alien mouse mod

[t0rn]

Hey all!
As you can see I am a fresh noob with no mods under my belt, however I have came here a lot and drooled over the work of you guys here. Excleent work!

Now my question is I am gonna attempt my first small mod, and I am gonna attempt the alien fossil mod. The thing I don't get is the skeleton model kit is hard to find.

In the video tutorial it points to several places (littleshopofhobbies.com, hobbyplace.com) where to buy this model but I don't see anything that looks or sounds like it would work!

So after googling the skillcraft skeleton kit with no luck are there any ppl out here that have attempted this and found a good model kit?
I live in a small North Carolina town and models in general are NOWHERE, I am actually suprise to see how models have died in general. Any ideas or suggestions? My email is rh0ads324@aol.com

Many thanks
~t0rn
:eek:

[Crimson Sky]

Hi t0rn, and welcome to TBCS! very cool that you're gonna try out that mod, its perfect for beginners. What sucks is, since I made that video, SkilCraft went under and either sold all their molds or had them destroyed. They had originally purchased the molds from Revell, and they made the skeleton, life-sized human skull and other kits for about 25 years. I was crushed to see them go!

The good news is, there is another source for very cool life-sized and scale model skeletons and bones..its a place called Bucky's Bone Yard (http://anatomical.com/bproduct.asp?pn=CMS1), the fun part of the Anatomical Chart Company (http://anatomical.com/bcategory.asp?c=44). Try the links and see if they have anything reasonable. I think you can get a "Bag-0-Bones" for about $30.

Good luck with it and be sure to post your progress, you'll find lots of help here.


Edit: THIS skeleton (http://anatomical.com/bproduct.asp?pn=CMS1)is the closest to the one I used for the Alien Fossil Mouse---but as you can see its backordered. Give them a call and see when they'll have it in. They are really nice over there at the ACC.

Now the material they use is probably hard vinyl, and not the styrene material I used in the video. You shouldnt have any problems using it, and if ya need help just ask!

[Spacehonkey]

You could always try E-Bay that's where I bought mine when I tried to do the Alien mouse. Here is a pix of my attempt. I suck at painting.
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j189/spacehonkey/Computer%20Mod/mouseside.gif

[Crimson Sky]

Are you kiddin' me??? Thats fantastic Spacehonkey!! You did a great job man.

[Spacehonkey]

Thx, my next project it to carry the skeleton theme to my monitor.

tOrn I would like to see some pix if at all possible when you're done. I had alot of funny doing the mouse mod. I plan on replacing the red scroll wheel with a clear one and wiring in red LED to make it glow.

[t0rn]

Looks gr8 to me Spacehonkey.
And thank you Crimson I appreciate the help.
I will check out the goods and see if I can make this attempt come to life.
The crazy thing is after watching your video I was looking all thru the house to experiment on things to play with, and from what I seen or looked at you can apply this to anything!

A monitor is a gr8 idea that I seem to look over, nice!
Many thanks again I will be back to show you my hack job, lmao

~t0rn

[t0rn]

Speaking of lights in a mouse I was wondering I have never done this before but can you add lights to a mouse?
I was thinking of adding like a skull or something with lights to be his pupils or something along the line there. This is all very new to me but I do have a very creative imagination and a very curious mind to the world of modding!

I will do some pics, I need to get everything before I attempt this. And I nervously awaiting the skull kit I ordered this morning!

~t0rn
:eek:

[Monsterbox]

Speaking of lights in a mouse I was wondering I have never done this before but can you add lights to a mouse?
Absolutely. However, you have to be comfortable with soldering. Recommended tools are quality LEDs, a 15Watt soldering iron, solder and a multimeter. If you don't have a multimeter but the mouse is optical, you could find the solder points where the LED for movement is and use that as your contact point to get the voltage necessary to run a couple LEDs off of. Alternatively, you could trace along the PCB (visually) and find where that connects to the cables coming to/from the PC and get your voltage off the wire. You might also want to put a resistor in series with the LED to reduce it's power comsumption and improve it's life. Unregulated LEDs burn brighter, but as the saying goes, "The light that burns twice as bright lasts half as long."

