How to USB your Gundam
I’ve decided to do my own tutorial on how to connect your PG gundams to a USB port. But first off I should first give credit to Danny Choo to whom I first learned that this could be done. Also please take note that if you do decide to do this, please do so at your own risk.
First find yourself some:
1. USB cable… duh!?!
2. A 3v resistor so as not to burn out the LED of your gundam. (as I found out the hard way)
3. Some wire if your gundam stands across the other end of the room from your power source
4. A LED if you’re modifying a MG
5. and finally an ipod charger if you feel like that having the eyes on when you’re on your desk is not enough and you need your gundam’s eyes glowing 24/7. Note that you can even use a car charger if you’re thinking of using your gundam as a hood ornament.
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Cut off the other end of the cable and strip it to expose the 4 colored wires.
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Strip off the ends of the red and black wires. The red wire carries the charge (5v), the black acts as a ground, while the white and green carries your data to whatever USB device you connect it to.
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Connect the resistor to the RED wire. The picture shows you what NOT to do. LOL! I actually forgot to about that this time. Doh!
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Here you see that I wrapped the wire with electrical tape. If there are any electricians out there reading this, yes I know I should solder them together. But since I didn’t want to stink up my room with the smell of burnt lead, I figured this would do.
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this picture has nothing to do with the tutorial. Lol
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Here you see me testing the connection out on a LED. please be careful not to let both wires touch each other. Although I’ve never done it myself, I’ve heard that some people have their USB port shorted out and become completely unusable all because the accidentally cross these two wires.
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Now hook that up to the connectors that leads to your LED. note that on some perfect grade such as the strike gundam have the battery compartment on the head thus you’d have to run the wires down thru the neck. I would advice you to use the thinnest possible wire you can find, since you’re going to have a hard time closing the head compartment with the wires running thru it.
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now your gundam is ready to plug and play!!!
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Plug your USB to your computer or ipod charger and take some pictures of your gundam!
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or if you have a baby sibling or kids who keeps on manhandling all the gundams in your room. you can opt to tell them that a ghost inhabits this one to look after the rest of your collections, waiting for naughty children to come in to eat them. 





















September 19th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Ver informative post.. a question though.. can you tell us the ohm rating or watt rating of the resistor you used with the USB cable? There isn’t a ‘3v’ resistor out there I can find..
Thx
September 20th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
hi Vince, I’m not entirely about the ohm and watt rating, I just asked the guy at my local hardware store for some LED’s and resistors to prevent them from burning out. they told me I had to use 3v resistors and handed me a plastic full of em. sorry I can’t be that much help on your question. but I’m sure if you asked the people on your local hardware store they’s give you some advice on it.
August 18th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
what color stripes are on those resistors? could you send me a better picture or soemthing so i can see what resistors to get?
August 30th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
hey Chris, sorry for the delayed reply, I don’t usually check on older posts for comments. about those resistors, you can check out the image here
July 20th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
One more project for me to do this summer lol. Thanks!
July 21st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
lol, sure thing and good luck! ^^
August 24th, 2008 at 4:45 am
[…] to try something new, and that is to replace the eye with a USB powered LED bulb (Idea came from Gundamaniac’s tutorial, although I did made some changes, wiring the bulb was still thanks to […]