crimson
Hunter
Any development on this ?
RS Zip Zap Mini RC RF Servo Tutorial
- Thread starter TD2253
- Start date
Any development on this ?
Counterweight
Hunter
I tried to follow this post exactly, with the exception that I used a 9g micro servo instead of the low profile. It seemed to work until the receiver board started smoking near the solder joints of the wires that go to the servo.
Should I go with the hitec servo to avoid this?
Should I go with the hitec servo to avoid this?
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AHcostuming
New Hunter
Grateful to the original poster of this thread, but after attempting it recenty with no luck, figured I would share my experience. Since the Zip Zap is no longer made, I purchased the Mini RC they currently sell that is packed as though it is in soda can. The boards were different than the tutorial, but we felt confident we could figure it out. We meaning myself and Hubby. We are constantly messing with our costumes electronics... his being ANH Vader and mine SE Boba. I should also add he is a licensed electrician by day... lol.
So the newer version did not translate and I went to eBay to seek out an original Zip Zap. When it arrived, we thought we'd play with it before demolishing it... this kid in us right!?! Yeah no joy. First thought was with its age the built-in rechargeable car battery was toast, and proceeded to deconstruct and assemble following the thread instructions... again no joy! Was it so old that even the solid state was toast?
Today Hubby comes home with an RC he picked up at Wal-Mart for $9.95... what the heck, let's throw MORE money at Boba. Long story short, the boards are slightly bigger, but it works!!! So here is how we did it.
Here is the car we purchased. Yeah it was out of the box before I realized this was something everyone could benefit from.
Here are the two components before removing them. The remote board is held in by a screw and two solder points. The remote was held by two screws and two solder points.
Here are the two boards with their respective power wires connected, and the servo leads. The board on the bottom left is the remote board which will go in your gauntlet, and the one still in the cradle goes in your helmet. Prior to disconnecting the car and attaching the servo, we turned everything on and made sure the car wheels were getting a signal from the control board. Then we used a JST connector (red rectangle) on the helmet board which will be connected to the servo. This will allow an easy swap out in the event the servo goes bad at a later date. I would say you can pick one up at your local Radio Shack but 'ehh, not anymore for some of us.
This shows the helmet board with the servo connected. (There are steps inside the servo that need to be done that are earlier in this tutorial thread). You can see we are powering this board using 4-AAA's. It is ultimately my goal to find a rechargable system, but this will work for now.
In order to decrease the thickness of the board for the helmet, we needed to remove the elevated on/off switch as shown here.
Take a pair of tin snip and cut the assembly so that you have tabs to pull with a pair of pliers. You will heat the attachment points on the board and pull the remaining posts out. At this point, you will need to bridge the three solder points together to permanently bridge the circuit.
Next we removed the fwd and back pushbuttons from the control board to connect the switches from my gauntlet. Some folks I've seen use the momentary buttons on the right gauntlet, but since I am right handed and the left side has a bit more room, I opted for a left gaunt mount instead. The switches did not want to bond to the solder, so we removed them... very carefully. You don't want to melt the board. The switches are surface-mounted, so you'll want to add solder to the board before attempting to attach the wires. We checked our solder points one switch first before doing the second. Here is the completed control board. After this photo was taken, I went back and hot glued all my wire connection points. This board is powered with 2-AAA's.
This completes the car board mods. You'll need to go back and add the mods for the servo which are given in the beginning thread, as well as the specifics on the servo itself. Then we will be doing a similar method to mount this rig in the helmet. I may show that as well. It's certainly not pretty, with a nice case for all the boards, but if you are on a budget and handy with soldering, you can do this project for less than $100.00
So the newer version did not translate and I went to eBay to seek out an original Zip Zap. When it arrived, we thought we'd play with it before demolishing it... this kid in us right!?! Yeah no joy. First thought was with its age the built-in rechargeable car battery was toast, and proceeded to deconstruct and assemble following the thread instructions... again no joy! Was it so old that even the solid state was toast?
Today Hubby comes home with an RC he picked up at Wal-Mart for $9.95... what the heck, let's throw MORE money at Boba. Long story short, the boards are slightly bigger, but it works!!! So here is how we did it.
Here is the car we purchased. Yeah it was out of the box before I realized this was something everyone could benefit from.
Here are the two components before removing them. The remote board is held in by a screw and two solder points. The remote was held by two screws and two solder points.
Here are the two boards with their respective power wires connected, and the servo leads. The board on the bottom left is the remote board which will go in your gauntlet, and the one still in the cradle goes in your helmet. Prior to disconnecting the car and attaching the servo, we turned everything on and made sure the car wheels were getting a signal from the control board. Then we used a JST connector (red rectangle) on the helmet board which will be connected to the servo. This will allow an easy swap out in the event the servo goes bad at a later date. I would say you can pick one up at your local Radio Shack but 'ehh, not anymore for some of us.
