Custom Star Wars Imperial AT-AT Walker Model
Since Star Wars has been back in fashion lately I decided to break out my old Kenner Star Wars Imperial AT-AT model. This toy is one of the coolest (and largest) Star Wars figures ever made! In fact, it was so cool that it was released once in the 80's when episode V first came out and again in 1995 as a remake. The model shown below is the 95 updated version and I got my hands on it when a kid in my neighborhood was selling it at a garage sale. I think I paid ~$20.00 for it (which is a lot for a garage sale toy) but I had special plans in store for it and the 20 was well worth it!
Shown below, the once abandoned garage sale junk toy that was probably once considered "to big to keep around any longer" by someone's mom, has been transformed into a custom Star Wars figure / LCD monitor complete with composite connectors, stereo speakers, and hidden wiring in the left rear leg.
Shown below, the once abandoned garage sale junk toy that was probably once considered "to big to keep around any longer" by someone's mom, has been transformed into a custom Star Wars figure / LCD monitor complete with composite connectors, stereo speakers, and hidden wiring in the left rear leg.
The only sad part about this awesome project is that I just sold it on ebay today... It turns out that it really is just too big to keep around, even for me. I plan on moving to Australia and this is just one of many cool items I will have to sell in order to lighten my load. Luckily, I brought in a hefty $200.00 for it which covered all of the parts and time put in but it couldn't buy the love I had for the time I spent building it. I guess in the end it was really just a large plastic reminder of all the fun I had!
The model was built by cutting a square hole in the side of the AT-AT and sanding it down with a bastard file, removing one leg and cutting tiny nitches in the structural supoports where the wires were to be run, running wires up the leg for the stereo video & power and then installing connectors at the base of the leg and finally the screen and all of the switches in the body. I lucked out and found the five inch LCD at Best Buy a few years back for ~$100.00 when five inches still seemed big for a color LCD. The LCD package had almost all of the parts I needed because it was designed to be very versatile for gaming. The LCD was originally designed as a portable monitor for a PlayStation 2 and I just gutted it. Thanks for sharing in my Star Wars memories! Feel free to contact me for more pix or infomation on the project and where to get the parts if you decide to build one yourself!
posted by Court at 10:32 PM 
2 Comments:
Really cool!
Can i get a list of material you used? I want to do one of my own
/Alex
Hey Alex, sorry it took me a while to reply to this... I will list the materials here now for you:
>>1 Star Wars Electronic Imperial AT-AT Walker sold by Kenner in 1997 (you can get older ones but they aren't as cool looking with all of the water streaks and stuff). I found mine at a garage sale in my neighborhood and paid $20 but you might end up paying $60 on ebay
>>1 mini LCD (I think mine was a 4") which can be found on those add-on video game adapter things for Xbox and GameCube or PS2. This was ~$100 from Best Buy but EBgames and GameStop sells them too. I just unscrewed the thing and used all of the included connectors. You have to do a bit of soldering in order to extend the wires out the leg like I did for style but it was worth it! Radio Shack sells "gender changer" parts to go from male composite to female and then you can glue that to the inside of one of the feet for easy access.
>>I can't remember exactly what I used to cut the hole in the side for the LCD but I'm pretty sure it started with a drill bit and then got some wire cutter action, followed by a bit of hack sawing?
>>bastard file, you use this after you cut the square hole for mounting the monitor. It helps smooth out the cuts and really fine tune the hole.
>>drill with tiny bit, I used this to make a sort of mesh in order to let sound out from the speakers mounted inside of the body. You can see two of these oval shapes in the pictures to the right and left sides of the LCD.
I think that's it!
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