#442729
To the comments about Matt and Chris trying to hoard the discovery of this: what utter BS. Given the scarcity of the thing and even scarcer information around about them, it's no wonder it took 3 years of digging to get to this point. That's doing research, coming to a hypothetical conclusion, and then verifying the results; it's not smothering one's body in these while cackling to oneself.


I feel I should also add, that after being brought into the fold just a short time ago on this, I did some digging of my own. These things are only used on a single aircraft line (apparently purpose-built for a specific aircraft display), and that line in question is 100% military and still in use. That's the reason why these things are so expensive and hard to find. Additionally, not to be a party-pooper for our non-US friends, there's a good chance these are considered ITAR and can't be sold out of country without an export license, and I think in that case, it would be the Navy.

I'm hoping Matt and Chris can get these animated soon, seeing as some kind soul supplied them with a daughterboard for the socket to avoid damaging the bargraph!
ProtonCharger, Kingpin, Sutton621 and 6 others liked this
#442733
GhostGuy wrote:You know it was pretty shitty of you two to sit on this information for three years and only release it after someone else independently discovered it and was kind enough to share what they'd learned with the community. Worse still is that it appears you created a new thread specifically to distance yourselves from the other guy; seeing as you have made no mention of him, or linked to his post.

Personally, I don't think we should be celebrating a couple of jokers who hoard info and only decide to release it when they're afraid they aren't going to get to take credit for it. The one who should get credit for the discovery is the guy who chose to publish the information first:
This is really cute.

They only discovered these and managed to purchase the $1000 part in the last month or two.

So explain again how they have been sitting on this information for 3 years? I really don't think you have a very firm grasp on any kind of concept of time... especially given your comments related to the MIGHTY and projects I have worked on.

Also. Pretty stand up of legend642 to come in and set the record straight. Of course it didn't need to be done as it says right there on the YouTube video you posted what bar graph is being used... and it isn't the same. It is in fact the same one (or similar) to the one Crix posted last year or two years ago. (Crix also had it animating off of an Arduino back then too).

Good luck with all of these smear campaigns you are working on. It's just too bad you keep trying to make up facts that can be proven to be false by actual facts.
Kingpin, abaka, Sutton621 and 11 others liked this
#442750
Very very cool. I love it when parts like this get discovered.

The only problem is that the list of undiscovered items is getting pretty short, so this may be one of the last threads like this that we get to see.

Looking forward to what you guys come up with on the animation.
#442753
Just hoping for someone to find a whole box of these sitting around abandoned somewhere. Not holding my breath.
User avatar
By julz
#442761
On a positive note...

You Guys and this thread rock! I'm so jealous it's not funny. I can't even begin to think where the hell you would have started to search fro this part.
Chis... you're such a show off and a research nerd! :p

You bastards knew that anybody obsessed with accuracy are going to have little nerd babies over this, and then will cry themselves to sleep over the price tag!

Imma want one now :sigh:

Hate you guys.

Love Julz
noslliT, Wallabe, jackdoud liked this
User avatar
By Chace
#442790
ChapterMasterTu'Shan wrote: that line in question is 100% military and still in use. there's a good chance these are considered ITAR and can't be sold out of country without an export license, and I think in that case, it would be the Navy.
F/A 18?
#442792
This is certainly awesome, but sadly that price tag on them isn't. What else on the pack needs to be identified besides the GB1 ribbon cable? Even the thrower heatsink was found in the wild. I mean a lot of cool information has come to light within the last year or so, but this is the coolest by far.

This info comes at a time where I did my taxes last minute (yay! for procrastination) and discovered that i'm getting a refund around the same amount as these bad boys cost. If I didn't have credit cards to pay off I would probably be silly enough to try and locate one. On the other hand, only a few were impressed with my working pop mech in a CPU64 thrower, so I don't see myself gaining any extra points if I had one of these in my thrower. It would still be cool to have but it roughly translates to 1/3 of the price I put into my entire pack build.

However, I live in So-Cal and APEX is only a few hours away. Now that there is an identified model number for these, would anyone who has been to APEX before recommend even bother checking there?
#442798
westies14 wrote:You know, that raises an interesting question: where DID you start looking?! Care to tell us a bit more of the story of IDing the part?
In a nut shell

I went to a surplus store in NY and asked about VFDs
That led me to VFD tubes and I knew I was barking up the wrong tree
I started browsing nixie/VFD DIYers online and the products they generally search
I checked eBay and looked at all the related searches that these guys look at
The guy in NY emails me and says he found an item called a "minitron"
Minitrons are incandescent and looked eerily similar to the construction of the BG
I started searching eBay again for Minitrons and came across the KW series products
I bought a decimal point KW product and powered it up to examine it.
I counted the bargraph segments on the throwers through screenshots of them fully lit.
I then searched different combinations of KW/30/bargraph/BG and I got a hit
I found a spec sheet for it and the dimensions seemed uncannily close however no picture.
I then contacted any and all distributors of this product to see if I could get my hands on one cheap.
Deciding or not whether or not I wanted to take a gamble on $1000 for a strong hunch took some soul searching
I started talking to Matt and a few others to see if they wanted to bite with me.
We got a low res picture of the graphs from the distributor and we took the plunge.
And here we are.
AJ Quick, mburkit, legend642 and 4 others liked this
#442801
AJ Quick wrote:You forgot to mention the part where you let 3 years pass while hoarding the information!