This shows the helmet board with the servo connected. (There are steps inside the servo that need to be done that are earlier in this tutorial thread). You can see we are powering this board using 4-AAA's. It is ultimately my goal to find a rechargable system, but this will work for now.
In order to decrease the thickness of the board for the helmet, we needed to remove the elevated on/off switch as shown here.
Take a pair of tin snip and cut the assembly so that you have tabs to pull with a pair of pliers. You will heat the attachment points on the board and pull the remaining posts out. At this point, you will need to bridge the three solder points together to permanently bridge the circuit.
Next we removed the fwd and back pushbuttons from the control board to connect the switches from my gauntlet. Some folks I've seen use the momentary buttons on the right gauntlet, but since I am right handed and the left side has a bit more room, I opted for a left gaunt mount instead. The switches did not want to bond to the solder, so we removed them... very carefully. You don't want to melt the board. The switches are surface-mounted, so you'll want to add solder to the board before attempting to attach the wires. We checked our solder points one switch first before doing the second. Here is the completed control board. After this photo was taken, I went back and hot glued all my wire connection points. This board is powered with 2-AAA's.
This completes the car board mods. You'll need to go back and add the mods for the servo which are given in the beginning thread, as well as the specifics on the servo itself. Then we will be doing a similar method to mount this rig in the helmet. I may show that as well. It's certainly not pretty, with a nice case for all the boards, but if you are on a budget and handy with soldering, you can do this project for less than $100.00
Last edited by a moderator:
sproigo
New Hunter
THAT is all great to know, I'm in the process of attempting the rc servo mod and illuminating LED's atop the RF stock... so I'm glad to know the walmart suckers work just as well!Grateful to the original poster of this thread, but after attempting it recenty with no luck, figured I would share my experience. Since the Zip Zap is no longer made, I purchased the Mini RC they currently sell that is packed as though it is in soda can. The boards were different than the tutorial, but we felt confident we could figure it out. We meaning myself and Hubby. We are constantly messing with our costumes electronics... his being ANH Vader and mine SE Boba. I should also add he is a licensed electrician by day... lol.
So the newer version did not translate and I went to eBay to seek out an original Zip Zap. When it arrived, we thought we'd play with it before demolishing it... this kid in us right!?! Yeah no joy. First thought was with its age the built-in rechargeable car battery was toast, and proceeded to deconstruct and assemble following the thread instructions... again no joy! Was it so old that even the solid state was toast?
Today Hubby comes home with an RC he picked up at Wal-Mart for $9.95... what the heck, let's throw MORE money at Boba. Long story short, the boards are slightly bigger, but it works!!! So here is how we did it.
Here is the car we purchased. Yeah it was out of the box before I realized this was something everyone could benefit from.
Here are the two components before removing them. The remote board is held in by a screw and two solder points. The remote was held by two screws and two solder points.
View attachment 107204
Here are the two boards with their respective power wires connected, and the servo leads. The board on the bottom left is the remote board which will go in your gauntlet, and the one still in the cradle goes in your helmet. Prior to disconnecting the car and attaching the servo, we turned everything on and made sure the car wheels were getting a signal from the control board. Then we used a JST connector (red rectangle) on the helmet board which will be connected to the servo. This will allow an easy swap out in the event the servo goes bad at a later date. I would say you can pick one up at your local Radio Shack but 'ehh, not anymore for some of us.
This shows the helmet board with the servo connected. (There are steps inside the servo that need to be done that are earlier in this tutorial thread). You can see we are powering this board using 4-AAA's. It is ultimately my goal to find a rechargable system, but this will work for now.
In order to decrease the thickness of the board for the helmet, we needed to remove the elevated on/off switch as shown here.
Take a pair of tin snip and cut the assembly so that you have tabs to pull with a pair of pliers. You will heat the attachment points on the board and pull the remaining posts out. At this point, you will need to bridge the three solder points together to permanently bridge the circuit.
Next we removed the fwd and back pushbuttons from the control board to connect the switches from my gauntlet. Some folks I've seen use the momentary buttons on the right gauntlet, but since I am right handed and the left side has a bit more room, I opted for a left gaunt mount instead. The switches did not want to bond to the solder, so we removed them... very carefully. You don't want to melt the board. The switches are surface-mounted, so you'll want to add solder to the board before attempting to attach the wires. We checked our solder points one switch first before doing the second. Here is the completed control board. After this photo was taken, I went back and hot glued all my wire connection points. This board is powered with 2-AAA's.
