13 replies to this topic

[Gym]

Nintendo Zapper Integration

This write-up will detail how to integrate the Nerf Secret Strike AS-1 into a Nintendo Zapper. This modification is not intended to maintain complete functionality of the Zapper.

The credit due:
The only other Nintendo Zapper topics I have found are one by Lion here, and another by Jangadance here and here. There is rumor that OMC made one to shoot darts, but I did not find anything beyond the rumor. The blaster created by Lion, while incredibly innovative, is not based on an authentic Nintendo Zapper or readily available blaster, "only gets about 5 feet," and although I will not post ranges mine gets significantly more than that. Additionally, Lion mentions that his Zapper is cocked by pulling the cord on the bottom (which makes it pretty cool looking), while mine functions differently as you will see.

You will need:
Nintendo Zapper (I’m not sure if newer imitation models are constructed the same way)
Secret Strike AS-1
1/4” Vinyl Tubing – 12” should be enough
17/32” Brass Tubing – 3 3/16” or 3 1/8” in length
Electrical Tape
Welder Glue or Plumber’s Goop (they seem to be nearly identical in application):
Dremel. I used the disk cutter primarily.
X-Acto saw (optional)
Thin plastic sheeting. I used white styrene, but polycarbonate should work too (less than 1/16” thickness) – 6”x6” should be enough.
Light gray spray paint
Drill and bits
Hot glue gun and glue

Phase 1: Open and clean out the Nintendo Zapper

Here is the Zapper:


Remove everything inside except the trigger and this is what you will have left:


Using a Dremel or similar tool, cut away all of the internal plastic parts except the parts shown in blue. Be careful how deep you cut away the plastic as the handle is particularly thin plastic. I would also discourage using pliers to twist off the pegs, since this can crack the case; just use the Dremel:



Phase 2: Trim down the gray pieces.

You should do this by placing each gray shell in its corresponding orange shell and marking a line on the gray pegs as close to the inside of the orange shell as possible. Now simply cut the gray pegs at the line so that the remaining nubs are flush with the inside of the orange shell:


Now get your sheet of plastic and draw 6 circles of about 3/8” diameter on it. I recommend using a stencil as is seen in the picture:


Cut the circles out and paint them:


Welder glue the circles to the nubs as shown:


Phase 3: Modify Zapper Trigger

If you remove the plate you will see that the trigger looks like this:


Trim the trigger above the blue line and remove the screw mount indicated by the arrow:


See this picture for a better idea of how far to cut:


While you have the trigger assembly open, You need to create a wedge that will activate the trigger more effectively. I cut one wedge from the thin sheet plastic and used it as a template for several others:




I glued them together with Welder glue, let set over night, and trimmed to fit with X-acto knives and my Dremel. The number of sheets to be glued together will vary based on the thickness of the sheet you use, but make sure the final product is about the width of the existing white trigger piece. Place the wedge in the trigger as in the picture. There is no need to glue it in place:

Edited by Gym, 09 June 2009 - 11:10 AM.

[Gym]

Phase 4: Secret Strike Modification

Open up the secret strike, remove the gray trigger button, and cut it in two places. The first cut should sever the pump and tank connection completely. Try to leave more of a nub on the pump side than the tank side (see picture for reference). Remove the little plastic piece that restricts airflow from both sides. I don’t have a picture of this, but you’ll notice it pretty easily. Also trim your barrel down and remove the post assembly inside of it. Leave about 1/2” of barrel:




Now you will want to drill a new hole for the vinyl tubing you are about to install. Mark the center of the point you want to drill. You should drill a smaller pilot hole first and work your way up to a size that fits your vinyl tubing snugly (I ended up with a 7/32” bit). If it’s not tight enough the tubing and glue will not hold. Also, if it’s not abundantly obvious, you will not want to drill very deep to avoid damaging the internals:



Now cut about 5” of vinyl tubing and insert one end into the new hole in the tank section and use Welder glue to secure it. You may also want to plug the original hole to the tank section with Welder glue at this time, or you can wait. Keep in mind you will need a good 24-48 hours for the glue to hold sufficiently:


You will now need to trim the Secret Strike’s trigger post. Cut to the right of the blue line, removing the spherical piece and the flat piece so that if you were to look at it directly you would see a plus sign:



Phase 5: Putting it all together

Take the gray shell that corresponds to the orange shell that the internals have been attached to and glue it in place with the welder glue. Don’t do this to the other side because there is a screw hole that will be covered up if you do.

Now get your glue gun ready. Screw the trigger assembly into the zapper and grab your tank section. Make sure the glued areas have dried fully before starting this step. You will insert the tank’s trigger nub into the top of the zapper’s trigger assembly at this time, but it will take some experimenting to figure out where to put the tank specifically. I was able to attach the pump section to the other end of the vinyl tubing without glue and pump up to two times before it would pop off, allowing me to test for the best positioning, but you can blow into it too. Once you’ve figured out what position works, hot glue the tank in place, taking care not to cover up the plate that screws over the trigger assembly:



After the glue has cooled down completely, wrap the vinyl tubing behind the trigger assembly and attach it to the pump (not with glue yet) to figure out if you need to trim it and how you need to position the pump in the grip.

