Adding Sound to a Halloween Prop Weapon
by arthurdent in Craft > Costumes & Cosplay
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Adding Sound to a Halloween Prop Weapon
This is an cheap and easy way to add sound to a Halloween Prop. In this case a Halo Needler.
This prop is made up of a solid piece of heavy plastic. It would be very difficult to cut it open in order to mount anything inside it, and doing so would ruin it completely, so I decided to add on to the outside.
Needler
I used a Needler Prop for this project, but most Halloween prop weapons can also be modified the same way. For this the following will be needed.
1: The prop weapon
2: A toy blaster/gun from Dollar Tree- This is the source of the parts.
3: A 3 volt coin battery holder. I ordered mine from ebay
4: A 3 volt coin battery. Also from Dollar Tree.
5: 2 small plastic capsules from a vending machine.
6: Hot Glue gun.
Sound Chip
The toy gun from Dollar Tree will provide the sound chip. Open up the toy gun and cut the wires from the battery compartment, they will be replaced by the 3 volt coin battery holder. First thing first, solder the circular battery holder to the wires, and check the polarity to make sure it still works. The sound chip should have a pushbutton switch in the center of the tiny circuit board.
Now, when I examined the chip, I saw that the tiny speaker was almost the same size as the end cap from one of the capsules. So, I cut a tiny hole in the center of the cap then hot glued it to the speaker: Here it is the blue one. Then tested it to made sure it still worked. It did.
Now for the battery holder: I put the cap onto the capsule, then used an exacto knife to cut evenly around the capsule even with the bottom rim, leaving me with a cap and a thin ring of plastic the cap snapped onto.
Mounting the Chip Onto the Needler
Okay, now the next step.
This is a flexible fitting because other prop weapons are not all the same.
On this needler, there was a small indentation where the trigger would have been. Plus since I'm right handed I decided to mount the battery on the right-hand side.
First thing first, I hot-glued down the battery holder on the right side, making sure its' placement looked like part of the design. I then hot glued the plastic ring around the holder. Once it set up the red cap would snap securely into place over the battery.
Second came the speaker. I likewise hot glued it onto a spot that would make it look like a part of the prop. Then I hot glued the sound chip crosswise onto the indentation where the trigger would have been, making sure to keep the push button that activated it in the center where my finger would be able to press it down. The wires that stuck out I folded up and pushed carefully underneath the sound chip.
End Result
This is a pic of the final product. The last finishing touches would be to cut off the LED as I have no real place to mount it to, plus since this years toy ray guns lack the LED, I suspect that the flashing LED is now illegal in toy guns. After that, all that is needed to paint the caps silver, and it will be complete.
A Halo Needler with sound.