This completes the car board mods. You'll need to go back and add the mods for the servo which are given in the beginning thread, as well as the specifics on the servo itself. Then we will be doing a similar method to mount this rig in the helmet. I may show that as well. It's certainly not pretty, with a nice case for all the boards, but if you are on a budget and handy with soldering, you can do this project for less than $100.00
Thanks!
Last edited by a moderator:
AHcostuming
New Hunter
Yep!! I have trooped it three times now, and we initially decided to power the helmet board with only 3-AAA's. The first troop found the batteries drained very quickly, so we bumped it back to 4 and it works great.
hamsandwich72
Hunter
Awesome thread/idea.
Like others before me, my ZipZap had slightly different colors on the wiring for the receiver portion. I used the blue and yellow wires to connect to the servo and everything worked fine.
Like others before me, my ZipZap had slightly different colors on the wiring for the receiver portion. I used the blue and yellow wires to connect to the servo and everything worked fine.
Lynn TXP 0369
Well-Known Hunter
I'm going a different route and I'm surprised no has thought of it. I'm going to use this same radio that I use for my all of my RC cars. Tower Hobbies 224 2-Channel System
If it works like I think it will, just add a battery pack to power the receiver, plug in servo to receiver and the helmet is done.
Field strip radio of electronics and install said electronics in gauntlet or blaster and figure out how to have a on off switch mounted to the steering switch on the radio circuit. I see no reason why this won't work. The only mod needed is to how you make an up down switch for the steering circuit.
I guess you could add a knob in place of the steering wheel and incorporate that some how into the gauntlet someplace. I just gotta charge up a spare receiver battery pack and see if the servo will power off of it, if it does, I'm golden. $44 for my RC gear not including a $24 servo.
Lynn
If it works like I think it will, just add a battery pack to power the receiver, plug in servo to receiver and the helmet is done.
Field strip radio of electronics and install said electronics in gauntlet or blaster and figure out how to have a on off switch mounted to the steering switch on the radio circuit. I see no reason why this won't work. The only mod needed is to how you make an up down switch for the steering circuit.
I guess you could add a knob in place of the steering wheel and incorporate that some how into the gauntlet someplace. I just gotta charge up a spare receiver battery pack and see if the servo will power off of it, if it does, I'm golden. $44 for my RC gear not including a $24 servo.
Lynn
Lynn TXP 0369
Well-Known Hunter
I did a test pad of what I said I would do above and it worked PERFECT!! No more gutting up and modding a mini RC Car, you just gotta mod up the Transmitter switch on a real RC transmitter. I'll post another thread of the test pad I did.
https://i.imgur.com/C1O0UcQ.mp4
Real RC car RF servo movment system.
Lynn
https://i.imgur.com/C1O0UcQ.mp4
Real RC car RF servo movment system.
Lynn
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hvacdon
Active Hunter
Lynn, pasted below is what I plan on using. The buttons or momentary contact. So, you can use one channel for the down of the RF and the other for the up position. I know we're not supposed to post links to ebay, so here's the description and pic of what it looks like below. This should be an easy modification to connect to the contacts in the remote and hard wire to switches in the gauntlet. You will need a battery pack for your relays on the board and the stalk actuator.
Don
Details about 12V 10A 2 Channel Remote Control Switch Relay Wireless Transmitter+Receiver
Don
Details about 12V 10A 2 Channel Remote Control Switch Relay Wireless Transmitter+Receiver
Raignen
New Hunter
Hi there! New member with a (mostly) scratch built ESB suit here... has anyone got tips on a modern solution to this RF Servo problem? Does anyone know of anyone who supplies ready-to-use parts to give this functionality to a helmet?
I'll continue combing this thread as well and seeing if the parts mentioned are still available anywhere. I also have zero electrical wiring/soldering experience, but I feel like this would be a good project to learn with!
I'll continue combing this thread as well and seeing if the parts mentioned are still available anywhere. I also have zero electrical wiring/soldering experience, but I feel like this would be a good project to learn with!
sandtrooper8867
Hunter
GreY2231
New Hunter
And for my first trick (Post) I will wake the dead. Lol, sorry for the Zombie post. I am looking to do something like this for my newest helmet, the Black Series Boba Fett Re-Armored Helmet. I really like the ingenuity I have seen in this forum especially being nearly 14 years ago. I also really like the kits I have seen but in light of the OP I will be making something anyone can make with parts found on "X" site of your choosing. A little bit of Home DIY for the guys and gals that aren't everyday prop makers. And keeping true to the OP's design I will try to keep everyone posted and make a pretty thorough tutorial for as little cash as possible.
If anyone has already managed to fit something like this in a Black Series helmet, I would love to hear about it.
So my lovely Mandos and Mandettes. I will see you all later.
If anyone has already managed to fit something like this in a Black Series helmet, I would love to hear about it.
So my lovely Mandos and Mandettes. I will see you all later.
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