shaped-objects-in-public-parks ordinance, which included even supersoakers and stuff. Cant' blame them, as we werent' the first to almost get shot over something like that. Not all that much later the federal guideline/law/whatever about red or orange front ends on toy guns was passed.

BTW, I'd been hiding under a tree just out of a patch of moonlight (full moon) waiting for someone to come by so I could ambush them...good thing it wasnt' ME that they'd come across first, or I might not be talking to you now.

[Kingfish]

Data Pulse Train: That’s how we discriminated between different IR emitters between toys; you wouldn’t want LT controlling your TV and vise-versa

Photon: Yeah – you have it correct; that’s the name of the cheap knock-off.

LT Reticle: Now that I think about it, it was a two-color LED with four states: Red = ON, Green = ON, Red & Green = ON, and all = OFF. The Red & Green provided the third orangy color. They were pretty new technology at the time. Figure that SMT was still in its’ infancy; in 1984 at the phone company I was designing small PCBs where the silicon dies were wiring-bonded directly to the circuit board due to the height constraints – and that was pretty cutting edge high-tech stuff.

Radiation: Yer a very lucky man AW. At progressively higher doses it would feel like eye-strain at first, then itchy eyes, then like sand was thrown in your face, and then face-down in the burning sand with eyes-wide open. The good news is that your eyes, like your mouth and liver, heal and recover at the fastest rates in your body for good reason: Survival depends on them. IR is forgiving; like sunburn. Visible and UV are less so as the wavelength shortens. Too great or too frequent exposure though will lead to scaring and blindness. hint hint

Glendale: Scary. Brings home the point… Who is responsible: Gun manufacturers or the gun users? We can design a great toy, but it you use it maliciously or carelessly are we the developers to blame? I design a hammer, you buy it and kill your wife with it that night; who is at fault? Let’s paint all hammers orange because we obviously can’t save ourselves from deviate hammers. That’s intelligent.

Personally I think it would be more effective and prudent policy to cut out high-quantities of corn syrup and artificial sweeteners from the consumer diet. But that’s me thinking out loud.

LT Starlyte Pro lore:

• The scope at the point where you look in, has a plastic mounting ring molded in so that an extension could be clamped or slipped into place. This allowed adults a better viewing angle. I came up with the idea, drew it all up, although was not put into production – mainly because the company folded before we could ship it.
• The Batteries, I think they are C-cells - are all inserted in the same direction: Curious, I investigated why batteries are always flipped around It’s because it saves $0.01 in cost of assembly. Silly, but that’s the reason. At my urging, we spent the extra $0.01 to have a wire go from one end of the battery compartment to the other.

More? This thread should have branched; we're committed now ~ or should be
Need to blast off soon: One last part and some errata to post.
Have a rockin' day, KF