:wink:
lol. I waited 6 months to bite on the distributor so I could religiously check eBay for this item with no luck.
I wasn't about to waste all my hard work IDing it and then set myself up for a bidding war. When it became apparent that was not going to happen I pulled the trigger on it.
Appx 3 years I was actively searching and there were long periods of time that went by that something led to a dead end or I got busy.

I'm glad we can put one more part to bed
910dohead, XxEctOxX, ProtonCharger and 1 others liked this
#442811
Will you guys be putting up some of the measurements for the size of the graph at some point later?

I bet we could design a pretty good plastic cover which, with some refractive properties similar to the CD cases, could give the illusion of being like the genuine bargraph
Jairus liked this
#442818
910dohead wrote:
However, I live in So-Cal and APEX is only a few hours away. Now that there is an identified model number for these, would anyone who has been to APEX before recommend even bother checking there?
Mburkit, Chaptermaster, Sabaska and I will be checking Apex when we fly out there next month to see Sabaska's car.
#442824
jackdoud wrote:
910dohead wrote:
However, I live in So-Cal and APEX is only a few hours away. Now that there is an identified model number for these, would anyone who has been to APEX before recommend even bother checking there?
Mburkit, Chaptermaster, Sabaska and I will be checking Apex when we fly out there next month to see Sabaska's car.
Good luck with that. Apex isn't what it used to be. There are signs everywhere warning you that taking pictures is not allowed and to ask before touching, etc. The place was sold and the new owners are acting as if every piece of junk in there is a priceless movie prop. You used to be able to bring tools with you and pull parts off all the junk in the yard but apparently that changed because I got yelled at for pulling some smaller legris elbows off a broken dismantled machine. They have gone through that place with a fine tooth comb and if its GB or BTTF it is boxed up and in the secret stash.

My advise would be, don't wear anything with a GB logo on it and don't tell them you want it for anything GB.
Sutton621 liked this
#442831
noslliT wrote:Please do not contact any companies unless you are serious about buying one and you have money up front. Do not mention ghostbusters or prop building. We all know what happened to the hat light company so I ask you to use this information responsibly.

I don't. Pardon my ignorance but what happened to the hat light company?
#442835
Silverstreak wrote:
noslliT wrote:Please do not contact any companies unless you are serious about buying one and you have money up front. Do not mention ghostbusters or prop building. We all know what happened to the hat light company so I ask you to use this information responsibly.

I don't. Pardon my ignorance but what happened to the hat light company?
I don't remember what specifically happened with the hat light company, but I remember issues with one of the prominent suppliers of glossy black crank knobs raising their prices once they realized people were buying them for ghostbusters props (they went from $18 to $72). Then there was an individual that was selling the power supply that was ID'ed off of the "Murray" pack that was on display at the Minnesota Planet Hollywood, who would quiz people as to what they wanted to purchase that piece of hardware for to figure out how much he's gonna charge people for it. I personally even had issues with an individual down in Florida that sold surplus airplane equipment when I went to buy the A6 yellow O2 tanks for the roof rack of the Ecto-1. He asked what I was using them for, and if they were for a car? Then he said he only had "used ones" left, but I would bet money he just didn't want to sell clean, mint ones to someone who was going to strap them to the roof of their car.

There's a history of people in propping being a little to open and/or naive when it comes to purchasing real world parts for movie props. If you don't know what the piece does, or what it should be installed in outside of the prop you are replicating, the supplier will pick this up right away and straight out not sell it to you, or increase the price exponentially because they know they can get that out of you. This is why both noslliT and myself warn about dealing with suppliers of this part and other parts: 99% of the people that will inquire about it have no idea what its for, what type of plane its out of, or how to go about ordering a component like this from an industrial electronics supplier. Get enough people to waste that supplier's time, and that resource will become unavailable to us as a community.
#442859
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Kingpin wrote:I bet we could design a pretty good plastic cover which, with some refractive properties similar to the CD cases, could give the illusion of being like the genuine bargraph
After seeing that LED bargraph, I got to thinking it might be possible to create a lens with similar properties by laser cutting and etching acrylic.

It should work similar to many signs where LEDs are mounted along the edges of an acrylic sheet which has been etched with a logo, and the logo glows. The difference would be the point light sources would shine directly onto each of the etched lines, causing them to glow.

As for the point light sources, those are nothing special, just tiny surface mount LEDs. The trick would be driving 30 of them. It would be easy enough to stick a couple of surface-mount shift registers on the back to control it though, and then just one 6 wire ribbon cable would be needed to bring power and data to the thing.
abaka, Vincenzo330 liked this
#442870
For anyone that doesn't want to squint at photos, the correct hole dimensions (from noslliT's OP) are:

1.44" high
.3" wide

Given the fact that there is a slight taper on the part, a little give in the material, and the tolerances on the dimensions, there's probably some wiggle room there.
KyleS, legend642, Jairus liked this
#443001
noslliT wrote:It was very anticlimactic getting it in the mail.

"a thousand dollars for this?"
I'm taking my GB1 pack build to a really serious level so somehow I justified the purchase.
Well, you can always throw that amount onto the price tag if you ever decide to sell it.

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