[jackdoud]

Do you have to take apart the motor box to get everything out?

No, you just have to remove the motor, then you can unscrew the whole plate and expose the electronics.

[jackdoud]

1. Why'd they go with a speaker instead of a piezo which would be cheaper and make the batteries last longer? It only needed to beep.

It's only a small step up from a piezo, only a speaker in the loosest sense.

2. Why'd they use through hole leds on the screen, instead of surface mount?

SMT probably didn't look right. They'd have had to make a custom lightpipe setup to give it the look of rounded bulbs. Using actual LEDs was probably simpler in the long run.

4. Why'd they use rectangular leds on the main circuit board when surface mount would do, given they are hidden behind light pipes anyway?

Again, probably production concerns. They may have initially intended the leds to be seen directly but changed it to a light pipe later without changing the LEDs themselves.

5. Why is the main board, like the screen, so chock full of resistors? I count somewhere around 44 resistors on there, which seems to be about twice as many as should be needed for the 14 leds on the wings, 5 leds on the front panel, and the three switches.

There's probably a lot of debounce and signal cleanup from the various switches.

6. The durability of the rotary switch for the speed control concerns me. It looks in the photo like the copper traces the contacts sub against is torn up. Is that the case or is it just a trick of the light?

That's mostly from the picture and the grease they put on the shaft. It's definitely weak though. When I put it back together it's a little tighter than before and doesn't turn as cleanly.

7. I wonder what all those capacitors and transistors on the back are for. The motor perhaps? Why so many? Why not SMT?

Sometimes you can't get away with SMT capacitors, you need to use electrolytics.

8. The design of the wings is nice. If I had the luxury of mass production so I could use flexible pcbs and surface mount leds on them and stick light pipes in the wings, I'd have gone that route with my boards.

Looking at the wings it's obvious there's a flexible strip of SMT LEDs behind the light pipes. Nice if you can do it but out of the realm of possibility for most people.

9. I'll bet that mechanism that pulls the wings down has another rotary switch mounted under it. They've gotta have some way to detect how far the wings have traveled, and that board under there looks similar to the rotary switch one, and has four wires coming out of it.

It does, you can see the wires going to it in this pic: http://www.gbfans.com/images/pb/jackdou ... G_9721.jpg. Simple design but it works.

10. Are those metal threads where the screws attach the top of the shell to the bottom? I'm surprised, usually on toys they just use self threading screws. But maybe because this needs to be dissasembled to repalce the batteries they decided to go with something more durable.

They're actually regular nuts in a molded socket. They're not even glued in, I had trouble with one not letting go when I tried to remove the battery plate.

[Talyn]

put a penny and some foam over the speaker in mine and it didnt really make it any quieter..

[Soren]

Any chance you can give the three measures of the white miler box? I need it to calculate shipping from across the pond. Thanks

[protokev]

looking at the pics, i think adding foil itself wont help. If you look there are traces coming from the foil to two wires, those would have to be added as well. this may or may not be difficult to do

[Gareee]

Any chance you can give the three measures of the white miler box? I need it to calculate shipping from across the pond. Thanks

They only weight a few pounds, and the box is not large, though matty ships the white mailer box in another box outside it.

Ups is killer, costing about $112. Priority Usps mail will run you about $45, but standard usps mail will only run you about $ 25, and will get there almost as fast as priority mail. (7-10 days).

(of course, it depends on where it is being shipped from.)

[Vincenzo330]

To answer your actual question it's 6-1/4" x 6-1/4" x 12-1/2"

Look into DHL for international shipping, they're much slower but also much, much cheaper.

[Dreamstalker]

looking at the pics, i think adding foil itself wont help. If you look there are traces coming from the foil to two wires, those would have to be added as well. this may or may not be difficult to do

I´ve seen very fine-tip pens that are designed for re-drawing traces.

[Ecto-ASH]

Awesome research, Is this going to be useful for people to build a better working PKE meter or should i say, is there things in the matty unit that will help better design fan prop units?? Cos I love my Matty PKE, but What I really want is an original Iona replica shell, quicker speed control and proper movie sound, oh and I noticed in the films the little red lights down the bottom of the PKE stay on instead of blink when you press the wing buttons.

[Soren]

Since this is such a thorough review I think I'll just ask...
I have to have the boxed pke sent to me by a us friend o'mine.
D'you think there will be a huge price difference if I just get the pke meter and the instructions sent other than the white mailer box sent?
Thanks..

[jackdoud]

D'you think there will be a huge price difference if I just get the pke meter and the instructions sent other than the white mailer box sent?

umm...what?

Boxes don't weigh much and the box is pretty much the size of the PKE so I'm guessing no.

[Soren]

D'you think there will be a huge price difference if I just get the pke meter and the instructions sent other than the white mailer box sent?

umm...what?

Boxes don't weigh much and the box is pretty much the size of the PKE so I'm guessing no.

well, yeah, I got it sent with the box... I wanted all the whishels and bells

[jangell]

Interior cover removed

Resurrecting an old thread here... I recently got a PKE meter off of eBay. I plan on dismantling it so I can upgrade some parts. The battery cover came off easily enough by removing the four screws, but I simply can't figure out how to get the inner back cover off so that I can get to the internals. It seems like it's glued down, rather than just snapped together. I'm considering resorting to using a heat gun to loosen things up, but I'm afraid I'll melt the case itself.

How did you get your inner back cover off?

Thanks!

-- Joe

[jackdoud]

How did you get your inner back cover off?

Unless they changed the design for the second run of PKEs there a second set of 6 screws you have to remove. They're the 2 holes above and 2 holes below the top 2 batteries and the 2 holes on either side of the lower battery. Basically all the holes that are revealed after taking the battery cover off.

[jangell]

How did you get your inner back cover off?

Unless they changed the design for the second run of PKEs there a second set of 6 screws you have to remove. They're the 2 holes above and 2 holes below the top 2 batteries and the 2 holes on either side of the lower battery. Basically all the holes that are revealed after taking the battery cover off.

Ah, so I'm an idiot. The screw holes are incredibly obvious, and I didn't even see them when I was looking at it. Overlooking the obvious does not bode well for my project...

Thanks!

-- Joe

[HudgensUSAF]

Has anyone had any problems with their arms when going to the two extended positions? My meter will move to almost fully extended for the mid-range, and then move about an inch more for the fully extended arm range. I was figuring that it was the gearing, but after looking at these and taking mine apart for inspection, I'm leaning more towards bad contact placement on the PCB on the backside of the gearbox.

Thoughts? I'll throw a video in here if you want to see what I mean.

[gold333]

Yeah, wouldnt mind a video. The only issue I ever had with mine was it would intermittently cycle the arms up and down when switching on or off.

And there are also apparently two different sound chips, one really irritatingly loud and one fainter than the both the trap and wand. Perhaps the differences between v1 and v2 releases.

[HudgensUSAF]