I’ll be shipping out a batch of Movie PKEs in April and I’ve been assembling a few extras.
In total there are only 10 PKE circuits remaining. Once these are gone, there is unlikely to be another run of them. Much of the code and the circuit layout was lost when my hard drive crashed last year and I don’t know if or when I will be able to recover it. This isn’t as big a deal as it sounds as I still have the compiled code to upload to new PKEs, and I do have the schematic to work from, but I want to move onto other projects anyway.
The boards are $245 + $5 for shipping in the US and $10 for international. They come with two servos, pushrods, pushrod connectors, a knob for the rear, and black screws.
These PKE circuits are more accurate in appearance and function than the Matty PKEs and have movie-like sound that is randomly generated and interpolated as you increase the speed of the lights. The wings and lights can either be controlled separately or together. You can choose one of four control methods using dip switches onboard. The PKE circuit has a knob for the back and metal wires for the front which detect when you touch them just like the original prop. There are also trimpots on the board so you can adjust the angle of the servos when they are in their fully extended position and get them lined up right. See my other videos on Youtube for more info.
No soldering is required, though you may want to solder the touch wires in place after you finish preparing and painting the shell. You can glue them though. There’s basically a few female crimp connectors you slip onto the wires from the inside of the PKE and they need to be held in place somehow.
As for ease of installation, it’s as easy to install as it can be, considering the shells don’t come to you fully prepared. You’ll need to file or dremel some material out, and build up other areas with epoxy putty and styrene to create mounting points for the wings and rear knob and something for the screws on the back of the PKE to screw into. It’s not anything too difficult.
I’m confused. $245 for just the circuit board or does it also include a PKE shell? The 1st post makes is sound like it’s just the circuit board but your 2nd post mentions cleaning up a shell to install the board into.
If anyone is interested I have a complete GuntahKela PKE kit looking for a new home, I believe it fits with GhostGuys kit but maybe someone else can confirm.
Work on the PKE kits is going well. The Kickstarter I have going took longer to set up than expected, but that’s done and I’m back at work on the PKEs and have five which are around 90% done, and another five which are around 30% complete. I should have work on those first five done soon. Most of those will then be installed in shells. If you ordered a kit only, then it may be a couple weeks before I ship those out. I’ve gotta order some more parts to finish the remaining kits up.
I’ll try to post some pics this weekend of the progress.
As you can see I’ve got all the LEDs installed on the wings now. The new wings will have a socket on them like on the main board, which you can see on the pair with the cables. The originals just had the wires soldered directly into the board with heat shrink tubing. I have all the cables for the wings and the screens assembled. I need to buy some more sockets for the screen connectors but I have the ones for the wings and those should be fairly quick to install. Gonna order some more parts soon for those half assembled boards.
