NES Zapper Converted To Shoot Light!
I thought it would be a pretty cool companion piece to my power glove light suit to have an NES Zapper that strobes. You can pick these babies up for just a few bones on ebay.
One could use a micro controller and do everything in software, but that’s far too high tech for what we are trying to accomplish. Instead we are using a simple 555 circuit.
I based mine off of this great instructable, to get a good fast strobe.
It uses:
All components sourced from ebay/amazon should run you around $3-4.
Guts of the zapper. The only thing we care about here is the switch. You can see all of the optical parts and the weights…it makes it feel more substantial.
The switch pulls, clicks, and disengages. What we want to happen is for you to pull the trigger, and have the switch stay engaged. Soooo I glued a ziptie in the base of the trigger to act as a shunt…it works a treat!
We had to cut off one of the screw posts, and clean out the plastic that held the weight to make room for the battery.
Testing our 555 circuit to strobe our 10mm super bright LED.
The bench setup.
My bench supply kicking 9V to simulate our 9V battery.
How beautiful is this circuit!
Super bright LED wired in.
9V hookup wired through the switch to our 555 circuit.
Squeezing everything into the guy…fits quite nicely.