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Hi there!

So I waiting until the eleventh hour to get a Spongeface Gizmo board. Partially due to cost partially due to it scaring the crap out of me! I got over the cost part quite quickly, but have stared from a far for a while. Well I pulled the trigger...



How neat and orderly. His directions are swell too!

So having not soldered in three years I decided to go with the daughter board first.





So far so good...



So here's the completed daughter board. Few notes: I made a few part changes as I just grabbed what was in front of me and only half looked at the images and got confused. Don't get confused if you want it to look like the pictures. I however am quite pleased with myself so on to the big show...



Here is the board with the basic parts inserted/soldered. Few notes: the discoloration on the white tubing is from getting too close to the flame on my portable fire starting machine (lighter). I have no heat gun but should invest if I continue to heat shrink in the future (still used the lighter for the nixie threads but that's later...). Also one of the transistors is misplaced in the heat shrinked section. As this was already difficult to do for me I decided I wasn't moving the part.

Moving along...

Pin connectors!!!!!!!



They're tough but Spongeface's tutorial is pretty solid. Only issue I've run into is I can't get the last black thing off that holds the pins together (his method of soldering all nine pins requires you keep the pin holder attached). For fear of breaking pins loose I left them on as a way to epoxy the white "chips".



Can't even tell they're there.

Nixie Tubes! ATTACK!!!!



This part scared me the most as its a real trickly looking thing, but once you have the thing heat shrinked and ready to go its a piece of really hard and old fruit cake to do. I found it best to do one side, bend the leads on the back of the board, then individually get the other side together working left to right with the controls at the top of your position.

So here is where I'm at currently with the build. Also, mine doesn't light up so I kinda feel like Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club describing his lamp.



More on the way next time!

Fantastic build so far.

I might have to get one of these.

Thanks for the feedback.

Here's the build completed (still no lights, but I'm okay with that).





Final thoughts:

This kit was totally worth it, lights or no lights. Full disclosure, I screwed something up which is why the lights aren't working not Spongeface's kit. He's been really cool in helping try to troubleshoot so the lights are my bad. I'm happy with the final result without the light as it's screen accurate to not function for GB 1.

Run and get this kit before it's gone. It's worth buying and building. I had a lot of fun doing it.

Now on to my other builds...

Hey man, that is a great build! I can't recall ever seeing the actual belt gizmo lit up in either movie, I believe it was a prop for show, but your build looks amazing! I wish I could find someone to build me a couple of these because I would be all over it fast! Thanks for posting!

Thank I appreciate it!

Great build! I just recently picked up one of Doug's kits, I have to say I'm a bit intimidated! I was wondering if you might help a brother out and send me a copy of the instructions? Unfortunately, the link from the eBay listing is dead (https://files.secureserver.net/0sCumZRw5LWMKH). I've reached out to Doug, but thought the community here could also lend a helping hand!

IDDQD wrote: ↑September 30th, 2018, 6:41 amUnfortunately, the link from the eBay listing is dead.

The link still works for me, but I dropped my saved copy into my Dropbox for you.

Thanks, JTysonLambert! For whatever reason, I couldn't get the link to work but as soon as I posted to the thread it allowed me to download the .pdf. Typical...