Hopefully that helps some and I'm making sense. My knowledge from the few mods I have under my belt. If any of this is erroneous, someone please feel free to correct me. :)

[Spacehonkey]

I the guide on this site gave me the idea to put a LED in the mouse. Once you have the LED wired in you can place it anywhere you want.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/mousemod.php

Plus this site sales LED, wire and resistors for real cheap.

http://www.cascadesurplus.com/catalog/index.php

[t0rn]

Wow you guys are incredibly FAST and eager to help.
I may get into a lot of trouble here, my girlfriend doesn't like me spending money the way I do so I calling this my new home!

Once again thanks for a speedy answer and a tutorial to boot!

~t0rn

[Spacehonkey]

I just got my LED & wiring in the mail. I installed a red LED in the alien mouse & took some pix for you if you want to give this a try. I still plan on replacing the red wheel with a acrylic one so it will reflect the light better.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j189/spacehonkey/Computer%20Mod/MouseLED.jpghttp://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j189/spacehonkey/Computer%20Mod/LEDwiring.jpg

[t0rn]

YEA I love that look, nice and brite against the dark colors. When you say your wiring kit came what do you mean by that?
I did find a place here in North Carolina that carries a small collection of skull models, but they were out so I went ahead and ordered some. So maybe just maybe I can post fresh pictures here soon.

Keep up the awesome work man!
~t0rn
:eek:

[Crimson Sky]

Looks like you can get some skeleton models on ebay, same brand that i used. They are trying to get you with high shippping cost because they know they can only get a few bucks for the item itself

Visible Woman (http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-VISIBLE-WOMAN-PLASTIC-MODEL-BY-SKILCRAFT-MIB_W0QQitemZ190090008017QQcategoryZ4249QQssPageNa meZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

Another one (http://cgi.ebay.com/Visable-Woman-by-Skilcraft-Anatomically-Accurate-Model_W0QQitemZ170089778242QQcategoryZ11737QQssPag eNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[DaveW]

That second one looks like a bit of a chubber.

-Dave

[Spacehonkey]

Hey I googled for some places that still sell the Skilcraft Visible Man. This is what I came up with:

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/ski/ski74622.htm

http://www.hobbytron.com/human-body-model-visible-man.html

http://www.amazon.com/Skillcraft-Crafthouse-Visible-Man-Tall/dp/B00004W1DF/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-8754095-9338445?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1173540086&sr=8-1

http://www.discoverthis.com/visibleman.html

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXFG48&P=Y

If you check the prices they aren't bad at all, just make sure to add in the S&H and tax. All the little stuff you need for to wire in the LED light I got from a website that sells some electronics real cheap. I bought four sets of five different color LED lights ($3-$4 for each set), four sets of four resistors ($1) and 1000 ft of 28 guage stranded wire ($5) from this site.

http://www.cascadesurplus.com/catalog/index.php?osCsid=8ceea7bc1446bbb74018c22c2e1b4e7f

[SgtM]

if you do a forum search, or look for the 'USMC' Case mod by SGTM, (Mr. Rick) He has some stuff in there about how he added another LED to his mouse. He even changed out the LED's on his external Hard drive enclosure. If you PM him or ask him directly on here for help, I'm SURE he would be more than happy to help out. :D

-Jeremy

Welcome aboard t0rn! Yuppers.. I'll be more than happy to help with anything. Quick warning though. Modding is SOOOOOO addicting. I'm looking at everything now thinking of ways I can mod it.


Here's a pic of the mouse. For the lighting, I replaced the red tracking LED with a blue one. I also put 2 extra blue LED's in the bottom of the mouse for ambient light. My sig is a link to the worklog. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f186/sgtm_usmc/USMC%20case/DSCF2035.jpg

::EDIT:: I ordered my LED's from www.lsdiodes.com. 45 cents ea for LED's, 50 cents for a pack of 5 resistors. I have a ton of wire on hand, so I didn't need to order any.

[Crimson Sky]

Hey I googled for some places that still sell the Skilcraft Visible Man. This is what I came up with:


Great finds, scoop them up ASAP!

[t0rn]

Oh yea some really great finds!
Now I cant wait till payday! :devious:
~t0rn
8)

[Crimson Sky]

You could always try E-Bay that's where I bought mine when I tried to do the Alien mouse. Here is a pix of my attempt. I suck at painting.
http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/6203/mousesideoi4.th.gif (http://img357.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mousesideoi4.gif)


Just use some permanent black ink on that mouse wheel, the stuff is just dye in a pen.