Hot Toys ED-209 Official Thread

[pjam]

I'm reposting Reinhardt's pics for those who missed it! WOW!

As promised:

Greatest figure EVER (IMO). I'll let the pics do the talking:

 

[Jediguy]

my eds on the shelf fighting mace windu. his battle damaged bro is still in storage though

 

[BadMoon]

Holy cow! After inspecting those pics I noticed my body was attatched backwards. I just grabbed my balls and went for it and got it fixed. Luckily nothing broke when I popped all of the limbs out. Glad I keep coming back to look at all of thos beautiful pics. LOL!

 

[drbrad1975]

Holy Cow!!! That thing is HUGE!!! I want to get one (along with Jabba) but I already don't have room....need a house!!!! ED 209 looks great....it may be the figure of the year in my opinion. I just love Hot Toys...great stuff!!!

Cheers,

Brad

 

[figuremaster_les]

AMAZING shots!
WOW What a figure! What a collection room! Almost up to Gruson's museum like standard.
But that ED209 is a whopper! I want one!!!!

 

[dekadentdave]

I think I may have found the Holy Grail of digital sound recording to make ED-209 fully voice functional. There is a European made device called Loksound that makes digital audio recordings and plays them back. The chip is wired to a small speaker. It was designed for use with model trains but could be used for ED-209 or just about ANY 1:6 action figure! Think of the possibilities of recording all of your favorite movie quotes and making your figures TALK!!!

https://tonystrains.com/products/esu_standard.htm

There is a U.S. company called Digitrax that makes decoders for HO scale but I'm told they do not have a programmer unit to record your own sounds like the Loksound does. The programmer is pricey but the decoders are fairly inexpensive so you just connect them to the programmer to dump the sounds into them. Not sure the system requirements (windows/mac) but it looks promising.

Does anybody know if the hex screws on ED-209 can be removed or are they just cosmetic? Need to figure out how to put one of these decoders inside of him.

 

[Mookeylama]

damn Dave. nice find! sounds pretty promising now.

 

[pjam]

Dave, let us know how it turns out...

 

[dekadentdave]

It's gonna take some extenive research before I make the investment in one of the expensive programmers. Sounds like it would work but it sure would be nice to demo it before buying it.

 

[Reinhardt]

that's awesome Dave! this DOES look promising, although quite expensive... dang-it, there has GOT to be a cheaper way... i mean, every 18" NECA action figure has a sound chip in it... and they ain't paying that much for it. what are they doing???

i'm still looking into it.

 

[dekadentdave]

that's awesome Dave! this DOES look promising, although quite expensive... dang-it, there has GOT to be a cheaper way... i mean, every 18" NECA action figure has a sound chip in it... and they ain't paying that much for it. what are they doing???

i'm still looking into it.

That's because they have invested in one of those expensive programmer units. The decoder chips themselves are actually relatively cheap. That's why I want to see a demo before I drop over $100 on the programmer to make sure it works. If it does then I can just buy the decoder chips as needed for the figures I want to enhance with sound.

 

[Reinhardt]

yeah, that makes sense. that initial investment IS a bite in the wallet... would make you feel like we spent $300 on ED!

 

[dekadentdave]

I decided that it was too costly to invest in the Loksound module so I decided to go with the $10 Radio Shack solution and my ED-209 is now fully voice functional and it works. The sound module records 20 seconds of audio and plays it back. Crude but effective and now I can make my ED-209 quote from the film instead of just standing there when I look at him. The only drawback is figuring out an external battery compartment that can be concealed so I don't have to keep taking him apart and making a rubberized activator button that will make contact with the board through the small screw hole underneath. The other option would be to solder on a motion control photoreceptor so it will automatically start talking when it senses motion but I would think it would start to get annoying after a while.

 

[Jediguy]

all i can say is wow. that motion detctor thing wud be cool but you gotta find a way to turn it off when its not in use.

 

[dekadentdave]

It works basically the same as all of the electronic NECA figures. It only uses battery power when it is activated either by a manual activation button or when the motion sensor goes off. I could easily solder a simple on/off switch to the PCB board. They are very cheap. Again, the problem is where to put the switch without having to drill into the model itself.

 

[Reinhardt]

OMG totally awesome.

can you break it down for me dd? what exactly did you purchase? what is it attached to right now? how does it work, etc...

and how does it sound????

thanks!

 

[pjam]

btw, 100th post!!!!!!!

Congrats on your 100th Post Reinhardt!!!



Here's to many more!

And who could forget this one!

As promised:

Greatest figure EVER (IMO). I'll let the pics do the talking:

 

[IrishJedi]

Hot Toys owns.

 

[metaphorge]

*sigh* Now I really want one of these. It's going to be SO hard to fit it in between Jabba and all the Aliens stuff that's on its way....

 

[pjam]

It works basically the same as all of the electronic NECA figures. It only uses battery power when it is activated either by a manual activation button or when the motion sensor goes off. I could easily solder a simple on/off switch to the PCB board. They are very cheap. Again, the problem is where to put the switch without having to drill into the model itself.

Dave, please keep us posted on how this turns out bro. This is very exciting!