SoftButFirm

INTRO

Hey guys, I'm SoftButFirm. This is my second tutorial and I hope this helps you. I know people have done this before, but I didn't find a lock removal mod on this site. So maybe this can make it into the directory as a lock removal tut. Also, I know this is fairly simple, but all the wiring from certain places might mess some people up, that's why I'm making this.

Enjoy


STEP 1 - GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER
What you need:
1. Screwdriver
2. Something to cut wire
3. Soldering iron and solder
4. Wire strippers or a sharp knife (Not pictured)





STEP 2 - OPEN THE BLASTER
Your gun should pretty much look like mine. I have mechanical locks removed, but I'm not showing how to do that because it is easy to do yourself. If something won't move, find what is blocking it and get rid of it... Simple.





STEP 3 - REMOVE TRIGGER AND DART PUSHER
Take out the screws that hold these pieces in place and take the sping off the back peg. Then take these pieces out and set them to the side.





STEP 4 - REMOVING THE CLIP LOCK
There should be an orange plate covering this button, along with a mechanical lock that prevents the trigger being pulled if there is no clip in the blaster. Get rid of it all. On to the button - There should be two wires going to it, a blue one and an orange one. Cut them both at the button and you should have just the button left.






STEP 5 - REMOVING THE VOLTAGE RESISTOR (THERMISTOR?)
There is this little circuit board with a yellow resistor and two wires, green and black. Cut the black wire and the green wire from the board. Then cut the resistor from the battery terminal. You should now have the circuit board with only the resistor on it.







STEP 6 - REMOVING THE JAM DOOR LOCK
This button has three wires going to it - Orange, red, and green. Cut them all from the button. You should now have a free orange wire, a free green wire, and a button. Put them to the side. Save the wire, you might need it later.





STEP 7 - FREEING UP THE RED WIRE
To get to the red wire easier, you can unscrew this orange piece. It just covers the wires coming from the motors. Removing the orange plate allows you to move the wires and work with them easier.






STEP 8 - STEP BACK A MINUTE
Ok, let's take a quick break and see what we've got. We should have a blue, red, and black wire not connected to anything. The blue wire coming from the motor button, and the red and black wires coming from the motors.





STEP 9 - STEP BACK A MINUTE PART 2
You should have the following free pieces: A green wire, a orange wire, two buttons, and the circuit board with the voltage resistor on it.





STEP 10 - TIME TO CONNECT THE WIRES
Take the black wire and solder is to the negative (Top) battery terminal.





STEP 11 - TIME TO CONNECT THE WIRES PART 2
Now we need to complete the circuit by connecting the red wire from the motors to the blue wire from the motor button. You can see if they are long enough to solder right together, but I had to put the green wire between them to make it long enough to fit around some internals. This is why I said to save the wire you cut out.






STEP 12 - MAKING STUFF FIT
Take the newly connnected wires and route them above the battery compartment. This is why you might need to add some wire - Just soldering the blue to the red may not be long enough to go around here.





STEP 13 - PUT STUFF BACK
Replace the trigger and then the dart pusher. Put the spring back over the peg in the back.





AND YOU'RE DONE!!!
There you go. The final product should look like the above image in step 13. Remember, I took out some mechanical locks too (One in the magwell by the button we took out, one above the motor button, and one in front of the dart pusher), so mine may look just a little different in those ways. Any questions, comments, or feedback is welcome. This is my second tutorial, so I hope everything is good.

Happy modding,
SoftButFirm

Hey guys, I'm SoftButFirm (Literally...). I've been into Nerf for a while but just now decided to join the forum. I wanted my first post to be something useful, so I decided to make a tutorial for changing out the LED on the new Firestrike. It's pretty simple (Actually really simple), but I hope someone will get some use of it. Anyway, without further adieu, here it is.

What you need:
1. A Firestrike
2. Small diameter wire (Not sure how big, mine was salvaged)
3. Soldering iron
4. A white LED (Not sure about kind/size. Once again, mine was salvaged)
5. Screwdriver
6. Knife/something to scrape off old solder with (Optional, but useful)
7. Hot glue gun (Optional, but useful)




Step 1
Get your blaster.





Step 2
Open that muhfuhkah up!





Step 3
Take out mostly everything beside the black thing.





Step 4
Pull out the black thing. Notice the clips on the back. Push them together and pull the black thing off the circuit board.





Step 5
You will see the small red LED. Get rid of it. I used a soldering iron to heat the solder around the LED pegs so I could remove it.





Step 6
Once your red LED is off, you should just have this circuit board. Notice the circle where the LED was. It has the + and - holes labeled. These labels will come in handy later.





Step 7
Now on to making your white LED. Take your wire and cut off a few inches (Remember, you can always make it shorter). Solder it to the LED. I used white for positive and green for negative (I later switch to red for positive and black for negative).





Step 8
Add some space-filling material around the base of the LED. I just used cardboard and some duct tape.





Step 9
Pry the lens off of the black piece with a small screwdriver.





Step 10
Place the LED in the black piece. Your space-filling material sould keep the LED centered and should keep it from going up or down. To further secure it, add some hot glue to attach the cardboard to the black thing.





Step 11
Thread the wires out the back like so. Like I said, I switched from white and green to red and black (Red = positive, black = negative).





Step 12
Solder your wires to the circuit board. This should be pretty easy, seeing as the holes are labeled.





Step 13
Put the pegs on the black thing back into the holes on the circuit board so it latches back into place.





Step 14
Put the finished assembly back into your gun.





Step 15
Put the plunger and anything else back in.





Step 16
Close up your gun and screw it back together.





And you're done! Pretty simple, right? Just some basic soldering really. I've included some pictures of the final thing at the end. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.




Also, if folowing this was too hard for some reason, I made a video. It's made with the same pictures, it just has my voice over them to help a little more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWCtGrW4DLI