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[Yodamann]

One more small update:



I printed out a greeblie for the stock... thoughts? I still have a bunch of post-processing to do on it, so I thought I'd get some reactions before committing

[Hellwolve]

Looks like a fine greeblie to me :-)

[Yodamann]

New Year, New Progress

I got a rough breadboard circuit done for the guts of the carbine.


I used an Adafruit soundboard with built-in amplifier, since space in my false magazine will be at a premium.  I also had to do some fiddling about to get the LED to light up for a reasonable amount of time. My problem was that the activation trigger was very short, so if I used that to connect the circuit and light the LED, I'd get a very short LED burst. I then realized that my sound board put out two channels. I thought to myself: "Self, you've got two channels, but only one speaker. Suppose you connected the LED to the speaker output and had the left channel play a high frequency sin wave?"

So I went into Audacity and did just that. I somewhat arbitrarily chose 120 HZ, piped that to the left channel, and piped  a DL-44 sound I found online to the right, and I got something that looked an awful lot like this:


I ran into a bit of trouble when I had the blaster sound as a stereo track; the LED was following that waveform instead of the pretty sin wave, even though I had the fade cranked as far as it could go. But getting it down to mono fixed that.

I also have more or less finalized the design of the false magazine:





It fits nicely in the magazine slot in the gun, and also is releasable with the release mechanism from the gun, which is nice. The dividing wall inside it to keep the battery pack and PCB somewhat secure when the gun is jostled about. The slot at the top is to hold the button that acts as the trigger: When the trigger is pulled, the firing mechanism of the airsoft will still make the firing pin shoot out, even though the rest of the shooty parts have been removed, and that pin will press the button, which should pull pin 0 on the board to ground, which starts plays my special sound file, lighting the LED and making a pew pew sound.

Next steps are to verify that my clever triggering system works, solder everything together, install it in the false magazine, and hopefully not have 3 months between posts.

[Hellwolve]

My hat's off to you Hope it'll work!

[Yodamann]

More progress!



I got everything soldered together, and even better, it all fit!



With the mechanism back in, the button gets pressed, but it's a bit finicky, so I'm printing another false magazine to move the button a bit.





I also picked up a scope off Kijiji, and 3D printed a mount for it. I plan on super gluing the screws to the main body of the rifle. I did a test super gluing two screws together, and that seemed pretty solid.

That's all for now!

[Novoc Mereel]

Carbine looks awesome so far!!!

[KaylinSilverfurr]

Following to keep up with this progress Ben. Keep going! You're almost there!

~Shauna
(Kaylin)

[Echo Darklighter]

Another DL-44 carbine mod! I always love these; spent a few weeks throwing one together myself, to great effect. You look like you’re on the right track. Keep it up!

[Yodamann]

Another DL-44 carbine mod! I always love these; spent a few weeks throwing one together myself, to great effect. You look like you’re on the right track. Keep it up!

Would you happen to have any pictures of it? I could use some inspiration w/r/t greeblies

[Yodamann]

back from the dead, it's this thread!



After a lot of iteration on the magazine, I think I've got the design ready to go. Mechanically, at least. I replaced the push button with a limit switch, and the trigger mechanism is able to push in the limit switch, but alas, it seems it's too quick to register on the sound board. So that's a problem I'll have to solve.



I got some weathering on the flash hider


I got a coat of filler primer on the scope mount, and a stock greeblie.


And I got the black paint on the eyepiece on the scope.

[Yodamann]

I got the Pulse extender installed in the magazine, and it worked!

[Yodamann]

Quick question: I'm going to be painting the carbine black, and I was wondering how best to go about that. What sort of prep to do  on the parts, post paint weathering, and so on.

It's a metal airsoft, and I was planning on using a rattle can. Any tips?

[Hellwolve]

I'd say degrease with, say, acetone, sand, acetone again, prime with a primer specifically for metal. I learned the hard way with my knight's helmet that without proper prep, the paint comes right off again otherwise

[Yodamann]

I wound up just sanding it down lightly and painting it black. It seemed to work well on my test piece, so let's hope that it works well on the full blaster.


Most of the pieces all sanded


the barrel after its paint. I originally planned for it to be painted vertically, but physics had other plans, so I improvised.


a test fit of some greebling. I've since decied to add a few more small bits. the other side will have the scope.

Would it be better to attach the screws for the scope mount before or after painting the main body?

[Yodamann]

I can see the finish line! It's all coming together



The greeblies on the scope side of the blaster. The taped part are the screws used to mount the scope. They'll need to be cut down to size once the paint has cured. The small greeblies at the back of the blaster are Megablocks pieces I got in a bag of (mostly) Lego I picked up at a garage sale.


The right side of the blaster. I've got the ESB piston and another Megablocks piece as greeblies on this side.


These are thumb nuts that I cut down a bit. These'll keep the scope mount in place.

Next steps are cutting down the mounting screws, and doing the main assembly. I'm thinking the stock greeblies can be screwed into place, so I guess I'll need to pick up some screws for that. Is there any restriction on allowable screw-heads?

[Yodamann]

Back once again with an update, I think it's coming together real nice.





I got everything painted and assembled. I wound up having to make a new scope mount, because I messed up placing the mounting screws.

I guess all that I have left is to attach the stock greeblies.