Calculatior Mod Version 3.0

[Aero]

Ok well, a few months ago my trusty TI-83 plus Silver Edition that I had for 5 years finally died on me, leaving me with a glowing blue paper weight from my last Calc mod Blue Calculator Of Death (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1178).

So to replace my trusty ol' calc I went out and bought me a new TI-84 Plus Silver Edition.

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/5164/staringfront3sr.jpg

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2918/startingback9ax.jpg

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/1644/startingtop3fy.jpg

Now ever since I bought it I have wanted to mod it because queit frankly, it looks pretty boring. After having thought up nearly every possible mod from LED's to completly custom cases, I decided to go with the following.

I got this idea from an old tutorial I saw over at www.mnpctech.com on using an RC car wheel as a fan grill. SO after a quick run to Venture Hobbies (my local hobbie shop), I ended up with these:

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/5222/wheels3sx.jpg

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/8089/wheelsdremel8fh.jpg


They are 6.4 cm in diameter or about 2.5 inches, just small enough to fit on the back of the calculator. They may need another layer of chrome paint because the factory stuff isn't that clear or even, but deffinatly a good starting point.

As usual, any comments, suggestions, critiques are welcome. Also sorry if the pictures are alittle blury, my dad took our good camera to work today so I'm using our old one :p .

[Rankenphile]

Do you have an over-all plan for this? I'd love to see a plan schematic.

Looking forward to this, you always do good work.

As a side note, you could make a great tricorder out of that thing, lol.

[qoou]

sweet now i can mod my TI-84 plus SE

[public_eyesore]

knowing from your first mod, this'll be good, but what exactly is your idea?

[Aero]

Ok, sorry I forgot to post my idea. I was out of school all last week and have quiet a bit of catching up to do, so I proboly won't work on this till the weekend.

Ok, the main idea is to mount the wheel on the back of the calcultor, and the repaint it. Paint the sides, back, top, all of it but aroun the keys black. On the black I want to paint on some tribal flames and then maybe install some LEDS under the wheel to get the rim to glow. Heres a quick drawing I made in photoshop to show how it should turn out. On the real one the flames will come up around the tire and maybe even have more coming off it, this should be good practice with my airbrush :D.


http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/5034/theory7ro.jpg

[public_eyesore]

sweet, your calc will be the envy of all the other calculators in the room

[Rankenphile]

I'm not sure I understand - are you putting the entire wheel on the back, or are you cutting it down to a thin layer?

[PrototypeJC]

If your calculator were a person, it would ride a Harley and have a beard down to it's chest.

[Aero]

I'm going to cut in in half, I want it to stick off some, the rubber will also keep it from sliding when I'm typing, and prop it up a bit to see easier.


I've also got plans for another calc mod but it requires rebuilding about 3/4 of the case which I'm saving for later this year, but this is just a fun little something.

[Rankenphile]

That's kind of what I thought, Aero. Nice idea - propping it up like that plus having the rubber non-skid back. Clever.

[TheGreatSatan]

You should have gotten the TI-86. I was thinking of painting mine, but I was worried about taking it apart when it still works and breaking it.

[Aero]

You should have gotten the TI-86. I was thinking of painting mine, but I was worried about taking it apart when it still works and breaking it.


lol, did that my first time, I completly modded the thing, unfortunatly I forgot to leaver a way to attach the batters to the circiut board:p . Looks sweet, but completely useless.

[Aero]

Sorry for the lack of updates. I didn't get a chance to work on this over the weekend. Had a school dance, my friend got smacked in the back of his head by some random guy as he was getting into his car with his date. The guy cames out of no where and hit him right in the back of his head, he doesn't even know the guy. My friend was a little stunned, started chaseing the guy...untill 3 more steped out from behind a car and asked him if he wanted to start something. At that point he turned around and left. The rest of the night we were trying to keep him from falling asleep in case he had a concusion. So yeah, that was saturday night and sunday I was running on 4 hours of sleep, not exactly modding ready. Well, I'm going out of town Thursday and getting back Saturday night, so I might be able to work on this then, but otherwise it will have to wait.

[Vaantal]

awesome! That sounds like a pretty fun weekend to me (of course as long as your friend is ok) Looking forward to the hot rod calc progress.

[Aero]

yeah, hes fine now. More mad than anything. Lets just say his dialect after it wasn't exactly family friendly :p.

[Aero]

Ok so I got to work on this a little today. I was planning on doing more but 2 things stopped me. First I found out I didn't clean my Air Brush last time I used it and it plugged up bad. Second I went to Home Depot and went to get a new Ryobi Scroll saw, I then saw an add for a new version with a built in light, vacum hose, and arm rests, but they didn't have any in stock so I'm gonna wait.


Ok, to the mod.

First I took some of my favorite material:

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/1384/bondo3sq.jpg

Got to love bondo. Ok, I smoothed out the back of the calc with bondo to give a nice flat space to mod. As most modders will agree, its easier to cut/paint flat surfaces than bumps and crevaces.

Heres what it looked like bondoed up:

http://img331.imageshack.us/img331/7982/backbondo0wa.jpg

Like my quick drying setup? (pun intended)

http://img331.imageshack.us/img331/1047/drying8ow.jpg

When the bondo was hard it was about 1/8 inch taller than the rest of the calc. But a few seconds on the belt sander had in smooth as can be.

http://img331.imageshack.us/img331/7606/backsanded7os.jpg

And finally to finish up this update I was able to take apart the calc, mask off the places I won't be painting and laid down some primer. I didn't get any post primer pics yet but heres the prep work for the primer.

http://img331.imageshack.us/img331/100/preped3py.jpg

[Aero]

Ok, so unfortunatly I can't work on this untill the weekend. I'm getting my wisdom tooth pulled tomarrow and I think its a bad idea to use power tools while on pain medication. Update to come then.

[Aero]

Ok, well I'm taking a break from Outpost to work on this for alittle while today. I first cut plexi out and shaped it to fit just over the battery cover. The first one I cut was off by about 1/2 mm so it didn't look that good. So this time I used my belt sander to shape it not the scroll saw and I think it came out alot better.

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/6641/smooth9yk.jpg

I also marked out where the wheel is going to sit and drew out the flames. I had to make sure that the little clip for the batteries was still accessible.

http://img93.imageshack.us/img93/2083/flames3hx.jpg

I'm not sure how I'm going to cut out the flames, but I'm sure it will involove alot of hand sanding. Also the plexi is going to be painted on top with 2 3mm red LED's under it to give it that fiery glow.

[Aero]

Ok I had to stop all calculator modding becasue of ACT, SAT, and AP tests. I don't think they would allow me to use a heavily modded calculator if the already kicked out someone for using a highlighter. So this will have to wait untill I get my scores back incase I need to retake them for a higher score.

[Aero]

Hey Everybody, after a several month absence I have gotten back to work on this project. I got my ACT scores and recieved a 31 overall, so I 'm happy and don't need to take it again. So I filled in the holes that formed over the time since I started this. I also gave it a coat of flat black. Pics soon, but I can't find my camera right now. But look for more soon.

[Dukenuke001]

looking good so far man. I'm interested in how this will come out. Maybe I'll mod up my old TI-83, lol.

[Zephik]

Calculator mods are COOL!

:up::up:

-SF

[NocturnaL]

Haha nice mod. All the geeks in math class will be drooling over your sweet modded TI-83 plus Silver Edition Calculator now! Great mod, would love to see more