Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Philosophy of Mods

I've often been asked about why I choose to install laser tag systems into other shells (Nerf, Airsoft, Guncons, etc) so I thought a bit of an explanation as to why I do what I do was in order.

When I started this, it was merely to give a laser tag blaster a different look.  My first project was an old Light Gun for PlayStation that I didn't use anymore.  While I'm sure the Light Gun still worked and the current laser tag blaster that I was using for it worked fine, it was just something I wanted to try out.  I realized afterwards that I could put laser tag blasters that have... odd shapes that are harder to aim (no Iron Sights and curvy designs most of the time) into shells that would be better to be accurate with to improve their performance.

In almost all cases, my recased laser tag blasters have followed this ideology.  I aimed to use broken/non functioning candidates for these projects.  On rare occasion I would purchase a new or working blaster to use for a recasing for laser tag.  Even in the LTX DMR project, the Stampede I use was non-functional (gears were stripped, good parts were donated to a friend's project) and the Phoenix LTX was damaged when I picked it up at a Thrift Store.  I don't want folks to think that I'm tearing up great blasters for the sake of my hobby.  Often times, when I've picked up a used Nerf Blaster that I thought was broken, I've been able to fix it and use later instead of gut it and install laser tag internals into it.

I have started to build blasters that use both laser tag and either Nerf or Airsoft to keep the features of both.  It is not my intention to tear up great blasters for the sake of this hobby, but rather to use the resources I have to turn junk into a great blaster.

2 comments:

  1. While a goober when it comes to mods myself, I've got some friends who're electrical engineers who want to take a crack at some reshells. To cut their teeth I was thinking of handing them some cheap and nasty blasters first (u can always find SOME no-name brand laser gun 2 player pack at most toystores) and was wondering what you thought was the best of the worst to start with? Spynet?

    Also, do u know anywhere I can find LTX internals?

    Pocket | Urbantaggers.com

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  2. Sorbet stuff would be fine to start with. The only tricky part would be dealing with thr tethered cord connecting the sensor and blaster. You can find LTX Boards inside of LTXs most of the time ;)

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