Tie Fighter USB Hub: A Rebel attack has foiled our plans....

Some people read crap when they have free time, I read (past tense now ) Star Wars and Star Trek books for years while I had the free time (now I'm lucky to get my required reading done). You can't read through all that and not pick up something

Anyways, enough offtopicness, back to the pwnage Star Wars mod

 

I made a tie interceptor out of k'nex once... it was cool. Awesome idea!

 

Okay everyone behave... Actually I don’t mind the off topic posts since I like the dialog. As to an update, I am working on it; unfortunately I did not create a backlog of photos before posting. So I will need to get more work done before an update can be done.

Text Update: So far I have carved out the areas in the toy that shot missiles and I have removed the lever that had additional guns pop out. I have done this to make room for two four-port usb hubs that will go into those places. When I leave work today (I am posting this from work and its only 6:45am) I will stop by the hobby store and pick up some sheet plastic to make a housing for the hubs. When those are complete I will post some progress pics. If I am lucky that will be tonight, tomorrow night at worst....

P.S. - I am toying with the idea of using a tan base coat with weathering on top of it. I may purchase some empire type decals for placement on it but I am also thinking of using rebel markings - as if it was captured and then reused(?). I welcome any opinions on how I should finish it.......

 

PART 2 TIE FIGHTER USB HUB

Well I had to make a small change in plans yesterday. When I got to thinking what it would look like with eight usb ports in front of the ship, then adding misc. cables plugged into it I relized that I was wasting my time making it look good cause all I was going to see was a bunch of usb cables on a stand.

So I changed plans. I removed one of the usb hubs and moved the other one to the back of the ship. So now it has a butt-mounted usb hub....

Okay so that's not funny, here some pic's:









I still have a lot to do. I need to stain the stand, add some details to the model, put it all together and fill in all the openings. Not to mention kit-bashing something to fill in those big openings that I made in the front of the model, time to raid my old 40k collection. Then I get to paint it... that's what I am really looking forward to doing. thanks

 

I love this project! Completely unnecessary, but so cool all the same.
Have you thought about adding connection or activity LEDs in the front? Perhaps nested in the cockpit area behind the glass? That way, you'd know if any of the "butt plugs" comes loose.

 

Oooh... how about gutting a USB card-reader and splitting the ports between the two openings in the wings? That way you are using the front for something, as you'd originally planned.

BTW... GW will absolutely sue your a$$ if you even think about kit-bashing with their intellectual property.

 

actually yes, the hub on the back doesnt have any lights, I thought it would be great to have the lights where the guns would be.... I still may be able to do that. I really do want to have a port or two on front for thumb drives or whatever. there is plently of room inside so I will try.

oooops, too late.

 

LOL all you star wars nerds.. roffles, this is a cool mod though, good job man

 

Damn Buddha, do you ever quit?! lol I like this, very awesome idea, and very innovative. I was thinking about taking the BMW rc car, making it so the hood would open to a hub, and the trunk to usb ports, but now that I seen this, it would almost seem as though I was copying Oh well, all in all, very sexy, and can't wait to see more pics! Gl on it!

 

If you have any devices that are at least semi-permanant, then instead of having 3 posts to hold the TIE thingy up, have a tube like 1/2" dia. in the center, and a hub inside the TIE thingy. then run the wires throught the tube.

 

what kind of usb hubs are you using ?

 

This project is cool, it gave me and idea I have a huge space shuttle model maybe ill use it.

 

comeing out good. hopefully it wont look stupid with a wack of wires coming out of it.

 

Thanks for the responses; I'll try to answer everyone.

If my mod is inspiring you to do something similar - go for it, your not coping me, in fact I was inspired to do this by a Godzilla toy (or a similar creature) that had firewire ports running down its back.

I am using three posts cause I really did not want to engineer anything - this was supposed to be a really fast mod. The main reason I have three posts is because there are three screw holes that I am using. Plus I already had the wood. (edit: with three posts, its really really stable, I think this is good when you are plugging things in and out of it)

I don’t know the name of the usb hub - its just a low cost generic brand: try cyberguys.com.

Text update: I did a little kit bashing to add some detail to the toy. I stained the base and all it needs is some clear coat. I ordered some items that should allow me to add a port or two to the front - maybe even some lights (will see).

Plans for the weekend: finish the base, finish the kit bash on the top and bottom of the toy. paint both sides with main color - possible add decals and some detail painting. Those parts I ordered are going to delay completion by a week. I wante to finish this in a weeks time. Oh well.

Funky idea: I have a laptop drive that I carry around in a usb container. I am thinking of placing that into the toy as well. I like being able to carry around 40 gig in my pocket so I am still debating it with myself......

 

i love what your doing it looks great. i was just going to make a sugestion but im probally to late. i was going to suggest you make the base off of one of the x-wing books. they had arms that clamped to the support struts for the wings and hung off the roof then you what was suggested earlier and run the cables up the tubes plus you would have a hanging usb port if you have somewhere to mount it

 

Actually that's an interesting suggestion, its unfortunate that the base I did make is 90% complete.

 

TIE FIGHTER USB HUB - Part 3 update

Here's a little Saturday night update.

Base coat for the bottom of the TIE fighter and the Wings/Panels (or whatever they are called) is done. I have a few more kit bashed parts to cover four of the screw holes on the bottom part, the other holes will need to be filled with putty when I assemble it for the last time,



I am done kit bashing the top, I just need to apply the base coat, when I took this pic, the antenna was still drying so it still needed to be done. I probably will do it after this post is done.



Once I attach the top and bottom together, I will need to putty and sand the outside edges and repaint. Decals and weathering will follow that.



I still need to fill in the voids in the front. Hopefully I will be able to add a USB port or two. I haven’t started them yet...



Thanks.

 

It's turning out nice, I love the concept.

I don't paticularily like the wood stained base...it just doesn't seem to fit in with the dark gray of a tie fighter. But I'm sure the final product will look good, nonetheless.

 

I'm a BIG Star Wars fan.

I really like this mod. Keep up the good work.

 

you can put something like a usb wireless conection to it..

looks so nice i would put led in the wings (jsut like normal airplanes) as activity link leds...