Using the Dremel trim a circular section out of the bottom of the grip that the pump can fit through. This was tricky because of how the halves of the zapper close, so don’t be disappointed if you have to cut the hole wider. For reference the diameter of the pump is 9/16”:


Apply Welder glue to the vinyl tubing and pump nub and connect them (allow for dry time): (pump to tank—glued together)


While this is drying you should work on the barrel assembly. Cut 17/32” brass tubing to about 3 3/16” or 3 1/8”.

Cut a new section of vinyl tubing to 5” or 5 1/8” and wrap both ends with Electrical tape. One side needs to fit the remaining barrel of the Secret Strike and the other needs to fit the brass tubing. You may need to trim down the width of your Electrical tape on the connection with the tank because of the screw post that is somewhat in the way:


Wrap electrical tape around parts of the brass tubing to fit it snugly inside the zapper. I used three bands of tape. The one on at the opening of the barrel was wrapped 12 times, the other two were 14 times for reference (although I had to trim the large two bands to fit the other half of the shell on). There are two ridges on the inside of the zapper’s barrel that I tried to use to secure the brass tubing. If you do this be sure to trim the excess electrical tape:

Edited by Gym, 08 June 2009 - 05:49 PM.

[Gym]

Use Welder glue to secure both ends of the vinyl tubing wrapped in electrical tape to their corresponding barrels. Use your glue gun to hold the brass barrel in place:


When the pump and vinyl tubing connection has dried fully (after 24-48 hours) put the pump in place in the grip and hot glue it in place. You may also want to add hot glue to other parts, like the barrel assembly, and to reinforce tubing connections with the pump and tank. If you had to widen the hole in the bottom of the grip too much you should take this opportunity to fill it in:



Screw the Zapper back together and glue the other gray shell in place. You will probably have a hard time opening the gun up again, so make sure it all works before you do this. It may be good to glue the gray shell on prior to this step if you want it to be easier to open. You will sacrifice a screw hole, but it’s your call. I forgot about the screw hole and glued the gray shell in place at the same time as the other one, so I when I put it back together I just glued the shell together in that spot and tightly wrapped electrical tape around the gun to hold it together while it dried.

You now have a Nintendo Zapper that functions as a Nerf Blaster, while retaining that classic trigger sound and with minimal cosmetic alterations:

[hummer]

You, my good sir, are a genius.

[TantumBull]

Wow, that's really cool. Nice trigger set-up.

[fallinouttadabox]

Now to find me a broken Zapper...

[Blue]

Someone else did a zapper mod awhile back, but this is very nice. Your pictures are tiny though.

[aishihigeo]

Thats frickin awesome. Now you dont need to make your own sound effects.

[Carbon]

Blue, on Jun 8 2009, 06:06 PM, said:

Your pictures are tiny though.

Click to embiggen.

[ilzot]

I got the wrong picture about this.

I always thought the Nintendo Zapper was this;



But after looking around, now I understand

Nice job! Looks classic.

[Gym]

Blue, on Jun 8 2009, 07:06 PM, said:

Someone else did a zapper mod awhile back, but this is very nice. Your pictures are tiny though.

Yes, in the "credit due" section I addressed the ones that popped up in a search.

Thanks to you and others for the compliments.

[Ambience 327]

ilzot, on Jun 8 2009, 07:42 PM, said:

I got the wrong picture about this.

I always thought the Nintendo Zapper was this;

[image removed]

But after looking around, now I understand

Nice job! Looks classic.

That's because the real Nintendo Zapper came out nearly a decade before you were born.



Mad props to you on this one Gym. I love how little the externals have changed, and how the colors of the SSPB pump match up so well with the rest of the Zapper. I would be honored to be eliminated by this blaster!

[Blue]

Gym, on Jun 8 2009, 05:27 PM, said:

Blue, on Jun 8 2009, 07:06 PM, said:

Someone else did a zapper mod awhile back, but this is very nice. Your pictures are tiny though.

Yes, in the "credit due" section I addressed the ones that popped up in a search.

Thanks to you and others for the compliments.

You got the wrong link for lion, but I looked at his writeup. Is the other mod seriously duct taping a lnl slider to it?
Yours is much nicer, and it is much clearer to understand with all the pictures. I'd imagine yours is much more durable, since you used Nerf quality.

[Gym]

Blue, on Jun 9 2009, 11:42 AM, said:

You got the wrong link for lion, but I looked at his writeup. Is the other mod seriously duct taping a lnl slider to it?
Yours is much nicer, and it is much clearer to understand with all the pictures. I'd imagine yours is much more durable, since you used Nerf quality.

I originally searched "nintendo zapper" in the modification forum and came up with two hits. One leads to a series of mods by Lion and the other to the LNL/Nintendo Zapper. Those are the ones that I linked.

I just searched for "Zapper" and saw Lion's mod and will edit my original post to accommodate it. It's pretty cool, especially with the priming method. I debated over using an authentic Nintendo Zapper or an imitation one and went with the original. I think it may be possible to do Lion's mod with an Eliminator integrated instead of the mini-tech target knockoff, but I'm not sure. There just isn't enough room in these zappers to integrate very many blasters.