I bought two of these last year off of ebay. A few of the people at HCNO got to see one of them (Muffin) in action for a few minutes while we waited for everyone else to show up. The other one (Boopsie) was sitting at home. The turret fires at an angle and launches darts about 20-25 feet, but while Muffin was doing just that, Boopsie wasn't working really at all. The darts would fly about 3 feet. I fianlly got the chance to call Tyco this week to get it repaired. All they want me to do is send back the transmitter, the top plate of the bug, and the coiled red wire antenna under the top plate back, and they will send me a new bug. This gives me the opportunity to finally rip one of these apart to see what it is like on the inside. Click on a picture if you want to see it larger.
This is Boopsie before I tore her apart.
This is what she look like once the top plate is removed. The plate include the wings tha hide the turret.
This is a full view of the receiver circuit board.
This is the main wiring cluster for the bug. There is one motor for each set of three legs. At this point, I don't really know what wire leads to where, so I have left them uncut. There is a quick disconnect that allows you to detach the underside shell from the body and the turret from the body. Otherwise, it is all soldered on.
This is the underside shell. The motor above is for the pincers. It is a very weak motor as the pincers can't really grab anything.
Now for the part that most of you are more curious about, the turret assembly!
This is it removed from the bug's topside.
Now for a front picture of the turret assembled. The air restrictors in this thing are pretty harsh considering the darts don't go that far, but the plunger is loud when you fire it.
This is the air restrictor assembly. It was pretty easy to remove, just three screws, but you then have to cut off the posts themselves as the rest of the assembly is still needed to hold the rotation assembly in place.
Turret Rotation Assembly
This was the tricky part. The spring that is attached to the plunger tube wanted to launch itself across the house, so I had to hold it in place. There is only a tiny peg barley holding the spring in the frame. The plunger has about a 1" back motion before friing.
That is about it. If there is anything else people want to see, just post it here and I'll see what I can do. I should be getting my replacement bug in about a month, so this will humor me until then.